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Ammo Cost Calculator: What Each Round Really Costs

By Hunters Guide. Store shipping terms come from the records behind our ammo price table, last collected 2026-11-03. No shipping rates are stored or guessed.

This calculator works out what each round of an ammo order costs once shipping and fees are added. It can also set two orders side by side, such as one box against a case.

Enter the box price, the rounds in a box and how many boxes you want. Then add the shipping quote from the store's checkout. Pick the store if it's in our list, and the calculator shows its shipping terms and tells you if a bigger order would ship at no charge.

Need box prices to put in? The ammo price table lists listings from Canadian stores, sorted by price per round before shipping.

Why the shelf price per round isn't the whole cost

The price per round on a store page is the box price divided by the count. It leaves out the cost of getting that box to your door. For most goods the gap is small. For ammunition it often isn't.

Canada Post won't carry it. Its firearms page says that "bullets, cartridges, and other ammunition are prohibited items and cannot be in the mailstream under any circumstance." So ammunition goes by courier as a dangerous good, and some stores add a handling charge on top of the freight.

Those costs are charged per order, not per round. Say shipping comes to $25. On a single box of 20, that adds $1.25 to every round. On a case of 500, the same bill adds 5 cents. That's why a cheap box can turn into an expensive order, and why the calculator divides everything by the rounds you actually get.

How a shipping threshold changes the math

Many stores drop the shipping charge once an order passes a set amount. When that applies, a bigger order can cost less per round than a small one at the same box price. The catch is that ammunition is often left out. Of the three stores in our records that publish a threshold, two exclude ammunition, none include it, and one is not confirmed either way.

So the calculator only uses a threshold when we have checked that ammunition counts toward it. When a store leaves ammunition out, the calculator says so. When we haven't been able to check, it says that too, and it doesn't assume the threshold applies. If the store's own page or checkout shows no shipping charge, type 0 as the shipping quote.

When a threshold does apply and your order falls short, the calculator shows how much more you'd need to spend. It also shows how many more boxes that is, and what each round would cost if you bought them. Buying more to save on shipping only pays off if you'd shoot the extra rounds anyway.

What the store terms in this calculator mean

Each store in the list carries the shipping terms we have on record. "Not on record" means we haven't found or confirmed that detail. It doesn't mean zero, and it doesn't mean no. Check the store's own page before you rely on any of it.

Store links leave this site and are marked as commercial links. We don't sell ammunition or take orders. The total at the store's checkout is the one that counts.

Questions about the ammo cost calculator

Why does the calculator leave shipping blank?

Because we do not have the stores' shipping rates, and we will not guess them. Couriers price ammunition by weight, distance and dangerous-goods handling, so the real figure only shows up at the store's checkout. Type that quote in and the calculator does the rest.

What does it mean when a store's threshold leaves out ammunition?

The store waives shipping on orders over a set amount, but ammunition does not count toward it, or does not ship that way. An order of nothing but ammunition pays shipping however big it is. The calculator says so and never applies that threshold.

Is a case of ammunition always cheaper per round than a single box?

No. Bulk rimfire usually is. Centrefire cases are often the same boxes at the same price. What a bigger order does do is spread one shipping bill over more rounds, which is why the delivered cost per round can drop even when the shelf price does not.

Does the cost per round include sales tax?

No. GST, HST and PST depend on your province, so the totals here are before tax. Tax is a percentage of the order, so it does not change which of two orders is cheaper per round when both ship to the same address.

Where do the store shipping terms come from?

From the same store records behind our ammo price table. Each threshold and exclusion was checked by hand against the store's published terms. Where we could not confirm something, the calculator says it is not on record rather than filling the gap.

Picking a cartridge in the first place is a separate question. See choosing a cartridge for Canadian game and rimfire versus centrefire. For a range-day packing list, see the hunting gear checklists.