My UPS Store has a sign up to remind us that if *any* of their packing peanuts are needed, there *will* be a cost. I also watched someone with a weirdly-sized object the last time I was in. He wanted to know how much it would cost to pack. He got a price on the box and an estimate on the rest, and then decided not to send it. If I were you, I'd have asked.

There are just so many variable costs involved in packing things. I do think they could have better signage, but I do not believe that they could put enough information on signs that we could all calculate what it was going to cost. And $17 doesn't seem like much to me for a saddle. There won't be a box that's sized just for that, so you're going to be buying a big box, and then there's going to be packing material. And, of course, labor.