Shippo: What It Is, Pricing and How to Use It (2026 Guide)

What is Shippo?

Shippo is shipping software for online sellers. It does three jobs. It imports orders from your store, it lets you compare and buy discounted labels from several carriers, and it tracks parcels and handles returns after they ship. You use it as a web app, or as an API if you want the same functions inside your own software.

The pitch is simple: instead of logging into USPS, UPS and FedEx separately and paying retail rates, you see the rates side by side in one screen, pick one and print. Shippo says it works with 40+ carriers worldwide. It advertises discounted labels for USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL Express. It also claims more than 4.6 million customers and over 200 million shipments a year. Those are vendor figures, not ours.

In 2026 Shippo added a layer of AI features. Shippo Intelligence gives AI-generated dashboards and insights on shipping costs and delivery performance. The Estimate API predicts delivery dates for product and checkout pages. Shippo MCP lets AI assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT compare rates, buy labels and track packages. These sit on top of the core label workflow; they do not replace it.

Who it is for

• Small online stores in the US that ship tens or hundreds of parcels a month and want lower rates than the post office counter.
• Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, BigCommerce, Squarespace or Square sellers who want orders to flow into one shipping screen automatically.
• Marketplace sellers on Amazon or Walmart who also run their own site and want one place for labels.
• Growing teams that need several people printing labels, pick lists and packing slips (Pro adds logins by tier).
• Developers and platforms that need rates, labels and tracking in their own app and prefer pay-per-call pricing.

Shippo is less suited to sellers who ship only a handful of parcels a year (a carrier’s own site is fine), and to businesses that need full warehouse management. Shippo’s homepage is also US-centric. If you ship mainly within Europe, check that your carriers and discounts are covered before you commit.

Key features

• Multi-carrier rates and labels. Enter or import a shipment and Shippo shows rates from the carriers you have enabled. You pick one and buy the label. Discounted rates are available for USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL Express on all app plans. You can also connect your own carrier accounts.
• Store connections and order import. All plans allow unlimited store connections. Integrations named on the homepage include Shopify, Square, WooCommerce, Wix, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Magento, Walmart and Amazon. You can also import orders by CSV.
• Bulk label printing. Edit and print labels in bulk, with packing slips, manifests and scheduled carrier pickups. This is where Shippo saves the most time for busy shops.
• International shipping. Customs forms and commercial invoices are built in on every plan.
• Tracking and returns. Shipment tracking and return labels are on all plans. Pro adds branded tracking pages and branded notification emails.
• Automations. Rules that apply settings to orders automatically, available on all app plans.
• Pick and pack (Pro). Pick lists and scan-to-print, launched in 2026, for shops that pack many orders a day.
• Shippo Intelligence. AI-generated insights on shipping cost and delivery performance. Eligible customers get weekly AI summaries with recommendations. Dashboards for surcharges by carrier and service level, and for invoice changes, were added in 2026.
• AI estimated delivery dates. On Pro in the app, and as the Estimate API for developers. Shippo claims “≥90% accuracy”; we have not tested that.
• Shippo MCP. A Model Context Protocol server that lets AI assistants compare rates, buy labels and track packages.

Pricing

Shippo charges a plan fee and you pay postage on top. Prices below come from Shippo’s pricing pages at the time of writing (checked 18 October 2026) and are in US dollars.

Plan	Price	Labels per month	User logins	Labels on your own carrier account	Non-US address validation
Starter	Free	Up to 30	1	5¢ per label	9¢ each
Pro	From $19/month, or $17/month billed annually	Tiered, up to 10,000	5 to 300, by tier	Free	8¢ each
Premier	Contact sales	Unlimited	15+	Free	6¢ each

Pro is priced by label volume:

Labels per month	Monthly billing	Annual billing (per month)	Annual total	User logins
1-200	$19	$17	$205	5
201-500	$29	$26	$313	7
501-1,000	$54	$49	$583	10
1,001-2,500	$79	$71	$853	15
2,501-5,000	$139	$125	$1,501	300
5,001-10,000	$199	$179	$2,149	300

Points worth knowing before you choose:

• Over 10,000 labels a month on Pro, each extra label costs $0.08.
• US address validation is included on all app plans. Non-US validation is charged per lookup.
• API calls not tied to Shippo labels, such as tracking, rating and address validation, and the Estimate API are billed at API Starter rates, even on a paid app plan.
• Plan changes. Upgrades bill from the next cycle; downgrades take effect at the end of the billing cycle.
• No trial. Shippo does not mention a free trial of Pro. Starter is the free way in.

Shippo API pricing

The API is priced separately from the app.

	API Starter	API Premier
Price	Free to start	Custom, with volume discounts
Labels	First 30 a month free, then 7¢ per label	Custom
Tracking	2¢ per track	Custom
Rate requests	1¢ per rate generation	Custom
Address validation	2¢ US, 8¢ non-US	Custom
Delivery date estimate	3¢ per estimate	Custom

Some older Shippo pages still quote a flat 5¢ per API label. The current API pricing page shows 7¢.

How to use Shippo: step-by-step

1. Create an account and set your sender address

1. Go to goshippo.com and sign up. Starter is free, so you can test the whole flow before paying.
2. Add your sender (ship-from) address. Shippo uses it as the default on every label.
3. Add a payment method. Postage is charged when you buy each label.

2. Connect your store

1. Open Settings and go to the Stores tab.
2. Choose your platform, for example Shopify, WooCommerce or Wix, and approve the connection in your store’s admin.
3. For Shopify, turn on sync and fulfillment settings in the same Stores settings. Without this, tracking numbers do not flow back to Shopify.
4. Wait for orders to import into the Orders page. New orders then arrive automatically.

If you do not have a store, skip this step. You can import a CSV of orders or create a one-off label by hand.

3. Buy your first label

1. On the Orders page, open an order and click Create Label. For a parcel that did not come from a store, use the Create Label button at the top right of the Orders page.
2. Confirm the sender and recipient addresses. Shippo validates US addresses at no charge.
3. Enter the item details and the package weight and dimensions. For carrier flat-rate boxes, choose the matching box type; custom dimensions get standard rates instead.
4. Compare the rates. Look at price and delivery time, not just the cheapest number.
5. Click Buy, review the order and click Purchase. Print the label and attach it.

Check everything before you buy. Shippo cannot edit a label after purchase because most changes affect the rate. If you made a mistake, refund the label and buy a new one.

4. Ship in bulk

Once a few orders a day arrive, single labels get slow. Select several orders on the Orders page and edit and print labels in bulk, with packing slips. Set up automations so common settings, such as your default package or carrier service, apply to new orders. On Pro, use pick lists and scan-to-print to pack faster.

5. Ship internationally

For a shipment abroad, Shippo prompts for customs information and generates the customs form or commercial invoice with the label. Describe contents accurately and enter correct values. Wrong customs data is the most common cause of held parcels.

6. Track, handle returns and review costs

Tracking updates appear in Shippo after the label is scanned. Create return labels from the same account when a customer sends something back. On Pro you can turn on branded tracking pages and notification emails, so customers see your brand instead of the carrier’s. Check the reporting and analytics, and Shippo Intelligence if your account has it, once a month to see where surcharges and delivery delays come from.

Using the Shippo API

Developers can sign up for API Starter and use the same functions in code: rate shopping, label purchase, tracking, address validation and delivery-date estimates. Budget for per-call fees: a checkout page that requests rates for every visitor pays 1¢ per rate generation. Shippo’s API documentation lives at docs.goshippo.com.

Tips to get better results

• Weigh and measure accurately. Rates and surcharges depend on weight and dimensions. Underestimating leads to carrier adjustments later.
• Compare speed as well as price. The cheapest service is not always the best value if it adds days and generates “where is my order?” emails.
• Set defaults early. A default package and service for your most common product saves a lot of clicks.
• Turn on Shopify fulfillment sync. Otherwise customers do not get tracking numbers from your store.
• Watch the Starter limits. At 30 labels a month you hit the cap. If you also use your own carrier account, the 5¢ fee adds up; compare it with Pro’s flat fee.
• Pick the right Pro tier. Estimate your peak-season volume, not your quiet months, before choosing a tier, and consider annual billing for the 10% saving.
• Review surcharges. Use the reporting dashboards to spot residential, fuel or size surcharges that change which carrier is cheapest.
• Test the API in small steps. Cache rates where you can so you do not pay for repeated identical rate requests.

Limitations and common problems

• Labels cannot be edited. Any change after purchase means refunding and rebuying. Double-check addresses and weights first.
• The free plan is small. Starter allows 30 labels a month and one login. Upgrade to Pro for more logins.
• Costs beyond the plan fee. Postage, optional insurance, non-US address validation and API calls outside Shippo labels are all extra. Shippo publishes these fees, so total them up before you compare tools.
• Volume-based Pro pricing. A busy month can push you into a higher tier. Plan for your peak.
• US focus. The discounts and much of the marketing are aimed at US shippers. Shippo does not publish a country-by-country list of which discounts apply, so non-US sellers should check their carriers first.
• Support by plan. Starter has email support only; chat and phone support come with Pro.
• AI claims are vendor claims. The delivery-date accuracy figure and the savings figure of up to 90% on labels are Shippo’s own and depend on carrier and route.
• Data questions. Shippo’s Trust Center lists a SOC 2 Type II report and PCI DSS documents, encryption in transit and at rest, and AWS hosting. It does not publish where data is stored or whether customer data is used to train AI.

Alternatives

• ShipStation - a multi-carrier shipping app aimed at the same online sellers; compare its plans against Shippo’s tiers.
• Pirate Ship - a label tool for small US shippers.
• EasyPost - a shipping API, an alternative to Shippo’s API for developers.
• Shopify Shipping - Shopify’s built-in labels; worth checking first if you sell only on Shopify.
• Your carrier’s own site - fine if you ship rarely and use one carrier. If you also need one order queue and inventory sync across several marketplaces, see Goflow.

Shippo often sits next to other store tools. If you sell print-on-demand products, Printify handles production and shipping for you, so you may not need a shipping app for those orders at all. For post-purchase customer questions, an ecommerce helpdesk such as Gorgias pulls in order and tracking data. Browse more options in our ecommerce tools directory.

Verdict

Shippo is a good fit for small and mid-sized online sellers, especially in the US, who want discounted labels from several carriers, automatic order import and bulk printing without a large monthly fee. The free Starter plan is a real plan, not a demo, and Pro’s per-tier pricing is published clearly. Start free, ship a week of real orders, and upgrade when you pass 30 labels a month or need more logins and phone support. Developers get a separate pay-as-you-go API, but should model per-call costs first. If you need full warehouse management, or you ship mainly outside the US, compare a specialist tool before committing.