Last Updated on July 31, 2025 by Ewen Finser
My Quick Take
If you’re a small-to-medium e-commerce biz, you’re going to like Shippo a lot. Its multi-carrier support, easy integration to over 10 e-commerce platforms, speedy batch label printing, and robust analytics are great selling points. Plus, its tiered pricing structure means there’s something for every budget. Personally, I’d look no further than Shippo for an e-commerce shipping solution.
Shipping (like website maintenance and tax returns) is one of the tedious parts of e-commerce. It’s time-consuming and packed with tiny annoyances, but a must-do. Ignore it, and you risk losing customers to late deliveries, high shipping fees, or creating a frustrating fulfillment experience.
The good thing is you can find service providers like Shippo to take all that pain away. Consolidating carriers, automating label creation, tracking your shipment, they’ve got it all covered.
Let’s explore in detail why Shippo is worth a look into.
It's simple to use, easy to set-up and offers a unique PAY-AS-YOU-GO model to start. This means you only pay $0.05 for each package, great for smaller stores. You can scale UP with a BETTER PRICING structure.
Shippo’s Main Features
Shippo is pretty much a one-stop shop when it comes to shipping for e-commerce stores. It provides:
- Multi-carrier shipping: Shippo connects you with all the major carriers (USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL, you name it). It also negotiates discounted rates with carriers, allowing you to save as much as 90% on retail shipping costs in some cases.
- Automations: Shippo’s automation rules enable the platform to make shipping selections on your behalf. This speeds up your shipping workflow. All you need to do is set your preferences, and boom, it automatically assigns any order that comes through to the right packaging or carrier.
- E-commerce platform integrations: Shippo integrates with all the top e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, so you can import orders and manage fulfillment in one place. You can also connect accounts from multiple stores. Let’s say you sell on both eBay and WooCommerce, Shippo can pull orders from both into one dashboard. Huge time-saver.
- Shipping label creation and printing: Through the Shippo web app, you can generate labels one by one or in bulk batches. I’m a big fan of the customization on offer here; you can personalize any of the print shipping labels you create with your logo and brand colors. And it’s got a healthy range of formats and options for you to choose from.
- Rate comparison and shipping discounts: When you go to create a shipping label, Shippo shows you a list of shipping options with their delivery times and costs, all in one screen.
- International shipping and customs forms: If you ship internationally, Shippo generates customs documentation automatically based on your shipment information.
- Tracking and notifications: Every label you create with Shippo comes with a tracking number, and Shippo helps you (and your buyers) keep track of shipments till it gets to the buyer.
- Analytics and reporting: Shippo includes a reporting suite that gives you detailed insights into your shipping operations. Unlike many such dashboards I’ve seen in similar spaces, this one is actually pretty useful.
- Shipping insurance: Shippo also offers shipping insurance for your packages. It’s optional though, and you’ll get prompted as you go through the label purchase flow.
There’s a lot more where all this came from, like branded shipping or helping you manage your returns. But the tiered subscriptions mean you don’t have to pay for anything you don’t need.
Shippo Customer Service and Reviews
Shippo has faced criticism in the past regarding customer service, which can be a red flag. But, I did some digging and it does appear that Shippo has upped its game quite a bit when it comes to customer service in the past few years (which is a relief). More recent customer reviews have been much more positive here:
How Shippo Customer Support Works
All Shippo users (including free Starter plan users) have access to email support. You can submit support requests through a web form, and a member of the team will reply via email. Alternatively, you can speak to a team member through one of the company’s social media accounts.
Shippo does not offer phone support to its non-paying users (or list a public support phone number). However, there is phone support for users on the Professional plan, and Premier customers get dedicated account managers.
Though you’ll still hear occasional complaints that the customer support team gets swamped during busy periods, (but to be honest, who doesn’t?) Shippo’s service team is highly responsive these days. I haven’t had any trouble getting a response.
The Benefits of Using Shippo
- Significant cost savings on shipping: This alone is probably enough of a reason to start using Shippo. The built-in carrier discounts can dramatically lower your shipping costs.
- All-in-one convenience and efficiency: With Shippo, you’ll never have to hop between USPS, DHL, and UPS (or any of their 40+ carriers) to handle different orders again. No more entering separate login details, no more manually copying addresses from your store to each site. Doesn’t that sound fun?
- Ease of use: You don’t need to be a shipping expert or have an IT department to use Shippo. The interface is clean and intuitive (with plenty of tooltips and help docs if you get stuck). There’s no special hardware or software required beyond a printer for labels.
- Flexibility and scalability: Shippo’s model works for a broad range of business sizes, from home-based Etsy sellers shipping a few packages a week to retailers sending out thousands of orders a month. This means Shippo can grow with your business. You won’t need to jump to a completely new platform once you reach a certain size; justadjust your Shippo plan.
- Better decision-making with data: Data is helpful if you have the tools to record and analyze it properly. I’m a huge fan of Shippo’s data analytics features. They take the guesswork out of questions like “How much are we spending on shipping?” or “Which carrier is most used?” You have the answers at your fingertips.
- Reliable API for custom workflows: If you have more technical needs, Shippo’s API offers a lot. Well-documented and reliable, it allows larger companies to incorporate Shippo’s capabilities (rate quoting, label creation, tracking, address validation) directly into their own applications or websites. You get enterprise-level flexibility without having to build a shipping engine from scratch.
- Continuous improvement and new features: Shippo has a track record of adding new features and carriers regularly. For instance, the platform expanded into Western Europe with several new carrier integrations in 2022. They’ve also rolled out several improvements (like the updated analytics page and some automations) based on merchant feedback.
Drawbacks and Limitations of Shippo
Cos’ no one is perfect…
- Too limited for some use cases: Shippo covers the essentials of shipping really well, but it isn’t a full-fledged logistics or warehouse management suite. For example, it doesn’t offer inventory management; you’ll need a separate tool to keep track of stock levels.
- Limited customer support on Starter plan: You’ll need to pay for the Professional package to get over-the-phone support, which, combined with its other features, is worth it in my opinion.
Shippo Pricing Plans
Starter Plan (Free)
Shippo’s Starter plan has no monthly fee. It’s the default when you sign up, and it’s ideal for businesses shipping up to 30 labels per month (according to Shippo’s own suggestion). On this free plan, you get access to almost all of Shippo’s core features:
- You can connect unlimited stores.
- You get discounted shipping rates.
- You can connect your own carrier accounts if you have them.
- International shipping, return label creation, tracking, the basic analytics reports, and even features like automation rules are available on the free plan.
- Customer support is provided via email (and help center resources).
This plan is cost-effective for small sellers. If you only ship a dozen packages a month, you literally pay just a few cents in fees to Shippo (or nothing if using their accounts). It lowers the barrier to using professional shipping software to zero, which is fantastic. Even if you exceed 30 labels in a month occasionally, Shippo isn’t going to cut you off; 30 is just the point at which they suggest you consider upgrading for better value.
Professional Plan
The Professional (Pro) plan introduces a monthly fee but removes per-label fees and adds more features. The cost of Professional scales with your shipping volume; it starts at $19 per month for up to 200 labels per month.
The Professional plan includes everything in Starter, plus:
- No per-label fees (these are $0.05 each on the free tier).
- Up to 5 logins per account.
- The ability to connect all your carrier accounts with supported carriers.
- Branded customer experience tools.
- Advanced reports and analytics.
- Phone support (perhaps the most important one).
Premier Plan (Custom Pricing)
The Premier plan is for high-volume shippers or those with complex needs. Shippo doesn’t list a flat price for this. You’ll get a custom quote depending on volume (generally if you’re shipping over 10,000 parcels a month, you’d be talking to the sales team about Premier). This means you can also negotiate to find the number of labels and user logins that work for you.
Premier includes all Professional features, plus some enterprise-grade perks:
- Access to advanced reports that can help manage and optimize shipping across your organization.
- A dedicated account manager/support team. If you’re running a large operation and you want dedicated, hands-on support, this is a big selling point.
- Premier also comes with a reliability guarantee of 99.9% uptime SLA (basically Shippo promises the service will be up almost all the time, and if not, there are likely remedies).
API Pricing (Pay as You Go)
It’s worth noting that Shippo also has separate API pricing for those who just use Shippo as an API (not via the web app). The API is free to use up to a point and then usage-based. However, most businesses using the API also fall into the above plans. The API pricing is mainly relevant for software providers or platforms that integrate Shippo for their users.
Since this review is primarily about using Shippo as a merchant, I would say, just know that API pricing exists if, say, you’re a developer building an app on Shippo.
It's simple to use, easy to set-up and offers a unique PAY-AS-YOU-GO model to start. This means you only pay $0.05 for each package, great for smaller stores. You can scale UP with a BETTER PRICING structure.
My Verdict on Shippo: Is it worth it?
Yes. Shippo can be a force-multiplier for your e-commerce businesses, no matter the size. It addresses the biggest issues most e-commerce merchants face when thinking about shipping: costs that run out of hand, the ability to scale as your business grows, ease of use, and responsive customer support.
Add in its user-friendly interface, and this is one shipping solution I would happily recommend to any merchant looking to stop worrying about shipping and all the hassle that comes with the process.