# ShipStation

> Shipping software for online sellers, priced by shipments a month

ShipStation is web-based shipping software that gathers orders from stores and marketplaces, compares discounted parcel and LTL freight rates, and prints labels in batches using automation rules. Higher plans add returns and exchanges, warehouse and inventory tools and custom analytics, and every plan is priced by how many shipments you send each month. An iPhone and iPad app handles orders, labels and tracking on the go.

- **Category:** Shipping Software
- **Made by:** Auctane
- **Website:** https://www.shipstation.com
- **Runs on:** Web, iOS
- **Facts last checked:** Oct 18, 2026

## Pricing

ShipStation is a paid product with a free trial, starting at $14.99 per month for up to 50 shipments, billed monthly.

- **Pricing model:** Free trial
- **Free plan:** None.
- **Free trial:** 30-day free trial, no credit card required.

| Plan | Price | What you get |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Starter | $14.99 per month for up to 50 shipments, billed monthly | 3 users, unlimited stores, rate shopping, LTL quotes, return labels and basic automations. Rises with volume: $29.99 at 100 shipments, $39.99 at 500, $174.99 at 5,000. |
| Standard | $29.99 per month for up to 50 shipments, billed monthly | 10 users, unlimited automations, your own carrier accounts, returns and exchanges, Shipping API, phone support. $449.99 a month at 10,000 shipments. |
| Premium | $349.99 per month for up to 50 shipments, billed monthly | 15 users, advanced inventory and warehouse tools, custom analytics and auto-routing. $1,099.99 a month at 10,000 shipments. |

Read from https://www.shipstation.com/pricing/ on Oct 18, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with ShipStation before buying.

## Ways to pay less

- **20% off with annual billing** (Annual discount): Paying yearly saves 20%: Starter at 50 shipments is $143.90 a year instead of $14.99 a month. Source: https://www.shipstation.com/pricing/

## Key features

- **Rate shopping across carriers:** Compares discounted rates from carriers such as USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL and GlobalPost. ShipStation says its carrier discounts reach 80% to 90%; that is the vendor's claim.
- **Store and marketplace imports:** Unlimited store connections pull in orders from Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and TikTok Shop.
- **Automation rules and batches:** Rules batch, route and print labels automatically, with automated rate shopping. Starter has basic automations; Standard and Premium have no limit.
- **LTL freight beside parcels:** Every plan can quote, book and compare LTL freight shipments in the same screens as parcels.
- **Returns, tracking and inventory:** Return labels on every plan, plus customer tracking emails. Standard adds returns and exchanges, and Premium adds purchase orders, forecasting and pick-to-tote.
- **Mobile app:** ShipStation Mobile for iPhone and iPad imports orders, scans barcodes to find them, prints labels and pick lists, and re-sends tracking emails.

## Good for

- Online sellers combining orders from several stores and marketplaces
- Growing shops that want automation rules to label orders in batches
- Businesses that ship pallets by LTL freight as well as parcels

## Worth knowing

- Every plan is priced by monthly shipments, and postage is paid on top of the subscription.
- There is no free plan; Starter caps out at 5,000 shipments a month and 3 users.
- Using your own carrier accounts and the Shipping API need Standard or higher.
- The mobile app is for iPhone and iPad only; no Android app is listed.

## ToolGPA grades

**GPA: 2.6 out of 4**, graded Oct 18, 2026. ShipStation is the long-standing pick for shops selling on several channels: one queue for Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Walmart and TikTok Shop orders, rate shopping and batch labels. There's no free plan, though, and the price steps up with every band of shipments, so a small shop pays more here than with Shippo.

- **Value for money: C.** 200 shipments a month means Starter's 500 step: $39.99 a month, or $383.90 a year paid yearly (about $32 a month). That's above the middle of this category, and your own carrier accounts and the Shipping API need Standard, from $29.99 for 50 shipments.
- **Free plan and trial: C.** No free plan, but a 30-day trial with no credit card needed. Long enough to ship a month of real orders before you pay.
- **Features: B.** Orders pulled in from every major marketplace, rate shopping, LTL quotes, batch labels, return labels and automations, with inventory and barcode scanning. The whole job, though returns and exchanges, and your own carrier accounts, start on Standard.
- **Ease of use: B.** Its iPhone app averages 4.63 from about 6,200 App Store ratings. The web app still needs stores connected and automation rules set up before batch shipping pays off.
- **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web and iPhone, with no Android app listed. It connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and TikTok Shop, and has a Shipping API on Standard and up.

These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from ShipStation's own pages on 18 October 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews.

## Where it stands among shipping software

- ShipStation's GPA of 2.6 is higher than 8 of the 10 other shipping software we grade.
- It stands best on ease of use (B, above 10 of 10) and worst on free plan and trial (C, above 0).
- Its paid plans start at $14.99 a month, against a middle price of $19.49 for the category: 1 of the 9 others that charge start lower.
- On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 3.0 out of 4, and no tool on the category's chart scores higher without costing more.

The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/shipping

## Keep it, or make your own?

**Keep it.** To replace ShipStation you would be making discounted carrier rates and labels, which take an agreement with each carrier. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. It is one of the better ones too: its GPA of 2.6 is higher than 8 of the 10 other shipping software we grade. It costs $179.88 a year.

- You could make: Inventory and reports: an app builder makes these well.
- You could not: Discounted carrier rates and labels, which take an agreement with each carrier.
- You could not: Connections to other products, each kept working as those products change.
- You could not: Scanning barcodes with a phone camera or a scanner.
- You could not: A real app for iOS. Something home-made would be a web page.
- You could not: The depth: we grade its features B, which means it covers the whole job.

A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it.

## What people say

- **App Store rating of the iPhone and iPad app:** 4.6 out of 5 from 6,198 ratings in the United States, read Oct 18, 2026. This is the store's rating of the app, not a score from ToolGPA. Source: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id972151811

## Works with

Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, TikTok Shop

**Tags:** Shipping labels, Workflow automation, Inventory, Barcode scanning, Reports, Public API

## Alternatives

- [Shippo](https://toolgpa.com/tools/shippo): Multi-carrier shipping app and API, priced by labels a month. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/shippo-vs-shipstation)
- [ShippingEasy](https://toolgpa.com/tools/shippingeasy): Shipping software for small sellers, priced by shipments a month. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/shippingeasy-vs-shipstation)
- [Veeqo](https://toolgpa.com/tools/veeqo): Amazon's free multichannel shipping app, with paid inventory tools. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/shipstation-vs-veeqo)
- [Easyship](https://toolgpa.com/tools/easyship): Shipping software with 550+ courier services and duty estimates. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/easyship-vs-shipstation)
- [ShipWorks](https://toolgpa.com/tools/shipworks): Windows shipping software for warehouses and high-volume sellers. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/shipstation-vs-shipworks)

## Sources

The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Oct 18, 2026:

- https://www.shipstation.com/pricing/
- https://www.shipstation.com/about-us/
- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/shipstation-mobile/id972151811

Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/shipstation
Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).