What does EasyPost do that a free API doesn't?

Two things stand out honestly. First, carrier breadth: EasyPost lists more than 100 carriers, including regional and international ones well beyond the four we quote. Second, its paid BYOCA plan for your own carrier accounts, which is the right model if you have negotiated contracts you want to keep using. If neither applies to your routes, the per-label fee is buying capability your integration never exercises.

Is the GoatLabels API really free, or is it a trial tier?

It is the full API, not a trial. There is no per-call or per-shipment API fee on any plan, including Free, and the endpoint list does not change between plans. What the Free plan caps is shipments per month, at 50; Pro is a flat monthly fee that removes that cap.

Which endpoints does the comparison actually cover?

The core loop: create a shipment, fetch rates across USPS, UPS and FedEx (DHL on international lanes), buy a label, void it, and receive tracking updates. Those are the calls a production integration makes on every order, and they are the surface this page claims parity on.

How do you make money if the API is free?

On the labels. Every label is bought at a rate quoted live from the carriers and debited from your prepaid wallet, and our margin is inside that. That is why call volume is not a billable dimension — the shipment is the product, not the request.

Do you have idempotency and webhooks?

Yes to both. Idempotency keys mean a retried buy request cannot produce two labels, which is the failure mode that actually costs money in an automated flow. Webhooks are signed, so you can verify them, and they cover tracking and label events instead of making you poll.

How hard is it to port an existing EasyPost integration?

Mostly field remapping across five endpoints, plus swapping any polling loops for signed webhooks. Because nothing on our side charges per call, you can run both integrations against real orders in parallel and compare the all-in rates before you cut over.

Can I use the dashboard and the API on the same account?

Yes, and they operate on the same objects and the same prepaid balance. A label bought in the browser is readable through the API, and a label bought by your code can be voided by a support agent in the dashboard — no reconciliation step between the two.

An honest API-to-API comparison.

EasyPost vs a free shipping API

Same core calls. Different bill.

For label creation, rate shopping, voiding and tracking, GoatLabels' free API covers the same core surface EasyPost charges per-shipment fees for.

Create your account Log in

Every carrier, one rates endpoint

USPS, UPS and FedEx returned as live all-in rates from a single call (DHL on international lanes), so you buy the one your logic picks.

DHL: international

Live quotes One rates response.

Rate = debit No fee added after.

Free calls Unlimited, every plan.

Labels billed from a wallet, not a usage meter

Fund with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto and every buy call debits the balance.

Prepaid Spent call by call.

No metering Calls are not billable events.

Accepted voids credited Back to the balance.

Side by side

What a free API covers, and what EasyPost genuinely does more.

This page is not an argument that EasyPost is bad — it is a mature platform with a genuinely large carrier network. The useful question is narrower: for the core loop of create, rate, buy, void, and track, what do you actually give up by using an API with no per-shipment fee?

	GoatLabels	EasyPost
Core loop	Create shipment, fetch rates, buy label, void, track. Same request/response shape you already model.	The same core loop, with the same conceptual objects — this part genuinely overlaps.
Per-shipment API fee	None, on any plan, at any volume. The carrier rate is the whole charge.	A per-label fee past 3,000 Wallet-carrier labels a month, and on every BYOCA label (dated figures below).
Carrier coverage	USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL. That is the honest list.	More than 100 carriers, including regional and international carriers we do not quote.
Carrier accounts	Rates built in; bringing your own is not required.	Wallet carriers with no contract of your own, or your own accounts on the paid BYOCA plan.
Reliability primitives	Idempotency keys, signed webhooks, OpenAPI 3.1 spec, errors that name the field to fix.	Webhooks, official client libraries, and a partner integration ecosystem.
Non-API surface	A full dashboard and Billy AI, both hitting the same objects your API calls create.	API-first, with a no-code Create Label screen for single and CSV labels.

EasyPost is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels. EasyPost's plans, fees, and carrier list are dated and linked in the source block below; they change, so re-check before you decide.

Three places a free API is simply enough.

The endpoints you actually call

Most production integrations use five endpoints: create a shipment, list rates, buy, void, and read tracking. All five are free and unlimited here, with idempotency keys so a retry cannot double-buy and signed webhooks so you are not polling a tracking endpoint on a cron.

The fee has no technical counterpart

A per-shipment platform fee buys you carrier breadth and account management, not a better buy call. If you ship USPS, UPS and FedEx on domestic parcels and DHL on international ones, you are paying a variable fee for network you never route through.

Test freely, load-test freely

Unlimited free calls change how you build. Staging traffic, replayed webhooks, a rate-shopping loop that quotes every order twice — none of it shows up on an invoice, so nobody has to design around the cost of calling the API.

When EasyPost is the right choice

You ship on carriers outside USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, such as regional or international carriers, where EasyPost's network is genuinely wider.
You have negotiated carrier contracts and need a platform built around bringing your own accounts.
You depend on a specific EasyPost SDK, integration, or carrier-specific feature that has no equivalent in a four-carrier API.
Your integration is stable, the fee is immaterial at your volume, and the migration risk outweighs the saving.

What EasyPost's own pages say, checked 2026-10-17

Each Wallet-carrier label past 3,000 in a month costs $0.08, and every BYOCA label costs $0.08. (EasyPost Support: Billing and Payments)
Rating more than three times as many shipments as you buy labels for costs $0.02 per extra rated shipment. (EasyPost Support: Billing and Payments)
The Free Access plan includes up to 3,000 labels a month on EasyPost Wallet carriers, with postage paid separately. (EasyPost Support: Billing and Payments)
Bring Your Own Carrier Accounts (BYOCA) costs $20 a month and includes no free monthly labels. (EasyPost Support: Billing and Payments)
The Enterprise plan is custom pricing based on volume, quoted by sales. (EasyPost pricing)
EasyPost lists more than 100 carriers, and its Wallet carriers need no carrier contract of your own. (EasyPost carriers)
A label can be refunded only before the shipment starts moving, USPS refunds must be requested within 30 days, and a successful carrier refund also returns EasyPost's label fee. (EasyPost Support: Refunds)
Refunds on Wallet-carrier labels return to the EasyPost Wallet once the carrier approves them, which EasyPost says takes 2 to 4 weeks. (EasyPost Support: Request a refund for an unused shipping label)
Besides the API, EasyPost offers a no-code Create Label interface in its dashboard, with CSV upload of up to 500 labels at once. (EasyPost Create Label)
EasyPost's Luma AI products, sold through its sales team, answer questions about your shipping data and automatically choose a shipping option. (EasyPost Luma AI Advisor)

Checked on 2026-10-17 from EasyPost's own pages. Plans, fees and policies change, so confirm on the vendor's current page before you decide. EasyPost is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels.

API to API

The same request loop. None of it billed per call.

Read the two APIs side by side and the shapes rhyme: a shipment object with a from address, a to address, and a parcel; a rates array to sort by price or delivery date; a buy call that returns a label URL and a tracking number; a void call; and webhooks for tracking updates. Porting is remapping fields, not rethinking a model. What differs is everything around the loop: GoatLabels has USPS, UPS and FedEx rates (DHL on international lanes) built in rather than expecting your own accounts, debits each label from a prepaid wallet you top up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, and charges nothing for the calls themselves. The same shipments are also visible in a dashboard, so a support agent can void a label without an engineer writing a tool for it.

Any order shape in

Store sync, API, DM, or screenshot

maya_boutique

Hey! 2x hoodies (M) 1x tee (L) 😅 Ship to: Maya R. Austin, TX 78701

Shopify

Synced into To Ship

Etsy

Synced into To Ship

DM screenshot

Order: #1847
Customer: Jordan Lee
Items: 1x Hoodie (L)
Address: Brooklyn, NY

Drop the screenshot or paste the DM

Connectors, REST API, DMs, and screenshots — one queue, and every path creates the same shipment object.

Billy AI

The half of shipping an API can't be handed.

Reads a DM, comment thread, voice note, or screenshot
Fills the addresses and the package details
Rate-shops USPS, UPS and FedEx at the all-in price, DHL on international lanes
Hands the drafted label back for you to confirm

Drafted. Checked. Yours to confirm.

Clean label out

Bought from the wallet

Paid from your prepaid balance

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto

$12.47

Label purchased

USPS Priority Mail — all-in rate

$12.47

Calls are free on every plan. Signed webhooks push tracking back to the store and to your stack.

Not every order arrives as a POST body.

Connectors for the storefronts, AI for everything else.

Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix sync into To Ship and push tracking back when you print, the part any shipping API's ecosystem covers. The gap in an API-only comparison is the order that never became structured data: a pasted DM or an order screenshot becomes a drafted label here without anyone writing a parser for it.

Shopify

Etsy

WooCommerce

eBay

Wix

Connect a store Or use the API

Where the two APIs overlap, and where the fee stops buying you anything.

Same core surface, honestly compared.
Without a fee per shipment.

Label creation, rate shopping, voiding, and tracking are the same job on both platforms, and this page does not pretend otherwise. The comparison worth making is what each one adds around that surface: carrier breadth and account management on one side; zero marginal cost, a To Ship queue, and Billy on the other.

One prepaid wallet,
five ways to fund it

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfer, and crypto all top up the same balance, and every buy call spends from it. Because it is prepaid, a runaway loop in your integration cannot spend more than you funded, and a void call credits the balance back after the carrier accepts the void rather than opening a refund case.

Wallet balance

$1,247.36 USD

AI drafting for orders
that are not JSON

A DM, a comment thread, a voice note, a screenshot — Billy reads any of them and drafts the whole label. It is the input no shipping API has a field for, and it lives alongside the endpoints rather than replacing them.

Billy LIVE

Where's the package to Maya?

It's in transit via UPS. Expected Friday, Aug 7.

1Z8923A6B05G4123456

In transit

Austin, TX → Dallas, TX

Ask Billy anything...

No per-shipment
platform fee

No plan charges per shipment or per call. Free covers 50 shipments a month with the full API underneath it, and Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments. Whichever you are on, the number of times your integration calls the API is not a billable dimension.

Shipment summary

UPS Ground $12.49

Insurance $0.75

Fuel surcharge $0.32

Total $13.56

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
in one account

USPS, UPS and FedEx as live all-in rates in one response (DHL on international lanes), and the number you see is the exact amount that leaves your balance. This is also the clearest limit of the comparison: if your routing logic needs a carrier outside those four, EasyPost's broader network is the honest reason to stay with it.

Compare rates

UPS $12.48

FedEx $13.22

DHL $14.10

USPS $11.79

Duties inside the quote where DDP applies

A REST API that costs
nothing per call

REST and JSON, one Bearer header, idempotency keys so a retried request never buys two labels, signed webhooks for tracking and label events instead of polling, and an OpenAPI 3.1 spec so you can generate a client rather than adopt an SDK. Unlimited calls on every plan.

POST /v1/shipments

{

"to": { "name": "Maya" },

"from": { "name": "Alex" },

"service": "ups_ground",

"label_format": "pdf"

}

Webhook delivered

GoatLabels mobile shipments queue with all-in carrier prices

Billy drafting a label from a pasted DM on mobile

Label ready

CL-1038 · Brooklyn, NY

What the API comparison leaves out

Some orders never reach your integration at all.

An API-to-API comparison assumes every order arrives as structured data. In practice a share of them arrive as a message someone reads, and today that means a human retyping an address into a form. Here the message itself is a valid input, on the phone that is already in their hand.

Paste the DM, snap the thread, or drop the screenshot — Billy pulls the name, the address, and the parcel out of it.

No import mapping and no CSV step: the message is the order record.

USPS, UPS and FedEx come back as all-in prices on one screen, DHL on international lanes.

Buy from the prepaid balance and one-tap print to a share sheet or a thermal printer over Wi-Fi.

Labels created this way appear in the API exactly like labels your code bought.

Beyond the endpoint list

Talk to Billy, not to a client library.

Every API comparison stops at the endpoint table, which is fair for the engineering evaluation and useless for the packing table. Hold the mic, say who the parcel is going to, and Billy looks up the buyer, rate-shops USPS, UPS and FedEx (DHL on international lanes), and queues the label against your prepaid balance, then answers for it afterwards. This is the real product, not a render.

Billy reading back a parcel's tracking history over the purchased labels list

Listening

"Where's Maya's package?"

Out for delivery

CL-1039 · Austin, TX · by 6 PM

Plain English in — names, addresses, weights, carriers, services · nothing to import and nothing to map · reads the all-in rate back before a cent leaves the wallet · phone, browser, or Telegram on Pro.

All-in quotes

The rates response is the final price.

Three carriers on the same parcel, each an all-in number that is the exact amount leaving your prepaid balance when your buy call fires. Nothing is layered on afterwards, which means the rate your sorting logic compares is the same rate your finance export reconciles against.

CA → NY 2.6 lbs 12×8×4 in

USPS

Ground Advantage

2 to 5 days

$11.40

all-in · no surprises

Cheapest

UPS

Ground

1 to 5 days

$9.85

all-in · no surprises

FedEx

Ground

1 to 5 days

$11.20

all-in · no surprises

No carrier invoice the day after Accepted void → credit back to the wallet you funded Multi-currency display

Public API v1

A free API that is an actual API.

REST, JSON, one Bearer header. Free does not mean a trial tier, a sandbox, or a stripped endpoint list: it is the same API surface as Pro, with real idempotency keys, signed webhooks for tracking and label events, and errors that name what to fix instead of returning a generic 400.

Create, rate-shop, and buy — the same three calls you already write

Signed webhooks for tracking and label events instead of polling

Real idempotency keys — a retried request never buys two labels

OpenAPI 3.1 spec, no SDK lock-in, unlimited calls on every plan

Read the API docs Get an API key $0 on every plan

curl https://api.goatlabels.io/api/v1/shipments

201 Created · 187ms

request response

POST /api/v1/shipments
Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…
Idempotency-Key: ord_8421

{
  "to": { "name": "Joyce", "city": "Berlin", "country": "DE" },
  "parcel": { "weight": 2.6, "weight_unit": "lb" },
  "service": "fedex_intl_priority"
}

← 201 Created // buy it with POST /api/v1/shipments/{id}/purchase
{
  "id": "shp_44819",
  "status": "draft",
  "amount": { "subtotal": 72.25, "duty_and_tax": 14.20, "total": 86.45 }
}

Calls are not a billable dimension

Calls are not a billable dimension.

Free covers 50 shipments a month with the public API, the store connectors, and Billy all unlimited underneath it — the quoted label price is what you pay from a prepaid wallet. Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments and Billy on Telegram. In neither case does the API itself carry a price per call or per shipment.

Pro

Free

$0 / forever

The whole API surface, before you have paid anything.

50 shipments a month, with no per-shipment API fee

USPS, UPS and FedEx on every domestic parcel; DHL on international lanes

The full REST API with unlimited calls and signed webhooks

Billy AI in the web app, unlimited — paste, screenshot, or speak

Store connectors included: Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix

Start free

Billy is not a paid tier

The assistant that reads a DM, a screenshot, or a voice note into a drafted label runs unlimited in the web app on Free. Pro adds Billy on Telegram.

Web, every plan

Telegram, Pro

API free on every plan

GET /api/v1/shipments

200 OK · plan: free

Unlimited calls on Free — still unlimited on Pro.

Bring the invoice you pay today

High-volume shippers can ask about custom pricing, which we review account by account. Compare it against what you pay on

ShippoPirate ShipShipStation

No contracts No per-shipment platform fee Free to sign up

Label prices are quoted live from USPS, UPS and FedEx on domestic parcels and DHL on international lanes, shown as one all-in number, the same number that leaves your wallet. EasyPost's allowance and per-label fee are in the dated source block on this page, linked to EasyPost's own pages. Full pricing details

Who this comparison is really for

Not every EasyPost integration should be ported.

The teams below run the core loop on four carriers and pay a variable fee for network they never touch. The ones who genuinely need that network are named on this page too, because a comparison that only lists wins is not a comparison.

Bursty, seasonal API volume

TikTok Shop & live commerce

Prepaid

Metered pricing punishes exactly the months you want to celebrate. A prepaid wallet and unmetered calls make a launch week a carrier-spend event rather than a platform-spend event.

4 carriers behind one API no per-shipment fee bulk print

GoatLabels shipments queue with purchased labels

Domestic multi-carrier shippers

Etsy & independent creators

If every route you buy is USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL, the broader network in a paid platform is capacity you are funding and never using.

One queue, connector or not

Order #1024 · pasted from a comment thread

Sellers living in the DMs

The orders that never became JSON

got the dress! can you ship to Austin?

Label drafted · CL-1024

Devs who want the dashboard too

REST and the UI, one balance

wallet behind the API and the dashboard

Real sellers, real words

Developers who compared the endpoint lists before the invoices.

A video took off and I had 80 TikTok Shop orders by morning. I printed every label from my phone on the bus to the post office.

Early customer · TikTok

TikTok Shop seller

TikTok Shop

I run my Etsy shop from the kitchen. The AI reads the order, picks the carrier, the label prints. That's the whole workflow now.

Early customer · Etsy

Etsy maker

Etsy

The API is what every shipping API pretends to be. Idempotency that actually works.

Sasha R.

Staff engineer, marketplace

API user