USPS
Priority Mail Intl
10–15 days$18.30
$10.00 of taxes & duties included
all-in · no surprises
Total cost of ownership, small-business edition.
Carrier rates. No monthly floor.
A Shippo alternative for small businesses
Carrier rates. No monthly floor.
GoatLabels lets small businesses ship on USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL at carrier rates with no per-label fee, no subscription, and AI label drafting included on every plan.
Four carriers per parcel on every plan, including Free
USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL — rate-shopped live, with no tier to clear first.
all quoted Carrier rate Nothing stacked on top.
Quote = debit No day-after invoice.
API included Free and unlimited.
A prepaid wallet, not a monthly floor
Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto — one balance, spent label by label.
Prepaid You control the top-up.
No minimum A slow month costs nothing.
Voids credited Back to the balance.
Side by side
What a small shop actually pays on Shippo.
Both tools print multi-carrier labels, so the label is not the decision. The decision is what sits on top of the carrier rate, and what the tool costs in the months a small business ships almost nothing.
| GoatLabels | Shippo | |
|---|---|---|
| What a slow month costs | Nothing. The wallet sits funded and no label prints, so no money moves. | A subscription tier and a per-label platform fee — check their current pricing. |
| What sits on top of the carrier rate | Nothing. The rate-shopped carrier price is the whole debit. | A platform fee per label on top of the carrier rate. |
| Carriers rate-shopped per parcel | USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, quoted side by side as all-in prices. | Broad multi-carrier list — see their site for current coverage. |
| AI label drafting | Billy is included on every plan, including Free, with no seat charge. | Not the product — orders arrive as records, not messages. |
| How the money is held | A prepaid wallet you top up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto. | Standard SaaS billing against a card on file. |
| Cost of adding a second person | The wallet is the account — nothing about a helper changes the label price. | User counts are a plan lever — check their current tiers. |
Shippo is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels. Their plans and fees change — compare against their current pricing page before you decide.
Three reasons small businesses leave Shippo.
Small-business cost is a monthly floor, not a label price
The number that hurts a five-order week is not the postage — it is the tier you pay whether or not you shipped. GoatLabels has no monthly minimum to print. Fund a wallet, buy labels out of the balance, and a dead week costs exactly zero.
Two fees is one fee too many
On Shippo the carrier rate is the start of the price and a platform fee finishes it. Here the rate-shopped carrier price is the entire debit, so the number on the quote and the number leaving your balance are the same number.
You are the ops department
A small business has no one to hand data entry to. Billy reads a DM, an emailed order, or a screenshot and drafts the whole label — the work a bigger shop would pay a coordinator to do, included on the free plan.
And when Shippo is the right choice
- You need a carrier GoatLabels doesn't rate-shop — we quote USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, and that is the honest list.
- Your volume is high enough and steady enough that a negotiated Shippo plan genuinely lands below carrier rates for you.
- You are already deep in a platform Shippo powers and switching would mean rebuilding an integration that works.
How a small shop ships here
One person, one queue, and no coordinator to hire.
A small business runs shipping between everything else, so the pipeline has to survive being interrupted. Orders arrive however they arrive — a Shopify sync, an API call, an emailed order, a DM, a photo of a packing slip — and all of them land in the same To Ship queue. Billy fills the addresses, the package details, and the service, then hands the draft back for you to confirm, which is the data-entry job you would otherwise do yourself at eleven at night. Every label is a debit against a prepaid wallet topped up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, so there is no subscription running in the background and no month where the tool costs more than the shipping did. Rate-shop USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL at the all-in price, print from your phone or a thermal printer, and let signed webhooks push tracking back without anyone watching for it.
1
Any order shape in
Store sync, API, email, or a photo
maya_boutique
Hey! 2x hoodies (M) 1x tee (L) 😅 Ship to: Maya R. Austin, TX 78701
Shopify
Synced into To Ship
TikTok Shop
Synced into To Ship
Order screenshot
- Order
- #1847
- Customer
- Jordan Lee
- Items
- 1x Hoodie (L)
- Address
- Brooklyn, NY
Drop the screenshot or paste the order
Connectors, REST API, emails, and screenshots — one queue, no import mapping.
2 Billy AI
The data entry you would otherwise do yourself.
- Reads an email, a DM, a voice note, or a screenshot
- Fills the addresses and the package details
- Rate-shops USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL at the all-in price
- Hands the drafted label back for you to confirm
Drafted. Checked. Yours to confirm.
3
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
No monthly minimum to print, and no platform fee stacked on the carrier rate.
Small businesses rarely sell in one place.
Connectors for the storefronts, AI for the side doors.
Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and TikTok Shop sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print — table stakes for any shipping tool. What a small business also needs is the other half: the wholesale order that came by email, the market-stall sale, the repeat customer who just texts you. Paste it or screenshot it and Billy builds the label with no connector involved.
Via AI tiles: an order that never became a record still becomes a label.
13 connected today 2 via AI 8 coming soon
Connected today 13 storefronts sync to To Ship
Shopify 
Etsy 
WooCommerce 
TikTok Shop 
Amazon 
eBay 
Squarespace 
Wix 
Walmart 
Square 
BigCommerce 
Magento 
Temu Coming soon Shopify Plus Soon 
Zapier Soon 
NetSuite Soon 
Ecwid Soon 
Shein Soon 
ChannelAdvisor Soon 
SkuVault Soon 
Zoho Inventory Soon
Shopify Plus Soon Zapier Soon NetSuite Soon Ecwid Soon Shein Soon ChannelAdvisor Soon SkuVault Soon Zoho Inventory Soon What a small business is actually buying. The carrier rate, and then nothing.
The carrier rate, and then nothing.
That is the whole pitch.
A shipping tool earns its place by lowering the total number you pay, not by adding a dashboard. Here the rate-shopped carrier price is the entire charge, the wallet replaces the subscription, and the AI that drafts your labels is on the free plan rather than behind a tier.
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 method buys identical rates, carriers, and features. Void a shipment and the credit lands back in the wallet, ready to spend on the next parcel.
Wallet balance
$1,247.36 USD
AI
AI drafting included
on the free plan
Billy reads an email, a DM, a voice note, or a screenshot and drafts the whole label. For a business where the owner is also the shipping department, that is the difference between an evening of typing and a confirm tap.
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 monthly minimum
to print
Fund the wallet, pay per label, and ship nothing in February without paying for February. Small-business volume is lumpy by nature, and a prepaid balance absorbs that where a subscription tier does not.
Shipment summary
UPS Ground $12.49
Insurance $0.75
Fuel surcharge $0.32
Total $13.56
USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
in one quote
Live all-in rates side by side, and the number you see is the exact amount that leaves your balance. That is the honest carrier list — if you need one outside it, Shippo's broader network is a real reason to stay. Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and TikTok Shop sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print, but a connector is never a prerequisite for printing a label.
Compare rates
UPS $12.48 FedEx $13.22 DHL $14.10 USPS $11.79
Duties & taxes paid
A real API,
not a paid add-on
REST and JSON, one Bearer header, idempotency keys so a retry cannot double-buy a label, and signed webhooks for tracking and label events. Unlimited calls on every plan, so a small business that later hires a developer does not hit a new invoice.
POST /v1/shipments
{
"to" : { "name" : "Maya" },
"from" : { "name" : "Alex" },
"service" : "ups_ground" ,
"label_format" : "pdf"
}
Webhook delivered
Label ready
CL-1038 · Brooklyn, NY
Shipping happens between everything else
The whole workflow fits in one hand.
Small-business shipping does not happen at a desk. It happens at a folding table with a phone, between a customer call and a supply run. Everything that matters here — the four quotes, the confirm, the print — works from the device already in your hand.
Paste the order, snap the packing slip, 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, FedEx, and DHL come back as four all-in prices on one screen.
Buy from the prepaid balance and one-tap print to a share sheet or a thermal printer over Wi-Fi.
Hold the mic at the packing table and say the address — Billy drafts it and reads the rate back.
The assistant that doesn't cost extra
Ask about a parcel instead of hunting for it.
Where is the Tuesday order, did the Austin one deliver, what did I pay to ship it — the questions that eat a small-business afternoon. Hold the mic and ask. Billy looks up the buyer, rate-shops USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL when you need a new label, and queues it against your prepaid balance, then answers for it afterwards. This is the real product, not a render.
goatlabels.io/dashboard/shipments — Billy
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.
All-in quotes
The quote is the debit.
Three carriers on the same parcel, each an all-in number that is the exact amount leaving your prepaid balance. For a small business reconciling by hand, that matters more than it sounds: nothing arrives the day after with an adjustment on it, and voiding a shipment credits the wallet rather than a card statement three weeks out.
US → DE 2.6 lbs 12×8×4 in
Best balance
FedEx
Intl Connect Plus
3–5 days$22.80
$11.00 of taxes & duties included
all-in · no surprises
DHL
Express Worldwide
1–2 days$26.20
$12.20 of taxes & duties included
all-in · no surprises
No carrier invoice the day after Void → credit back to the wallet you funded Multi-currency display
Public API v1
Room to grow without a new invoice.
REST, JSON, one Bearer header. Real idempotency keys so a retried request cannot double-buy a label, signed webhooks for tracking and label events instead of polling, and errors that name what to fix. It is unlimited on every plan, so the day your small business automates something is not the day your bill changes.
Create, rate-shop, and buy — three calls, no SDK required
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 POST /api/v1/shipments
Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…
Idempotency-Key: ord_8421
{
"to": { "name": "Joyce", "city": "Berlin", "country": "DE" },
"parcel": { "weight": 1.2, "weight_unit": "kg" },
"service": "fedex_intl_priority"
}
No plan to clear first
No plan to clear first.
Free covers 50 shipments a month with the public API, the store connectors, and Billy all unlimited underneath it — we make a little on each label instead. Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments, cheaper label pricing, and Billy on Telegram: the plan for the season a small business grows into, not a toll on the season it doesn't. Neither one is a minimum you have to hit before a label prints.
Pro
Most popular $40 / month
Unlimited shipments — no monthly cap
Cheaper label pricing that scales down as your volume grows
Billy AI on Telegram — draft a label without opening the dashboard
API access still free and unlimited
Volume pricing
illustrative less volume more volume
more volume → lower per-label rates
Free
$0 / forever
Enough to run a real small business without a subscription under it.
50 shipments a month, no monthly minimum to print
USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL rate-shopped on every parcel
The full REST API with unlimited calls and signed webhooks
Billy AI in the web app, unlimited — paste, screenshot, or speak
Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and TikTok Shop sync included
Billy is not a paid tier
The assistant that reads an email, 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
On Pro we will work with you to beat the label rates you are already getting from
ShippoPirateShipShipStation No contracts No monthly minimum to print Start in seconds
Label prices are quoted live from USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL and shown as one all-in number — the same number that leaves your wallet. Shippo's plans and fees move, so compare against their current pricing page rather than a figure on ours. Full pricing details
Which small businesses this fits
Lumpy volume is the whole reason.
If your order count is the same every week, a subscription can be a fine deal. These are the businesses whose weeks are not the same — and for whom a prepaid wallet is simply the cheaper shape.
Seasonal and drop-driven sellers
TikTok Shop & live commerce
Volume that arrives in bursts fits a prepaid wallet better than a plan. Pre-fund before a drop, print all night, then pay nothing at all through the quiet weeks after it.
4 carriers per quote no monthly minimum bulk print
goatlabels.io/dashboard/shipments
Shops that also sell off-platform
Etsy & independent creators
Connect the stores that have connectors, and handle the market stall, the wholesale email, and the friend-of-a-friend order in the same queue as everything else.
One queue, connector or not
Order #1024 · pasted from an email
Owner-operators doing every job
No one to hand data entry to
got the dress! can you ship to Austin?
Label drafted · CL-1024
Small teams with one technical person
REST and the UI, one balance
1
wallet behind the API and the dashboard
Real sellers, real words
Small businesses that stopped paying for the months they didn't ship.
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
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
The API is what every shipping API pretends to be. Idempotency that actually works.
Sasha R.
Staff engineer, marketplace
Shippo alternative for small business — FAQ
- What is the best Shippo alternative for a small business?
- It comes down to whether your shipping volume is steady enough to carry a subscription. GoatLabels is built for the case where it is not: there is no monthly minimum to print, the rate-shopped carrier price is the only charge, and USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL are quoted side by side on every parcel. If your volume is high and predictable, a negotiated plan elsewhere may still win — compare against Shippo's current pricing page.
- Is there a per-label fee on GoatLabels?
- No. What leaves your prepaid wallet is the rate-shopped carrier price for that parcel and nothing else. There is no platform fee layered on top, so the quote you approve and the debit you see are identical.
- Do I have to pay monthly to print labels?
- No. The Free plan covers 50 shipments a month with the full REST API, the store connectors, and Billy AI unlimited underneath it. Pro is an optional flat plan for months when volume makes cheaper label pricing worth it — it is never a gate you must clear before a label prints.
- Which carriers can a small business compare here?
- USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, quoted live as all-in rates on each parcel. That is the honest list, and it is the same list on every plan — rate shopping is not held behind a tier.
- Is the AI assistant an upsell?
- No. Billy runs unlimited in the web app on the Free plan. Paste an order, drop a screenshot, or speak it, and Billy fills the addresses and package details and rate-shops all four carriers before you confirm. Pro adds Billy on Telegram, which is convenience rather than capability.
- Can I try GoatLabels without leaving Shippo?
- Yes, and it is the sensible way to compare. Keep your existing setup, fund a small wallet balance here, and run the next handful of parcels through both. With no monthly minimum on this side, the overlap costs you only the labels you actually buy.
- What happens to my money if I stop shipping for a while?
- It stays in your wallet. A prepaid balance is not a subscription — nothing draws it down except a label you buy, and if you void an unused label the funds return to the same balance for immediate reuse.
Want the head-to-head instead? Read GoatLabels vs Shippo, see what a per-label fee costs at volume, or read how label pricing works here.
Test it against one real parcel before you decide.
Keep the four carriers.
Drop the monthly floor.
Fund a wallet with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, run the next order your business takes through Billy, and compare the all-in USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL rate against what you were about to pay.
Sign up in seconds. No card required. No monthly minimum.