What do I give up choosing free software over Shippo?

Mainly carrier breadth and the surrounding ecosystem. Shippo rate-shops a wider carrier network and has a long tail of platform integrations. If your parcels move on USPS, UPS, FedEx, or DHL, you give up very little — and you drop the per-label platform fee in the process.

Is the API locked behind a paid plan?

No. The REST API is free with unlimited calls on every plan, including Free. Bearer auth, JSON in and out, idempotency keys so a retry cannot double-buy a label, and signed webhooks for tracking and label events instead of polling.

How does GoatLabels make money if labels have no platform fee?

On the label itself. We buy at negotiated carrier pricing and keep a small margin inside the all-in rate you are quoted, rather than charging a separate fee per label or a monthly minimum. Pro exists for higher volume and cheaper label pricing, and remains optional.

What happens to a label I bought but never shipped?

Void it and the funds return to your prepaid wallet, available immediately for the next label. There is no separate refund queue to watch and no waiting for a credit to reappear on a card statement.

Can free software handle a real order volume?

Up to 50 shipments a month the Free plan is the whole product. Above that, Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments and cheaper label pricing — a plan you take because volume made it worth it, not a gate that stops labels printing.

Can I run both while I evaluate?

Yes. Keep your current setup, fund a small balance here, and put the next few parcels through both. Since there is no monthly minimum on this side, the only cost of the comparison is the labels you actually buy.

Paid tiers vs a free plan that isn't stripped.

Shippo vs free shipping software

Same job. One of them bills per label.

Free shipping software like GoatLabels matches Shippo's core features — four carriers, rate shopping, API — without per-label fees, and adds void-to-wallet refunds and an AI assistant.

Create your account Log in

Four carriers on the free plan

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL — rate shopping is not the paid upgrade here.

all quoted

No label fee Carrier price only.

Quote = debit No day-after invoice.

API on Free Unlimited calls.

A prepaid wallet, not a paid tier

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto — and voids credit straight back.

Prepaid Spent label by label.

No minimum A quiet month costs nothing.

Void → wallet Respend immediately.

Side by side

What you actually give up going free from Shippo.

The honest answer is carrier breadth and ecosystem, not core capability. Everything else on this row list is either equal or moves in the free tool's favour.

	GoatLabels	Shippo
Cost to print a label	The rate-shopped carrier price, and nothing on top of it.	Carrier price plus a per-label platform fee, tier-dependent.
Carriers rate-shopped	USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL on the free plan, not a paid unlock.	Broad multi-carrier list — see their site for current coverage.
API access	Full REST API, unlimited calls, free plan included.	Mature, well-documented API — this is their home turf.
Unused label refunds	Void credits the prepaid wallet and the funds are respendable at once.	Refunds run through the carrier's own refund cycle.
AI assistance	Billy drafts labels from a DM, screenshot, or voice note — unlimited on Free.	Not part of the product.
What 'free' means	50 shipments a month with every feature on; we earn on the label, not a fee.	A starter tier exists — check what it includes today.

Shippo is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels. Their tiers, fees, and carrier list change — compare against their current pricing page before you decide.

Three reasons free wins this comparison.

Free here is not a stripped tier

Most free shipping software means a demo with the useful parts locked. On GoatLabels the free plan carries all four carriers, the full API, the store connectors, and Billy — the limit is 50 shipments a month, not the feature list.

A per-label fee is the whole comparison

Feature grids make Shippo and free software look close, because on the core job they are. The difference lives in a small number multiplied by every parcel you will ever ship, and multiplication does not stay small.

You gain two things instead of losing them

Going free normally costs you capability. Here it adds some: void-to-wallet credit you can respend immediately, and an AI assistant that turns a DM or a screenshot into a drafted label.

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.
You depend on a Shippo integration, workflow, or partner feature that has no equivalent here yet.
Your volume and negotiated terms genuinely land below plain carrier rates — then their plan is doing real work for you.

What the free plan actually runs

The whole pipeline, not the trial version of it.

Free shipping software usually means the pipeline works until the interesting part, then asks for a card. This one runs end to end on the free plan. Orders arrive from a Shopify or Etsy sync, from the REST API, or as a message you paste, and every route lands 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 — unlimited, on Free, not metered per draft. Every label is a debit against a prepaid wallet topped up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, and the debit is the rate-shopped carrier price with no platform fee stacked on it. Rate-shop USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL at the all-in price, print from your phone or a thermal printer, and let signed webhooks and idempotency keys cover the same events on the API side.

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

TikTok Shop

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 — all included on the free plan.

2 Billy AI

An assistant that is not the paid upgrade.

Reads a DM, comment thread, voice note, or 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.

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

The carrier rate is the entire debit — there is no per-label platform fee underneath it.

Integrations that aren't a paid tier.

Connectors for the storefronts, AI for everything else.

Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and TikTok Shop sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print — included, not unlocked. The part free software normally cannot do at all is the rest: paste an Instagram or Facebook DM, or a screenshot of one, and Billy builds the label without a connector existing.

Via AI tiles: an order that never became a record still becomes a label.

maya_boutique

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

Label ready

$12.47

13 connected today 2 via AI 8 coming soon

Connect a store Or use the API

Connected today 13 storefronts sync to To Ship

Shopify

Etsy

WooCommerce

TikTok Shop

Amazon

eBay

Squarespace

Wix

Walmart

Square

BigCommerce

Magento

Temu

Via AI

Instagram AI

Facebook AI

DM and screenshot parsing — the AI builds the label.

Coming soon

Shopify Plus Soon

Zapier Soon

NetSuite Soon

Ecwid Soon

Shein Soon

ChannelAdvisor Soon

SkuVault Soon

Zoho Inventory Soon

Feature parity, minus the fee.

Everything the paid tier does.
Without the per-label charge.

The comparison only gets interesting once the feature grids match, and on the core job they do: four carriers, rate shopping, a real API, store sync. What is left is what each side charges for it — and two things free software here has that the paid tier does not.

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, spendable on the next label.

Wallet balance

$1,247.36 USD

AI drafting that
costs nothing extra

A DM, a comment thread, a voice note, a screenshot — Billy reads any of them and drafts the whole label. It runs unlimited on the free plan, which makes it the rare case of the cheaper tool doing more rather than less.

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. Pro is an optional flat plan for when volume makes cheaper label pricing worth it — not a gate on printing at all.

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 the reason to stay. Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, and TikTok Shop sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print, and none of that sits behind an upgrade.

Compare rates

UPS $12.48

FedEx $13.22

DHL $14.10

USPS $11.79

Duties & taxes paid

The API is free
and unlimited

REST and JSON, one Bearer header, idempotency keys so a retry cannot double-buy a label, and signed webhooks for tracking and label events instead of polling. On free software the API is usually the first thing gated — here it is not gated at all.

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 free normally can't do

A DM screenshot is a valid order input.

Free shipping tools tend to assume a tidy order feed, because parsing anything messier costs money to build. That is exactly the gap Billy fills: the message itself is the input, handled on the phone already in your hand, on the plan that costs nothing.

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, 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.

Included, not upsold

Talk to Billy, on the plan that costs nothing.

Voice is normally the flagship feature of an enterprise tier. Hold the mic, say who the parcel is going to, and Billy looks up the buyer, rate-shops USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, and queues the label against your prepaid balance — then answers questions about 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.

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. No platform fee is appended after you approve it, 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

USPS

Priority Mail Intl

10–15 days

$18.30

$10.00 of taxes & duties included

all-in · no surprises

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

Free software with a paid-tier API.

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. Unlimited calls on Free, because metering the API is just a per-label fee wearing a different hat.

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": 1.2, "weight_unit": "kg" },
  "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 }
}

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 of charging a fee for one. Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments, cheaper label pricing, and Billy on Telegram: something you buy because volume earned it. Neither one is a minimum you have to hit before a label prints.

Pro

Free

$0 / forever

A free plan measured in shipments, not in missing features.

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

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

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 tiers and fees move, so compare against their current pricing page rather than a figure on ours. Full pricing details

Who should actually go free

Free is right for most, not for everyone.

If the four carriers cover your parcels, free software is simply the cheaper way to do the same job. These are the shapes of business where that is most obviously true — and the exceptions are named on this page too.

Seasonal and drop-driven sellers

TikTok Shop & live commerce

Prepaid

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 shipments queue with purchased labels

Shops that also sell off-platform

Etsy & independent creators

Connect the stores that have connectors, and handle the market stall, the comment sale, and the friend-of-a-friend order in the same queue as everything else.

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 refuse a metered API

REST and the UI, one balance

wallet behind the API and the dashboard

Real sellers, real words

Sellers who found out free wasn't the stripped option.

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