Is there a monthly fee if I only ship occasionally?

No. There is no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), so a month in which you ship nothing costs nothing. You fund a prepaid wallet and each label is a debit against it — the account itself is free to hold whether you use it weekly or twice a year.

What is the cheapest way to ship a few parcels a month?

Stop paying for the software and start rate-shopping the parcel. Every domestic shipment here is quoted against USPS, UPS and FedEx at once as all-in prices (DHL on international lanes), and at low volume the difference between the right carrier and the default one can be larger than any plan discount would have been.

Can I use this for one-off or seasonal shipping?

That is exactly the case this page is about. Load the wallet before the parcels you know are coming, print them, and let the balance sit until next time. Nothing lapses, nothing expires into a plan, and there is no reactivation step when you come back.

Do I have to load a large minimum into the wallet?

No. Top up roughly what the next batch of labels will cost — the wallet is a prepaid balance, not a deposit or a commitment, and you can only ever spend what you have loaded.

What happens if I void a label I bought by mistake?

Void the shipment and, after the carrier accepts the void, the amount is credited back to the same wallet it left. For a low-volume shipper that matters more than it sounds: the money returns to a balance you control instead of waiting out a refund cycle on a separate postage account.

Do I need to connect a store?

No. Store connectors, Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix, sync into the To Ship queue if you have them, but plenty of occasional shippers connect nothing at all and simply paste the order, drop a screenshot, or type the address.

At what volume would a subscription start making sense?

When you ship more than 50 a month, which is Free's cap. If you are shipping a handful of parcels a month, you are nowhere near that line, and any per-month fee is money spent on the months you did not ship.

Low-volume shipping.

Occasional shipping without a Stamps.com subscription

Pay per label. Nothing renews on Free.

If you ship a handful of parcels a month, GoatLabels' pay-per-label wallet beats any subscription: the monthly cost of shipping nothing is zero.

Create your account Log in

USPS, UPS and FedEx on every domestic parcel

DHL on international lanes. Live all-in rates, no monthly fee on Free, up to 50 shipments a month.

DHL: international

Live quotes One all-in price each.

Quote = debit No day-after invoice.

Same via API Free on every plan.

A balance you top up, not a bill that arrives

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto — one prepaid balance.

Prepaid Spent label by label.

Nothing renews on Free Idle costs nothing.

Accepted voids credited Back to the balance.

Low volume, side by side

What does a quiet month cost on GoatLabels versus Stamps.com?

Feature comparisons are the wrong lens at this volume. The only number that decides it is what happens in the months you barely ship — because for an occasional shipper, those are most of the months.

	GoatLabels	A monthly plan
A month with two parcels	You pay for two labels. That is the entire bill.	Two labels plus the subscription, whatever it is that month.
A month with no parcels	Nothing leaves the wallet, because nothing was bought.	The plan renews regardless of whether you shipped.
Coming back after a long gap	Log in, top up, print. Nothing lapsed while you were away.	Re-subscribe, or keep paying through the gap to avoid it.
Carriers quoted on each parcel	USPS, UPS and FedEx side by side as all-in prices; DHL on international lanes.	UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL Express on Stamps.com, with international carriers from the Professional plan up.
Money sitting with the provider	Only what you chose to load, and accepted voids credit back to it.	A postage account balance plus the recurring software charge.
Cost of keeping the account open	Zero on Free. An idle Free account costs nothing to hold.	Holding the account is the thing that costs money.

Stamps.com is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels. Their plans and terms change — compare against their current pricing page before you decide.

Why do low-frequency shippers drop the plan?

Per-month pricing punishes exactly your pattern

A subscription is a bet that you will ship enough to amortise it. Sell a few pieces a month, ship for a client twice a quarter, or fulfil an invoice when a customer finally approves it, and the bet loses every time. Pay-per-label has no minimum to amortise: the arithmetic of a slow month is simply the labels you bought.

A balance you top up, not a bill that arrives

Fund the wallet with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfer, or crypto, and spend it label by label. On Free nothing renews or auto-charges, so the account can sit untouched for months and cost nothing to keep; Pro, needed past 50 shipments a month, cancels anytime.

Occasional shipping is where the AI earns its keep

The infrequent shipper is the one who has forgotten where everything is since last time. Paste the order, drop a screenshot, or say the address out loud and Billy drafts the whole label — no re-learning a postage client you last opened in the spring.

And when Stamps.com is the right choice

Your volume has quietly grown to the point where a flat plan is genuinely cheaper — at that point compare Pro, or a Stamps.com plan, against your real label count.
You need a carrier or specialised USPS service GoatLabels doesn't rate-shop: our carriers are USPS, UPS and FedEx on domestic parcels and DHL on international lanes, and that is the honest list.
You are already tied to a meter or desktop client for other reasons and the shipping is incidental to it.

What Stamps.com's own pages say, checked 2026-10-23

Stamps.com lists Basic at $14.99 a month for individuals and small offices, with 1 user and up to 25 stamps and 10 shipping labels a month; Professional at $29.99 a month for busy offices, with 3 users and unlimited stamps and labels; and Multi-Location from $49.99 a month for organizations with multiple locations, with unlimited stamps and labels, 10 users per location and 2 locations included. (Stamps.com pricing)
Stamps.com does not charge the subscription during its 30-day trial; after it, the subscription bills monthly from the original sign-up date unless you cancel first, and postage, carrier services and add-ons such as insurance are charged on top of it. (Stamps.com pricing)
Postage comes out of a prepaid account balance, topped up by at least $10 at a time or by an auto-fund setting that buys more when the balance falls to a level you choose. (Stamps.com Help: Fund Your Account Balance)
Stamps.com says it supports UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL Express, with international carriers listed from the Professional plan up. (Stamps.com pricing)
Its SERA REST API signs in with OAuth 2.0, accepts an Idempotency-Key header on POST calls, publishes an OpenAPI specification and offers a staging environment with no service or transaction fees. (Stamps.com/Endicia REST API (SERA) reference)
An unused label with tracking is refunded through an electronic request, due within 28 days of printing for USPS and 30 days for UPS and DHL, and approved refunds return to the Stamps.com account balance within 21 days. (Stamps.com Help: Request a Label Refund)
Refund Assist, a setting you switch on, files refund requests for USPS labels not scanned within 21 days of printing and credits part of the approved refund to the account balance. (Stamps.com Help: Refund Assist)
You can cancel by phone with the Customer Care Center, Monday to Friday 6am to 6pm Pacific Time, or online under My Account, Manage Account, Account Settings, Change/Cancel Plan, then the close-account link. (Stamps.com: How to Cancel Your Account)
Stamps.com bills at the end of each billing cycle, so closing the account after the trial can still bring one more service fee plus any applicable taxes. (Stamps.com: How to Cancel Your Account)
After you close the account, the remaining postage balance is refunded within 4 to 8 weeks except promotional postage, and the subscription runs to the end of the current cycle with no refund for unused time. (Stamps.com Help: Close Your Account)

Checked on 2026-10-23 from Stamps.com's own pages. Plans, fees and policies change, so confirm on the vendor's current page before you decide. Stamps.com is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels.

Shipping twice a month

A pipeline that costs nothing when it is standing still.

Nothing here has to run continuously to earn its place. Orders arrive from any of Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay or Wix if you have them, from the REST API, or as a pasted message or screenshot when you simply have a parcel to send. Billy fills in the addresses, the package details, and the service, then hands the draft back for you to confirm — which matters most to the shipper who last did this six weeks ago. Every label is a debit against a prepaid wallet topped up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, so the months between parcels are free rather than billed. Rate-shop USPS, UPS and FedEx at the all-in price (DHL on international lanes), print from your phone or a thermal printer, and let signed webhooks and idempotency keys carry 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

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 none of it required to send one parcel.

Billy AI

For the parcel you send once in a while.

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

No monthly fee on Free, up to 50 shipments a month. Signed webhooks push tracking back to the store and to your stack.

Connect something, or connect nothing.

Connectors for the storefronts, AI for everything else.

Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print, but at a few parcels a month a connector is optional in the truest sense, plenty of people here have never set one up. Paste an Instagram or Facebook DM, or a screenshot of one, and Billy builds the label without any integration existing at all.

Shopify

Etsy

WooCommerce

eBay

Wix

Connect a store Or use the API

Everything a subscription implied you had to commit to.

A full shipping platform.
Priced by the parcel.

Occasional shipping usually means accepting a worse tool, because the good ones want a monthly commitment. Here the low-volume account is the same account as everyone else's: four carriers, the full API, store sync, AI drafting, and a prepaid balance.

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 you load only what the next parcels need. Void a shipment and, after the carrier accepts the void, the credit lands back in the wallet rather than in a separate postage ledger.

Wallet balance

$1,247.36 USD

AI drafting for the shipper
who is out of practice

A DM, a comment thread, a voice note, a screenshot — Billy reads any of them and drafts the whole label. When you ship twice a month, not having to remember the workflow is worth more than any feature list.

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...

The cost of a month
with no parcels is zero

Fund the wallet, pay per label, and let a dead month be genuinely free on Free, which covers 50 shipments a month. Past that, Pro is one flat $40 monthly plan with unlimited shipments; at a handful of parcels a month, it is not for you yet.

Shipment summary

UPS Ground $12.49

Insurance $0.75

Fuel surcharge $0.32

Total $13.56

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
in one account

Live all-in rates side by side, and the number you see is the exact amount that leaves your balance. At low volume this is where the real saving sits — one parcel routed to the right carrier beats a plan discount you would never have earned. That is the honest carrier list; if you need a service outside it, Stamps.com's postage-centric coverage is the reason to stay.

Compare rates

UPS $12.48

FedEx $13.22

DHL $14.10

USPS $11.79

Duties inside the quote where DDP applies

An API you can use
twice a month

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. Unlimited calls on Free — nobody meters your occasional script.

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

For the parcel on the kitchen table

No desktop client, no meter to lease.

Postage software assumes a shipping station that exists all year. If yours is a kitchen table twice a month, the plan is renting an architecture you never touch. Everything here runs in the browser and on the phone already in your hand.

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

Nothing to install and nothing to keep updated between parcels.

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.

Hold the mic at the packing table and say the address — Billy drafts it and reads the rate back.

Faster than remembering the workflow

Talk to Billy, not to a form you last saw in spring.

The tax on occasional shipping is re-learning the tool every time. 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 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 install and nothing to renew · reads the all-in rate back before a cent leaves the wallet · phone, browser, or Telegram on Pro.

All-in quotes

The quote is the debit.

USPS, UPS and FedEx on the same domestic parcel, each an all-in number that is the exact amount leaving your prepaid balance. When you only ship a few times a month, the saving lives here rather than in a plan discount, and an accepted void credits the wallet rather than opening a refund case.

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

Free and unlimited, even at two calls a month.

Low volume usually means the API is the first thing a provider takes away. Here it is not metered at all: REST, JSON, one Bearer header, real idempotency keys so a retried request cannot double-buy a label, signed webhooks instead of polling, and errors that name what to fix.

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 }
}

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 — well past what an occasional shipper will ever use, and the quoted label price is what you pay from a prepaid wallet. Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments, which is a plan to grow into rather than one to start on.

Pro

Free

$0 / forever

More than enough for a few parcels a month, at no cost.

50 shipments a month, no monthly 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 monthly fee Free to sign up

Label prices are quoted live from USPS, UPS and FedEx (plus DHL on international lanes) and shown as one all-in number — the same number that leaves your wallet. Stamps.com's plans move, so compare against their current pricing page rather than a figure on ours. Full pricing details

Who ships rarely, and why it matters

Low volume is a shape, not a stage.

Plenty of sellers never intend to ship daily — side businesses, made-to-order work, client fulfilment, seasonal drops. Per-month pricing treats all of them as customers who have not grown up yet; a prepaid wallet just charges them for parcels.

Seasonal and drop-driven sellers

TikTok Shop & live commerce

Prepaid

Volume that arrives twice a year fits a prepaid wallet better than a plan. Pre-fund before a drop and print all night; on Free (up to 50 shipments a month) the quiet months after cost nothing.

4 carriers in one account no monthly fee bulk print

GoatLabels shipments queue with purchased labels

Made-to-order and small-batch makers

Etsy & independent creators

When a parcel goes out because a piece finally finished, not because a queue filled up, the shipping tool should be idle and free in between — and ready the moment it is not.

One queue, connector or not

Order #1024 · pasted from a comment thread

Sellers living in the DMs

A parcel whenever someone asks

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

Sellers who ship when there is something to 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

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

Occasional shipping FAQ

Updated 2026-10-17

Is there a monthly fee if I only ship occasionally?: No. There is no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), so a month in which you ship nothing costs nothing. You fund a prepaid wallet and each label is a debit against it — the account itself is free to hold whether you use it weekly or twice a year.
What is the cheapest way to ship a few parcels a month?: Stop paying for the software and start rate-shopping the parcel. Every domestic shipment here is quoted against USPS, UPS and FedEx at once as all-in prices (DHL on international lanes), and at low volume the difference between the right carrier and the default one can be larger than any plan discount would have been.
Can I use this for one-off or seasonal shipping?: That is exactly the case this page is about. Load the wallet before the parcels you know are coming, print them, and let the balance sit until next time. Nothing lapses, nothing expires into a plan, and there is no reactivation step when you come back.
Do I have to load a large minimum into the wallet?: No. Top up roughly what the next batch of labels will cost — the wallet is a prepaid balance, not a deposit or a commitment, and you can only ever spend what you have loaded.
What happens if I void a label I bought by mistake?: Void the shipment and, after the carrier accepts the void, the amount is credited back to the same wallet it left. For a low-volume shipper that matters more than it sounds: the money returns to a balance you control instead of waiting out a refund cycle on a separate postage account.
Do I need to connect a store?: No. Store connectors, Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix, sync into the To Ship queue if you have them, but plenty of occasional shippers connect nothing at all and simply paste the order, drop a screenshot, or type the address.
At what volume would a subscription start making sense?: When you ship more than 50 a month, which is Free's cap. If you are shipping a handful of parcels a month, you are nowhere near that line, and any per-month fee is money spent on the months you did not ship.

Already on a plan? Switching from Stamps.com step by step times the move to your billing date, and how subscription billing works on Stamps.com explains why a prepaid balance behaves differently. For the per-label numbers, see how label pricing works. Weighing the fee itself? Read Stamps.com's monthly fee, explained or the Stamps.com alternative with no monthly fee.

Ship the one parcel you have today.

Pay for labels.
Never for the months between.

Fund a wallet with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, load only what the next parcels need, and compare the all-in USPS, UPS and FedEx rates (DHL on international lanes) before you buy.

Create your account Talk to us

No card required. No monthly fee on Free, up to 50 shipments a month.

Occasional shipping without a Stamps.com subscription

USPS, UPS and FedEx on every domestic parcel

A balance you top up, not a bill that arrives

What does a quiet month cost on GoatLabels versus Stamps.com?

Why do low-frequency shippers drop the plan?

Per-month pricing punishes exactly your pattern

A balance you top up, not a bill that arrives

Occasional shipping is where the AI earns its keep

And when Stamps.com is the right choice

What Stamps.com's own pages say, checked 2026-10-23

A pipeline that costs nothing when it is standing still.

For the parcel you send once in a while.

Connectors for the storefronts, AI for everything else.

A full shipping platform. Priced by the parcel.

One prepaid wallet, five ways to fund it

AI drafting for the shipper who is out of practice

The cost of a month with no parcels is zero

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL in one account

An API you can use twice a month

No desktop client, no meter to lease.

Talk to Billy, not to a form you last saw in spring.

The quote is the debit.

USPS

UPS

FedEx

Free and unlimited, even at two calls a month.

No plan to clear first.

Pro

Free

Billy is not a paid tier

API free on every plan

Bring the invoice you pay today

Low volume is a shape, not a stage.

Seasonal and drop-driven sellers

Made-to-order and small-batch makers

Sellers living in the DMs

Devs who want the dashboard too

Sellers who ship when there is something to ship.

Occasional shipping FAQ

Pay for labels. Never for the months between.

A full shipping platform.
Priced by the parcel.

One prepaid wallet,
five ways to fund it

AI drafting for the shipper
who is out of practice

The cost of a month
with no parcels is zero

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
in one account

An API you can use
twice a month

Pay for labels.
Never for the months between.