No. Stamps.com has no free plan: after a 30-day trial it bills a monthly subscription, Basic at $14.99 a month, Professional at $29.99 a month or Multi-Location from $49.99 a month, and postage is paid on top. GoatLabels has no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month).

Is there a free Stamps.com account or plan?

No. The Stamps.com pricing page, checked October 23, 2026, lists three paid plans and no free plan or free account tier. The only free period is the 30-day trial, after which the plan you chose starts billing monthly.

What does the Stamps.com free trial include?

Stamps.com does not charge the subscription during its 30-day trial, and its pricing page also lists free postage and supplies on sign-up without stating an amount. Postage you buy is paid from your account balance, and unless you cancel before the trial ends the plan bills monthly from your original sign-up date.

Where does GoatLabels make money if the software is free?

On the labels. We earn a small margin on each label bought from your prepaid wallet, which is why Free has no monthly fee for up to 50 shipments a month and why the API and the store connectors are unlimited on Free. Past 50 shipments a month, Pro is one flat $40 monthly plan with unlimited shipments.

What is the catch with the free tier?

The ceiling is 50 shipments a month, and above that you need Pro, a flat $40 a month. The core workflow is not clipped: USPS, UPS and FedEx rate shopping (DHL on international lanes), the full REST API, the signed webhooks and Billy in the web app are the same on Free and Pro. Pro adds unlimited shipments, Billy on Telegram, unlimited address validation, PrintNode auto-print and the Operations hub for stock, pick lists and purchase orders.

Do I get fewer carriers by not paying a subscription?

The opposite is the point of this comparison. Every domestic shipment is quoted against USPS, UPS and FedEx at the same time (DHL on international lanes), with the delivery window next to each all-in price, so you choose per parcel from all-in prices on one screen.

How do refunds work without a postage account?

Void the shipment and, after the carrier accepts the void, the amount is credited back to the same prepaid wallet it left, so the money returns to the balance you already control rather than waiting on a separate postage ledger.

How does the pricing actually compare to Stamps.com?

Compare two things separately: the software fee and the label price. GoatLabels' software fee is zero and the label price is the live all-in carrier rate. Stamps.com's plan prices, with the date we checked them, are in the dated facts on this page; they move, so confirm on their pricing page before you decide.

Can I try it without cancelling anything first?

Yes. Open a free account, fund the wallet with as little as you like, and buy one label against a parcel you were about to ship anyway. Nothing has to be torn out to run the comparison, and Free has no monthly fee for up to 50 shipments a month, so the overlap stays cheap.

Paid postage software vs free.

Stamps.com vs free shipping software

The fee stopped buying more carriers.

Free platforms now match a paid Stamps.com plan on the major carriers: GoatLabels rate-shops USPS, UPS and FedEx on every domestic parcel and DHL on international lanes, with no monthly fee on the Free plan, up to 50 shipments a month.

Create your account Log in

Four carriers, no plan behind them

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 prepaid wallet, not a monthly fee

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

Prepaid Spent label by label.

No minimum A quiet month on Free costs nothing.

Accepted voids credited Back to the balance.

Is Stamps.com free? What it costs in 2026

Stamps.com is not free, and it has no free plan. After a 30-day trial it bills a monthly subscription from your sign-up date: Basic at $14.99 a month, Professional at $29.99 a month and Multi-Location from $49.99 a month. Postage, carrier services and add-ons such as insurance are charged on top of the plan fee. Checked October 23, 2026 on stamps.com/pricing.

Stamps.com plans and monthly fees, checked October 23, 2026
Plan	Monthly fee	Monthly limits	Who it is for
Basic	$14.99 a month	Up to 25 stamps and 10 shipping labels a month	Individuals and small offices; 1 user
Professional	$29.99 a month	Unlimited stamps and labels	Busy offices; 3 users
Multi-Location	From $49.99 a month	Unlimited stamps and labels	Organizations with multiple locations; 10 users per location, 2 locations included

What the fee adds to each label at your volume is in Stamps.com's monthly fee, explained. GoatLabels has no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), and Pro is a flat $40 a month.

Side by side

What the monthly fee still buys on Stamps.com.

The honest way to run this comparison is to separate the software fee from the postage price, then ask what the fee is buying that a free platform now withholds. On what a dead month costs and on what the free tier includes, the answer has changed.

	GoatLabels (free)	Stamps.com
Cost of the software itself	Nothing on Free, which includes 50 shipments a month; past that, Pro is one flat monthly fee.	A monthly plan from Basic up. Current plan prices are in the dated facts below.
Carriers rate-shopped per parcel	USPS, UPS and FedEx quoted side by side as all-in prices; DHL on international lanes.	UPS, USPS, FedEx and DHL Express with a rate comparison tool, and international carriers from the Professional plan up.
What a month with no orders costs	Zero on Free, where the prepaid wallet only moves when a label is bought.	A subscription bills whether or not you shipped.
How you pay for postage	Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH bank transfer, or crypto into one prepaid balance.	Postage account plus recurring software billing.
Voids and refunds	Void a label and, after the carrier accepts the void, the credit lands back in the wallet you funded.	An electronic refund request per unused label; approved refunds return to the Stamps.com balance.
API access	REST and JSON, Bearer auth, idempotency keys, signed webhooks — unlimited on every plan, including Free.	A REST API (SERA) with OAuth 2.0 and idempotency keys, acting on a signed-in Stamps.com account; its reference lists no webhooks.

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

Three things "free" has to prove before it beats a paid plan.

"Free" here means a real plan up to 50 shipments a month, not a crippled tier

The word free does a lot of work in this category, so be specific about what it buys. On GoatLabels the free tier rate-shops USPS, UPS and FedEx (DHL on international lanes), runs the full REST API with unlimited calls, syncs orders from connected stores (Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix), and runs Billy unlimited in the web app. What Stamps.com charges a monthly fee to unlock is simply not behind a gate here.

More carriers, not fewer, without the fee

The old assumption was that free software meant one carrier and a stripped feature set. Every domestic parcel here is quoted against USPS, UPS and FedEx at once (DHL on international lanes), as all-in numbers on one screen, so the cheapest service wins on the parcel rather than on the loyalty of your account.

Orders that arrive as messages

Stamps.com is built around printing postage and labels for an office, in its web app, PC software and mobile apps. Drafting a label from a pasted DM, a screenshot, or a spoken address is the part GoatLabels adds, and for a seller whose orders arrive as messages, that is most of the working day.

And when Stamps.com is the right choice

You depend on a carrier or a 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.
Your workflow is wired into a hardware scale, meter, or desktop client you have no intention of replacing.
You have accounting or franchise processes built on Stamps.com reports that would cost more to rebuild than the subscription costs to keep.

Stock tools are not on Free: the Operations hub, with stock per warehouse, pick lists and purchase orders to your suppliers, is on Pro at a flat $40 a month, with no separate add-on fee.

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.

What free actually runs

A full shipping pipeline. With no plan sitting in front of it.

Free here is not a trial of the workflow, it is the workflow. Orders arrive from any of Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay or Wix, from the REST API, or as a pasted DM or screenshot, and land in the same To Ship queue. Billy fills in the addresses, the package details, and the service, then hands the draft back for you to confirm. Every label is a debit against a prepaid wallet topped up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, so on Free (up to 50 shipments a month) a month with no orders costs nothing at all rather than costing a subscription. 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, no desktop client to install.

Billy AI

The drafting step a postage plan never included.

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 subscription to clear first on Free. Signed webhooks push tracking back to the store and to your stack.

Where your orders actually come from.

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, included on the free tier, not sold as an integrations add-on. The rest is the part postage software never covered: paste an Instagram or Facebook DM, or a screenshot of one, and Billy builds the label without a connector existing at all.

Shopify

Etsy

WooCommerce

eBay

Wix

Connect a store Or use the API

What a paid plan implied you'd have to pay for.

The feature list is not the paywall.
Volume is: Pro past 50 a month.

When people ask whether free shipping software matches Stamps.com, they mean: what got cut to make it free? Here is the answer, item by item — four carriers, an unlimited API, store sync, AI drafting, and a prepaid wallet, none of them behind a plan.

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, 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 included
on the free tier

A DM, a comment thread, a voice note, a screenshot — Billy reads any of them and drafts the whole label. It is unlimited in the web app on Free, because the assistant is the product rather than an upsell tier.

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 fee
to print

Fund the wallet, pay per label, and ship nothing in February without paying for February. Free covers 50 shipments a month; past that, Pro is one flat monthly plan with unlimited shipments.

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. That is the honest carrier list, if you need a service outside it, Stamps.com's postage-centric coverage is the reason to stay. Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix sync into To Ship and push tracking 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 inside the quote where DDP applies

The API that legacy
integrations charged for

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, and the dashboard and the API buy from the same balance.

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

Free where it matters: on your phone

No desktop client, no meter, no install.

Postage software was designed around a machine on a desk. If your packing table is a kitchen counter and your order queue is a phone, the subscription is paying for an architecture you never use. Everything here runs in the browser you already have open.

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

No software to install and no meter to lease: the browser is the client.

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.

The feature no postage plan sells

Talk to Billy, not to a postage client.

This is the part of the comparison that has no equivalent column. 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. It is included on Free, and it is the real product rather than 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 lease · 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.

Three carriers on the same parcel, each an all-in number that is the exact amount leaving your prepaid balance. The software fee is not folded into it because Free has no software fee for up to 50 shipments a month, and an accepted void credits the wallet rather than sitting on a postage account until the next cycle.

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 plan that still ships a real API.

The API is the clearest place the old paid-versus-free assumption breaks. 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 on Free, not metered into an upgrade.

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

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 — 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. Neither one is a minimum you have to hit before a label prints.

Pro

Free

$0 / forever

A real shipping platform with no subscription under it.

50 shipments a month, no monthly fee to print

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 to print 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 wins by dropping the fee

Free is not better for everybody.

These are the sellers for whom a subscription is the single worst-fitting part of their shipping stack — spiky volume, off-platform orders, and small teams who never used the desktop half of what they were paying for.

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 and print all night; on Free (up to 50 shipments a month) the quiet weeks after cost nothing.

4 carriers in one account no monthly fee 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 postage software never saw

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 stopped paying for the software itself.

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