Is there anything to cancel before I switch?

No. Pirate Ship has no monthly fee and GoatLabels Free has none either, so there is no subscription to end and no contract to exit. You can leave the old account open indefinitely and use it whenever you want — you can run both for a few weeks and then simply stop opening one of them. If your Pirate Ship account still holds a balance, its Refund Credit button sends that balance back to your original payment method.

Do I have to migrate my data?

No. Past labels stay where they were bought, and nothing needs exporting first. If you sell on any of Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay or Wix, you connect the store here and orders start syncing into the To Ship queue — for store-synced sellers, that is the whole migration.

What actually improves after the switch?

Four things: FedEx joins USPS and UPS in every domestic quote and DHL quotes international lanes, Billy drafts labels from pasted text, screenshots, or voice instead of you typing them, a public REST API exists for automating any of it, and voided labels credit back to your prepaid wallet balance after the carrier accepts the void.

Does it cost more than what I pay now?

The pricing model is the same one: no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), fund a prepaid wallet, pay per label. Label prices are quoted live and shown as one all-in number, so the only fair comparison is quoting the same parcel in both tools — which costs nothing to do.

How long does the first label take?

Minutes. Create the account, top the wallet up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, paste or type the order, and buy the cheapest quote. There is no onboarding call, no carrier account to set up, and no approval to wait on.

Can I keep shipping on Pirate Ship while I test?

Yes, and it is the sensible way to do it. Because neither account has a monthly cost, running them in parallel is free — send a few real parcels through each and let the all-in numbers and the workflow decide rather than a comparison page.

What if I only ship USPS?

Then be honest with yourself about whether this switch is worth it. USPS is often the cheapest option on small domestic parcels, and if that describes everything you send, the extra carriers will rarely win. The switch pays off when your parcels vary — bulky, heavy, urgent, or international.

A migration that costs nothing either way.

Switching from Pirate Ship, step by step

Same pricing philosophy. More underneath it.

Moving from Pirate Ship costs nothing up front: GoatLabels Free has no subscription for up to 50 shipments a month, and it adds FedEx, DHL, Billy AI drafting, and an unlimited free API on top.

Create your account Log in

Two carriers come with you, two are new

USPS and UPS work exactly as you expect. FedEx joins every domestic quote; DHL joins on international lanes.

DHL: international

Live quotes Two carriers added.

Quote = debit No day-after invoice.

Same via API Dashboard or endpoint.

Still no subscription, still pay per label

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto fund one prepaid balance. Nothing to cancel on Free.

Prepaid Spent label by label.

No minimum A quiet month on Free costs nothing.

Accepted voids credited Back to the balance.

Before you move anything

What actually changes when you switch .

This is an unusually cheap migration, because there is no contract on either side and nothing to cancel. You are not trading a pricing model for capability — you are keeping the pricing model and adding the capability, and you can run both accounts side by side for as long as you like while you check that.

	GoatLabels	Pirate Ship
What it costs to keep both open	Nothing. No monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), so an idle account is free.	Also nothing, which is why running both in parallel is easy.
Carriers after the move	USPS (up to 70 lb), UPS and FedEx rate-shopped on domestic parcels; DHL on international lanes.	USPS and UPS.
Getting orders in	Store sync, REST API, pasted DM, voice note, or a screenshot Billy reads.	Manual entry, CSV, or a store connection.
Funding labels	One prepaid wallet topped up by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto.	Pay-as-you-go per label.
Refunds on a voided label	Credited back to the wallet balance after the carrier accepts the void, ready for the next label.	A refund request; once the carrier approves, the credit lands in your Pirate Ship balance.
Automation	Public REST API, unlimited calls, signed webhooks, idempotency keys.	No public API to build against.

Pirate Ship is a trademark of its owner and is not affiliated with GoatLabels. Their carrier lineup and rates change — check their current site before you decide.

The switch in three steps.

1. Fund a wallet, ship one parcel

Create the account and top the balance up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto — as little as one label's worth. Take the next order you were about to print and buy it here instead. That single parcel tells you more than any comparison table, because it is your box going to your buyer.

2. Compare the quotes against your habit

Look at what USPS, UPS and FedEx each want for that parcel, plus DHL if it is going abroad. If your usual carrier wins, that is useful information and you have lost nothing. If FedEx wins, or DHL on an international parcel, you have just found the parcels worth moving first.

3. Move the queue, not the history

Connect any of the store connectors you use (Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix), or just start pasting orders in. There is no data migration to perform — old labels stay where they were bought, and nothing needs to be exported before you stop using the other tool.

And when Pirate Ship is the right choice

Everything you ship is small, domestic, and already cheapest on USPS. The two extra carriers will not win parcels they cannot beat.
Your team knows the workflow, nothing is broken, and no parcel has made you wish for a third quote. A migration needs a reason.
You need a carrier neither of us rate-shops: our carriers are USPS, UPS and FedEx on domestic parcels and DHL on international lanes, and that is the honest list.

What Pirate Ship's own pages say, checked 2026-10-23

Pirate Ship's homepage says it has no monthly fees, markup or hidden costs, and that it is paid by the carriers, not by you. (pirateship.com)
It takes any credit or debit card, PayPal, Venmo or a linked bank account for ACH payments, charges only when you buy postage, and lets you preload an account balance. (Pirate Ship help: how do I pay for postage)
Its rates page lists pre-negotiated USPS and UPS discounts with no minimum volumes or commitments, and no FedEx or DHL services. (pirateship.com/rates)
For international parcels up to 20 lb it also sells Simple Export Rate: you hand the parcel to USPS on a domestic label addressed to an export sorting center, where it is relabeled for the recipient and tracked on the Asendia USA portal with an AHOY number. (Pirate Ship help: Simple Export Rate)
Its help center lists a 70 lb limit per USPS shipment and 150 lb per UPS shipment, except UPS Ground Saver at 70 lb. (Pirate Ship help: how shipping rates are calculated)
Its help center says Pirate Ship does not offer an API and points to its store integrations and spreadsheet uploads instead. (Pirate Ship help: does Pirate Ship have an API)
You can request a refund for an unused label within 28 days of buying it, and Pirate Ship requests it automatically if you forget. USPS can take up to 28 days after the request to approve it, typically about two weeks, while UPS takes about an hour; approved refunds go to your Pirate Ship account balance, and a Refund Credit button sends that balance back to your original payment method. (Pirate Ship help: label refunds)
Its integrations page lists Shopify, Etsy, eBay, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, Wix, Square, PayPal and several other stores, plus spreadsheet uploads. (Pirate Ship integrations)
Pirate Ship says it has helped people ship since 2014 and answers support by email or live chat, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. (pirateship.com)
Its help center says every USPS and UPS label comes with a tracking number at no extra cost, that you can see the latest tracking status in Pirate Ship, and that it can email the tracking number to your recipient automatically. (Pirate Ship help: do USPS and UPS services come with tracking numbers)

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

Switching from Pirate Ship

The same habit you already have. With more of it done for you.

Nothing about the day changes shape: an order arrives, you weigh the parcel, you look at a price, you print. What changes is what happens on either side of that. Orders no longer have to be typed in by hand — a store connector, an API call, a pasted DM, or a screenshot all land in the same To Ship queue, and Billy drafts the addresses, the parcel details, and the service. Then FedEx is priced beside USPS and UPS, with DHL on international lanes, each as one all-in number that is exactly what leaves your prepaid wallet. Fund the wallet with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, print from your phone or a thermal printer, and on Free (up to 50 shipments a month) let a slow month cost nothing at all.

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 import mapping and no data to migrate.

Billy AI

The typing you used to do by hand.

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

Cheapest all-in rate

$12.47

No monthly fee on Pirate Ship or on GoatLabels Free, so running both in parallel while you decide costs only the labels.

Reconnect what you had. Add what you didn't.

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, so a connected store takes minutes to re-point. The orders you used to key in by hand, the DM, the comment, the screenshot, go to Billy instead of to your keyboard.

Shopify

Etsy

WooCommerce

eBay

Wix

Connect a store Or use the API

What you keep, and what is strictly new.

Everything you liked about Pirate Ship.
Plus four things it didn't have.

No subscription on Free, pay per label, print and go: that is the part worth protecting and none of it changes. New on top: FedEx in every domestic quote and DHL on international lanes, AI drafting, a public API, and a wallet that credits accepted voids back.

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 waiting on a payment processor.

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. This is the manual typing step disappearing, which is usually the first thing people notice after the switch.

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

Most of the model you are switching to is the model you already have: no monthly fee on Free (50 shipments a month), fund the wallet, pay per label, and pay nothing in a month you ship nothing. Past 50 a month, Pro is one flat $40 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

USPS, UPS and FedEx come back as live all-in numbers on the same domestic parcel, with DHL on international lanes, and the one you pick is the exact amount that leaves your balance. USPS and UPS behave exactly as you are used to; FedEx and DHL are simply more competitors for the parcels where they would have won. Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Wix sync into To Ship and get tracking pushed back when you print, but a connector is never a prerequisite.

Compare rates

UPS $12.48

FedEx $13.22

DHL $14.10

USPS $11.79

Duties inside the quote where DDP applies

An API you never
had before

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. You do not have to use it — but it is there the day you want to automate something.

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

Day one, from your phone

The first label you buy here should take under a minute.

There is no onboarding to sit through and no import to plan. Fund the balance, put in a parcel, compare the prices, and print. If it does not feel faster than what you do now, you have spent a minute finding that out.

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

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.

Nothing to export or import first — old labels stay where you bought them.

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

The part with no equivalent

Talk to Billy, not to a keyboard.

The step that disappears in this switch is typing. Hold the mic, say who the parcel is going to, and Billy looks up the buyer, prices 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 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 quote is the debit.

Carriers priced on the same parcel, each an all-in number that is the exact amount leaving your prepaid balance. A carrier re-weigh posts as its own line on that shipment, and an accepted void credits the wallet rather than a card statement three weeks out.

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

Automation you could not write before.

REST, JSON, one Bearer header. Create a shipment, rate-shop the carriers on the lane, buy the winner, void it (the credit posts to the wallet after the carrier accepts the void), and receive signed webhooks for tracking. Free and unlimited on every plan, whether you use it on day one or never.

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

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 all four carriers, the public API, the store connectors, and Billy unlimited underneath it — the quoted label price is what you pay from a prepaid wallet. Pro is a flat monthly fee for unlimited shipments. If a subscription-free model is why you used Pirate Ship, nothing here asks you to give that up below 50 shipments a month.

Pro

Free

$0 / forever

The same subscription-free arrangement, with more behind it.

50 shipments a month, no monthly fee

UPS and FedEx on every domestic parcel, USPS up to 70 lb; 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. Pirate Ship's rates move, so compare against their current site rather than a figure on ours. Full pricing details

Who this switch is really for

Not every Pirate Ship user should move.

If nothing about your current setup annoys you, stay. These are the sellers for whom the extra carriers, the AI drafting, and the API add up to a real difference.

Sellers outgrowing manual entry

TikTok Shop & live commerce

Prepaid

Typing addresses was fine at ten orders a night and is not fine at a hundred. Pasting the order and confirming a draft is the same job with the typing removed.

4 carriers in one account no monthly fee bulk print

GoatLabels shipments queue with purchased labels

Shops whose parcels stopped being uniform

Etsy & independent creators

As the catalogue widens, one carrier stops winning everything. A side-by-side quote on every parcel handles that without you maintaining any rules about which box goes where.

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

Sellers who switched and kept the part they actually liked.

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

Switching from Pirate Ship — FAQ

Is there anything to cancel before I switch?: No. Pirate Ship has no monthly fee and GoatLabels Free has none either, so there is no subscription to end and no contract to exit. You can leave the old account open indefinitely and use it whenever you want — you can run both for a few weeks and then simply stop opening one of them. If your Pirate Ship account still holds a balance, its Refund Credit button sends that balance back to your original payment method.
Do I have to migrate my data?: No. Past labels stay where they were bought, and nothing needs exporting first. If you sell on any of Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay or Wix, you connect the store here and orders start syncing into the To Ship queue — for store-synced sellers, that is the whole migration.
What actually improves after the switch?: Four things: FedEx joins USPS and UPS in every domestic quote and DHL quotes international lanes, Billy drafts labels from pasted text, screenshots, or voice instead of you typing them, a public REST API exists for automating any of it, and voided labels credit back to your prepaid wallet balance after the carrier accepts the void.
Does it cost more than what I pay now?: The pricing model is the same one: no monthly fee on Free (up to 50 shipments a month), fund a prepaid wallet, pay per label. Label prices are quoted live and shown as one all-in number, so the only fair comparison is quoting the same parcel in both tools — which costs nothing to do.
How long does the first label take?: Minutes. Create the account, top the wallet up with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, paste or type the order, and buy the cheapest quote. There is no onboarding call, no carrier account to set up, and no approval to wait on.
Can I keep shipping on Pirate Ship while I test?: Yes, and it is the sensible way to do it. Because neither account has a monthly cost, running them in parallel is free — send a few real parcels through each and let the all-in numbers and the workflow decide rather than a comparison page.
What if I only ship USPS?: Then be honest with yourself about whether this switch is worth it. USPS is often the cheapest option on small domestic parcels, and if that describes everything you send, the extra carriers will rarely win. The switch pays off when your parcels vary — bulky, heavy, urgent, or international.

Deciding what changes: the FedEx and DHL carrier gap, the API Pirate Ship doesn't have, and how multi-carrier rate shopping works. For the full side-by-side, see GoatLabels vs Pirate Ship.

One parcel is the whole evaluation.

Keep the model you liked.
Add everything it was missing.

Fund a wallet with card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, ACH, or crypto, put in the next order you were about to print, and compare the all-in quotes against the one you were going to buy.

Create your account Talk to us

Sign up in seconds, no card required. Your first top-up may need an approved application. No monthly fee on Free, up to 50 shipments a month.

Switching from Pirate Ship, step by step

Two carriers come with you, two are new

Still no subscription, still pay per label

What actually changes when you switch .

The switch in three steps.

1. Fund a wallet, ship one parcel

2. Compare the quotes against your habit

3. Move the queue, not the history

And when Pirate Ship is the right choice

What Pirate Ship's own pages say, checked 2026-10-23

The same habit you already have. With more of it done for you.

The typing you used to do by hand.

Connectors for the storefronts, AI for everything else.

Everything you liked about Pirate Ship. Plus four things it didn't have.

One prepaid wallet, five ways to fund it

AI drafting for orders that are not JSON

No monthly fee to print

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL in one account

An API you never had before

The first label you buy here should take under a minute.

Talk to Billy, not to a keyboard.

The quote is the debit.

USPS

UPS

FedEx

Automation you could not write before.

No plan to clear first.

Pro

Free

Billy is not a paid tier

API free on every plan

Bring the invoice you pay today

Not every Pirate Ship user should move.

Sellers outgrowing manual entry

Shops whose parcels stopped being uniform

Sellers living in the DMs

Devs who want the dashboard too

Sellers who switched and kept the part they actually liked.

Switching from Pirate Ship — FAQ

Keep the model you liked. Add everything it was missing.

Everything you liked about Pirate Ship.
Plus four things it didn't have.

One prepaid wallet,
five ways to fund it

AI drafting for orders
that are not JSON

No monthly fee
to print

USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL
in one account

An API you never
had before

Keep the model you liked.
Add everything it was missing.