ShipStation *Tripling* Fees starting May '25

It's only a matter of time before another app overtakes Shipstation in this market. There are already decent alternatives and Shipstation just keeps giving users reasons to jump ship. SMDH

Tripling our bill is pretty crazy. I wasn't able to get in touch with anyone at Shipstation, because their customer support response time was 2 weeks. I don't think they would make an exception for us anyway, so we're migrating to Easypost. Shippo was our second choice.

Just FYI, Stamps.com, Endicia, ShipEngine, ShippingEasy, ShipWorks, GlobalPost, Shipsi, Shipbot, and Metapack are all owned by Shipstation. So any of their prices could easily triple overnight as well.

Is this just for the companion API?  It doesn't mention the openAPI in the email I got.

https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025856212-ShipStation-API

V1 API will be limited to only those accounts on Gold, Accelerate, or higher plans. V1 API will not be available via the add-on or on lower plans.

For ShipStaton accounts on a Gold plan, Accelerate plan, or higher, you will have access to the V2 API and V1 API endpoints.

Accounts on any plan lower than Gold, please know that:

WE are furious as well.  WE only using the api because we have to use commerce hub for lowe's online orders.  I had to built a semi automatic solution with google sheets and drive to upload the commercehub file and then use the api to pull the data to shipstation as well as the shipping data to be pulled back to the google sheet file for our team to upload to commercehub.   WE do not do many lowes orders a month so making us jump from 49.99 (already charging us 20 a month to use fedex)  to now 119.99 a month is insanity.  We use shiprush for my other business and it is looking like I will need to see if i can use their api to work in a similiar way.  WE are so dissapointed with shipstation!  

We reached out to ShipStation directly after their announcement email regarding this thinly veiled money grab and explained that none of the gold-level features are of interest or of use to us and that tripling monthly fees just for API access is a completely disproportionate fee increase. We received no reply whatsoever...until 7 days later when we got an automated reply saying they received our email and are hoping to get in touch soon.

As if we need even more evidence of ShipStation's money grab as they triple our monthly fees just for API access: they can't even reply to support inquires for over a week...and when they finely do, it's just an auto-reply that says "nope, still can't help you yet, but hopefully one day soon maybe."

Anybody from ShipStation out there listening? Anybody from ShipStation care that your customers are exchanging info on how to jump ship from ShipStation because of this wildly out-of-touch and unreasonable fee increase? Anybody from ShipStation notice that this thread and this topic rank #2 (and counting) in the last 30 days' most popular here on your own community? (let alone what your customers are saying about this outside your own community...) Anybody? Anybody? @CaraAdmin? Anybody at ShipStation wanna work with your customers instead of drive them away?

4.29.25 follow up -- we've gone back and forth with ShipStation "support" about this fee increase. All their replies (which take forever to receive) are cut-n-paste and don't even address the points we raise. It doesn't seem like anybody in "support" is even reading what we write, let alone letting anybody who has any actual power or influence at ShipStation know about it. ShipStation is so disconnected and "support" is incredibly deficient. BE WARNED POTENTIAL SHIPSTATION CUSTOMERS: DO NOT SUBSCRIBE TO SHIPSTATION. Look elsewhere for similar services. We really wish we had.

We'd like to jump ship like so many other ShipStation customers now, but we're over a barrel because of some integrations (literally the only thing we use from ShipStation is the API...and they're tripling fees for this starting next week)...so we were able to secure Digital Connections funding from UPS to cover this money grab by ShipStation. In short, ShipStation will be getting over $3,360 of our Digital Connection funding from UPS...not that anybody at ShipStation seems to care or is even listening. Maybe if enough of us let UPS and other carriers know about ShipStation's money grab by holding their API hostage (along with their horrible support), somebody at UPS, FedEx, etc. will be able to get ShipStation's attention...or at the very least provide they'll be able to steer their customers toward alternatives from ShipStation to help prevent even more of us from going through this ShipStation API ransom.

I am pissed about that too, I have to pay now $45 more to keep API access, and I get nothing in return. Just pay more, if you confront support with that, if they actually reply they send you to this forum…

where are the product managers readying this and do something about it. I tell you, if I wanted to I could send a nice load on their API going forward, since I pay now extra for it, I will max out the resources they give me. 

We just got the email yesterday also after moving over to ShipStation in December 2024 from another system that we were with for over 20+ years. We do not ship enough to warrant any other plan than we are on now. It'll be a 120% monthly increase in costs to move to the new plan they are forcing us to, which is absurd!

Much like everyone else, I'm disappointed and was hoping we would use ShipStation indefinitely but that seems to no longer be the case with this money grab. We will be looking into other systems and wasted our time and money for nothing!

I hope these guys have a change of heart! It would make total sense to keep us on-side rather than having us look for alternatives. We too have to look for alternative solutions. I just posted this on the community forum as the support rep suggested - we should have access to an account rep to talk to in person!

I would just like to add that I am very dissappointed in shipstations decision to make API users upgrade to Gold. This is clearly a money and or big middle finger to its users. I have zero use for any of the gold features. I only want the API. To make matters worse I was never given notification and I had to deal with their terrible customer service in order to figure out what the problem was. It took 30 minutes for them to tell me I need to upgrade to Gold in order to keep using the API. Shipstation needs to do the right thing and allow users to keep using the API with Silver and Bronze package. If they do not give me an exemption on my account I will be forced to use another service and once they lose my business I will never come back.