ShipStation *Tripling* Fees starting May '25

[MININ]

Heads up: Gold Level subscriptions will be the new *minimum* for ShipStation API access beginning May '25. This disproportionate fee increase nearly triples our monthly costs, and zero the Gold level "benefits" are of use or of interest to us. Difficult to see this as more than a money grab by ShipStation. Super disappointed in ShipStation.

[TSRSM-John]

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

[shipping4fun]

Would you mind sharing the alternatives? 

[TSRSM-John]

No problem! The first three that come to mind are Shippo, Easyship, and Pirate Ship. I've been looking into making the switch from Shipstation since they introduced that $40 surcharge for using your own courier accounts in 2023. Unfortunately they're still the best option for our business, but I don't expect that to remain true forever. The competition is catching up. Even Shopify's built-in shipping tools are somewhat comparable, depending on your needs.

[Admin230]

Thank you! Looking into Shippo, Easyship, and Pirate Ship.

[MTR]

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.

[Admin230]

Also very helpful when researching alternatives. Thanks for sharing, especially the list of alts to avoid. Looking at Easypost, Shippo, Easyship, and Pirate Ship.

[jade687]

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

[MTR]

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:

• You will no longer be able to generate V1 API (Shipstation openAPI) keys.

• V1 API (Shipstation openAPI) will not be available via the add-on. Instead, we encourage you to upgrade and try V2 API.

[jade687]

Seems a bit crazy to me, they should at least offer grabbing orders from sites, that's all I use it for is to grab orders.  I don't actually ship anything from there.  So 9.99 becomes 99.99.  Seems wild.

[SandwichTech]

Thank you - that article is the only straight answers I have been able to get.  This change really is the worst case scenario.  Switching to Shippo

[Multus]

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!  

[MININ]

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?

[CaraAdmin]

Hello @MININ!

Thank you for your feedback regarding the upcoming changes effective 5/1/25. As an active community member, you know we receive a high volume of feature requests, and we truly value every one of them. Our commitment remains focused on making meaningful improvements and prioritizing the features and enhancements that matter most to our users.

We continuously invest in our products and services to ensure they evolve alongside your business needs. From launching new features and expanding carrier and order source integrations to enhancing customer support, we’re dedicated to delivering even greater value and an improved experience.

Some changes have become necessary to support these ongoing advancements. We’re confident that these updates will allow us to continue providing the tools and support you need to succeed, now and in the future.

We appreciate everyone's feedback!

-Cara

[MININ]

Sorry, @CaraAdmin -- we find your reply as tone deaf as the tripling of fees for zero additional benefits. 

You don't address any of the points many of us have brought up here. It's just another sign that ShipStation is just grabbing money and doesn't care that y'all are out of touch with your customer's needs or the reality of doing business in this day and age.

[SandwichTech]

The notification email said that the change goes into effect May 22nd, not May 1st.  Which is it?

[MININ]

@SandwichTech-- great question! And we see @AdminCara hasn't responded to this or any of our follow ups. 

Heads up that our date was listed as May 8...which doesn't match your May 22 or @AdminCara 's May 1 comment. Doesn't even seem like ShipStation is treating customers equally...another reason this all seems like a money grab.  

[SandwichTech]

@MININ looks like its our next billing cycle.  Guessing you are billed on May 8th.  I got lucky (relatively) that our billing cycle is on the 22nd.  Good luck!

[Northstar1]

Very disappointing. We're moving to a shipping solution that Auctane does not own. How would you like if your landlord came into your house and re-routed your plumbing, raised your rent, and told you should be happier now? That's what this absurd money-grab feels like. 

[cgraninger]

So you are saying, you hike prices now for already established features in lower plan levels to develop new features you will charge us extra as add-on ? 
gige is at least more users included in the good level, that doesn’t cost you anything !

[MININ]

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.

[cgraninger]

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. 

[Kae]

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!

[TIC]

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 hope you will be able to advocate for us small mom-and-pop shops who are trying to survive. We are a small retail-oriented monogram shop that thrives on personalization services and gift-giving. Our customers love that we ship to their gift recipients, either through web orders or in-store orders.

We can only do this competitively by utilizing services like ShipStation that allow us to integrate with our Lightspeed eCom website, which also ties into our Lightspeed Retail Store. Unfortunately, the retail store component of Lightspeed does NOT integrate with ShipStation API at all, and we end up manually entering all in-store orders that include shipments. That still represents the bulk of our total shipments, while online orders are few and far between.

Having ShipStation API integration for Lightspeed eCom is good, worth the $30 subscription level perhaps, but forcing us to go to $100 for our small package volume and only a few API processed online orders is not worth this pricing level! We will have to look toward other solutions for our small operation, go back to a manual process with online orders, or stop offering online ordering altogether.

Why would you want to make it so difficult for us small service businesses? Are we too small a fish to matter? Would you rather see us close? I hope to persuade you to make exceptions in cases like ours. Please kindly consider our situation and adjust availability of API access at the $30 level. Thank you for listening and hopefully do something for us.