Shipstation's Announcement of Policy Changes - API - Super Disappointing

[LivOut]

We are a small business who has invested a lot of time into implementing ShipStation into our eCom store. We have loved using ShipStation thus far, but the recent announcement of Policy Changes for API will result in us having to pay an additional $120/month to access the API. We are currently on the Starter Plan, which has always INCLUDED the API, and it has everything we need. The changes to the Subscriptions will now only provide access to the API from a Gold Level subscription - resulting in our plan increasing from $19.99/month, to $139.99/month.... I find this absurd. I don't understand how they can think this is acceptable. We don't require any of the added features that come with the higher tier subscriptions, we only require the API, a vital feature they are just removing without providing any additional ways to access at a similar price point. I wouldn't mind a slight increase, I understand the need for change but I am super disappointed in the current options. As a result we are going to have to look at other programs as we can't justify the price increase. 

[AD2022044]

Yes, we are on the same page. It is ridiculous. I am looking for alternatives. 

[michaellebow]

I'd look at Shippo.

[LB70]

We're in exactly the same situation, LivOut, except we've been on the Bronze plan for years. The IA support "person" said they are not phasing out the Bronze plan, so I'm still trying to get a straight answer to the question "How does one produce labels under the Bronze plan without upgrading to use the new API?  This is beyond idiotic, not to mention confusing. And the sympathetic "understanding" I got from the AI bot was just annoying.

[SandwichTech]

The only reason we started using ShipStation was for the /getrates endpoint.  We were looking at upgrading to Bronze soon, but Gold is just a waste of money for us.  Already started switching our software to Shippo.  The bummer is I had just started building a Chrome extension to add features to ShipStation which I am just scrapping now.

Anyone unsure of exactly what the change is (V1 vs V2, etc) - this article is the only clear answers I have found:
https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/360025856212-ShipStation-API

[RiversidePrint]

It is ridiculous and so incredibly greedy! We are also a small business and rely on that integration. For them not to accommodate their existing customers is awful.  Not only are they MASSIVELY increasing what we have to pay, they have only given us a month to find an alternative.  It's terrible!  I don't know how they think this is ok.

[SandwichTech]

I hope we have a month, like the email said.  @CaraAdmin said this goes into effect in 7 days in another thread: https://community.shipstation.com/t5/ShipStation-Features/ShipStation-Tripling-Fees-starting-May-25/...

[TrollHoardGames]

We're switching as well. It should go into effect on your next billing cycle, whenever that is. When you go to cancel, ShipStation offered us 2 months free. It might be worth upgrading to Gold for the next cycle, then cancelling for 2 free months while you search for another provider -- that's what we'll be trying. 

[miniprints]

I am a small business in the exact same boat and just use the API as a bridge between my Shopify store and my 3rd party shipping partner. I am looking for a simple plan that just includes the API 'bridge' or will need to look for alternatives as well.

[JaySan]

As a developer, I have basic subscription and paying membership for more than a year to implement and test my web application w/o interfering my client's ShipStation.
$10/month is Okay, but $100? 😯
I'm really surprised by this price hike.

Have you considered developer community when making this decision? 

[markber]

We've been a customer for 10 years, and tried pleading our case, asking for the API access to remain as a free add-on on the Bronze plan, but got nowhere. 

Do the numbers: if you ship 100 orders per month, which use the API, then this is $1 / order after the price change.  For small business like ours, with a product that sells for $20, this 5% of the order value is an exorbitant cost to pay on top of other never ending increasing costs.

We did receive a free month of Gold, which is a nice gesture, but doesn't really solve the problem.  To be charged 3x to continue using the same features makes no logical sense.

I do find this response from Support quite comical:

"We hope this will give you a fantastic opportunity to fully explore and maximize the benefits of ShipStation and its new features. We really value you as a longtime user of ShipStation."

There are no 'new' features in Gold that we'd want to use or consider paying for.

And if history is anything to go by, feature requests are ignored, even though many have a high number of upvotes, so I'm not sure how the product roadmap is being built, as it's not based on customer feedback.

Maybe if the 'new features' were actually addressing top customer requests, then customers would naturally upgrade to higher plans, because there would be perceived value, as opposed to being forced? 

And the interaction with support clearly demonstrates that being a longtime customer of ShipStation is meaningless.

To all the new / prospective customers considering ShipStation - buyer beware.

Sadly I've had a similar experience with other companies acquired by Thoma Bravo.

Maybe as a community we can all post on Twitter / X and highlight some of this shady behavior?

[Mendocinomaple]

We are leaving after 10 or more years with ship station and as many with Stamps.com.  Stamps.com who owns ship station,  has gotten greedy and throwing the small guys who helped build their success out into the cold. 

[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.

[LB70]

After the announcement, we switched from Bronze to Silver because the description of the plan says the API is included. A customer service rep emailed me to "encourage me" to go to Gold in order to get the API and was surprised to see the API mentioned when I sent him a screen grab of the description of the Silver plan. He said he's check into it and get back to me, but I've heard nothing so far. I checked again this AM and it's still mentioned there.

[905Ink]

This is EXACTLY the issue I ran into. I'm a supervisor for a small company and I did all the necessary work to upgrade to Silver, to now find out that Shipstation LIED. I'm glad I'm not the only one!

[LB70]

SS customer service rep got back to me and suggested small companies might want to try the ShipEngine AP, which has apparently been acquired by ShipStation. At the moment, there's a free version.

https://www.shipengine.com/

[RiversidePrint]

Thanks LB! That’s good to know. (although we’re probably going back to Shippo) I don’t want to give Shipstation any more money. Besides, If SS now owns it, they will probably wait for everyone to spend time and money getting that set up and then pull the same nonsense. 

[VGGDerek]

I wonder is ShipStation will see the error of their ways and fix this problem.  They "say" they monitor this forum but I am not seeing anything from them in terms of a policy change.  They should have just allowed an Add On small monthly fee like $10 for api and we all would have gone along

[coiine]

Well, what a waste of time trying to integrate. Shipstation, thanks for wasting my time and my money. I'll be switching to something else before we launch.

[david8]

Massively disappointed as a customer of ShipStation for 7 years. My cost exploded from $600 to $1800/year just to utilize the exact same API endpoints I was using before. ShipStation has *NEVER* responded to feature requests, or bug reports to fix actual issues with the problem so it's an incredible slap in the face to have this price increase foisted on us with no value added whatsoever. The roll-out was also misleading in that ShipStation indicated that only the V2 API would be a premium add-on, not the existing V1 API. Obviously will be looking to switch as soon as possible.

[Jtonioli]

Not only are they charging more, but they are requiring you to update the code every 12 months. Nothing like requiring your clients to go in and figure out how to setup an API every 12 months. Nothing says we love our customers like breaking their integration and then having clients have to go in and re-connect a new API. We are ACTIVELY looking for a new shipping software because of this insanity and lack of understanding of what customers need and want. 

[flexiboiu]

Bait and switch greedy stamps.com and SS are doing it again. On $10 plan, under 50 usually higher value shipments per month. They offered a Bronze plan now for 3X the cost, to keep the API.

Shippo is not much better, handicapped service with no support, SS was better, until now.

Will not pay up and submit to the blackmail. Many other services available. EasyPost next.

[HappyDance]

I agree with everything you said as I am in the same boat. Shipstation needs to do the right thing and allow us to continue to use the API. Or they need to create a package that gives us users who only need the API to continue to have access. I have zero use for any of the gold package features. This is clearly a money grab. I am very upset and if they do not figure this out soon they will lose my business and I will never return as a customer. 

[alyssa4threads]

Just came across this today. they wont even call us to set up a zoom call to possible look into the upgrade and see what its features are. They just sent me an article... looking for alternatives now. Easy post apparently is a good option 

[sandi]

I suggested that they make it a paid add-on like they do with "Your Carriers" here:
https://community.shipstation.com/t5/Stores-Carriers-and-Other/Make-API-access-an-a-la-carte-add-on-...

[badwolfpress]

Yep, another one here who is looking for another option. Previously I could alternate between the Starter and Bronze plans, depending on my shipping volume for the time of year. Having to be on the Gold plan to use the API represents more than a 200% cost increase for the exact same services.

[TIC]

I asked nicely and they kept my account on version 1.0  of the API which still works fine for us. Same subscription level as before $29.95 and even allows us to go between subscription levels by volume as before 😊.

[Mendocinomaple]

I just cancelled my account with ship station .  I have spoken to two different support personnel about the increase in subscription for services I did not need and both said that they could do nothing. And when I went to cancel my subscription SS  trys  make numerous offers at the last second. HOW LAME IS THAT?  The administration that rose the prices SUCKS. I have been a customer of Ship station for over 10 years and will never recommend it to anyone. They threw the smaller merchants out in the cold - greedy SOB's. BUT funny thing is that they did me a big favor --the move leaving forced me into a better situation.  I simplified my whole shipping process and website was upgraded to a much nicer platform in the move.  All' s well that ends well...but still not recommending them.