Shipping
Shippo vs Pirate Ship: Which Shipping Solution is Right for You?
- Written by Rachael Pilcher
With the ecommerce industry predicted to grow by 56% over the next 3 years, it’s never been more important for sellers to prioritize customer satisfaction and retention.
This means your shipping process needs to be fast, reliable, and scalable. But it doesn’t need to be a chore!
Online shipping management solutions have changed the game for retailers, and two prominent players in the ocean of options are Shippo and Pirate Ship.
To help you make the best decision about which ecommerce shipping software is the best for you, we’re looking at the pros and cons of Shippo vs Pirate Ship so you can weigh up which is best.
And if you’re still on the fence about these two solutions, we’ll show you how Veeqo’s all-in-one shipping management tools could solve your numerous parcel challenges (plus, it’s completely free to use!).
Table of contents
Shippo overview
Shippo Pros & Cons
Pirate Ship overview
Pirate Ship Pros & Cons
Veeqo vs Shippo vs Pirate Ship
Shippo overview
Shippo is a cloud-based, multi-carrier shipping management tool targeted at SMBs, large brands, and ecommerce sellers.
They have all the basics covered if you’re looking to manage orders in one place, create shipping labels, track packages, and deal with parcel returns.
Key features of Shippo
Carrier discounts
Custom branding experiences (paid plans only)
Email and chat support
Dedicated customer support (paid plans only)
Inventory management features
Global address validation
Shippo carriers
With Shippo, you can access discounted rates through USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL, giving you access to 85+ global carriers. So whether you need next day delivery, international delivery, or basic regional delivery, you’re sure to find an option that works for your customers.
You can also take advantage of Shippo’s fulfillment partners who include ShipBob, ShipDaddy, and ShipHero.
Shippo integrations
If you need a shipping management tool that offers a good range of technology integrations, Shippo syncs with brand leaders like Shopify, Square, WooCommerce, Amazon, and Ebay.
They also offer a customizable API on request if you need more technical additions. The pricing for the API is available by contacting their team and dependent on your specific requirements.
Shippo Pricing
Shippo has three pricing plans*, including a basic free plan.
Starter - for entrepreneurs and businesses who only ship small volumes, this free plan might be all you need. It offers live chat and email support, and no per-label fee if you use Shippo’s default carriers. If you connect your own carrier accounts, there will be a 5c charge per label.
Professional - for $10 a month, this covers everything in the Starter plan, plus some automation tools, branding capabilities, and up to 5 user accounts. This plan has a 30-day free trial.
Premier - for large businesses, Shippo offers a customized plan if you need technical implementation. It also includes dedicated customer support and 15 user accounts. The monthly price for this plan will depend on your specific shipping needs.
*Last accessed and updated: July 2023
Pros of Shippo
Shippo has plenty of satisfied users that enjoy using the software because it “makes shipping orders fast and efficient” and it’s “easy and convenient to ship my own packages at home”. If you’re a startup or small business, Shippo might be a great option for you.
Customers also enjoy Shippo’s:
API integration
One-click label printing
Good customer service
Ability to integrate easily with supported apps and websites
Cons of Shippo
Shippo has a lot more features than Pirate Ship, which means there might be a bit of a learning curve during setup. Customers comment that “it would require extensive time to get set up for a small business or startup” and it’s “hard to select multiple orders or look at more of a summary view”.
There are also multiple reviews talking about hidden fees and unexpected carrier costs. One customer says that they were “billed $108 in carrier fees for a $120 package which was sized correctly and weighed correctly in their interface” and that “you don't know you're being charged these fees unless you check your bill”.
Customers also mention drawbacks like:
Shipping charges can differ if you choose an unsupported partner
The returns and refunds process is tricky
Frustrating form fields that don’t save automatically
Not enough integrations
Further reading: 5 Best Alternatives to Shippo for Shipping Software
Pirate Ship overview
Pirate Ship set sail in 2014, with a goal to help small and medium sized businesses to simplify their order fulfillment processes, and give retailers access to cheaper shipping rates to cut down on mailing label costs.
This cloud-based software serves “entrepreneurs, hustlers, and pirates” and has a fun pirate theme throughout which appeals to many of their customers—and is consistent with their mission to give retailers a more enjoyable shipping experience.
Key features of Pirate Ship
Basic, user-friendly interface
Discounted shipping rates with UPS and USPS
Easy batch shipping
Automatic address completion
Live chat and email support
Pirate Ship carriers
Unlike Shippo, Pirate Ship only lets you ship with UPS or USPS carriers.
This can feel limiting for high-volume sellers and ecommerce stores who need more specialized shipping services like the ones offered by FedEx and DHL.
Pirate Ship integrations
The Pirate Ship dashboard lets you quickly sync with many popular seller marketplaces and commerce software, including Shopify, Etsy, WooCommerce, BigCartel, and Squarespace.
But if you’re an Amazon seller, you’ll need to look elsewhere (hint: Veeqo can help you here!).
Pirate Ship doesn’t have an API, so if you need to connect a platform that’s not natively supported, this won’t be a good shipping management option for you.
Pirate Ship Pricing
This software is completely free to use, with no monthly plans or recurring payments for users.
When you sign up, you’re required to keep your credit card on file to pay for label printing, or you can pre-load your account balance by transferring funds across from your Paypal account. This account balance is needed to pay for per-label printing.
Pirate Ship also offers third-party insurance cover if you need it, through a provider called Shipsurance.
Pros of Pirate Ship
Overall, customers say they appreciate how Shippo saves them time, with “no more standing in line at the USPS” and that “customers really like that I can quickly make their shipping label and provide them their tracking number within minutes of them making payment”.
For small businesses, the ability to print “multiple labels at a smaller cost” helps to “save money on labels so I can pass those savings on to my customers”.
Customers also mention that they appreciate Pirate Ship’s:
Simple interface
Humorous graphics
Ability to connect quickly to stores like Etsy
Ease of having all shipments in one place
Cons of Pirate Ship
As this software is designed with primarily low-volume sellers in mind, some users feel that the feature set is too basic, and the “software is not scaling friendly”.
One customer mentions that a big downside for them is the fact that Pirate Ship “does not have the option to split an order over multiple shipments” which means that they have to “split one order in a shipment that is sent immediately and one that will be shipped months later”, and this involves a time-consuming and fiddly manual workaround.
Other drawbacks include:
Doesn’t integrate with all label printers
No API
Merging a bulk list can be complex
Can’t import orders from unsupported platforms
No two day delivery guarantee
Veeqo vs Shippo vs Pirate Ship
Now you’ve read about the pros and cons of Shippo and Pirate Ship, we’d love to show what Veeqo can do that the others can’t.
It’s completely free to use
We’ve mentioned above that Shippo and Pirate Ship have free options. But if you’re looking for the best value, Veeqo comes out on top with enterprise-level features, more carrier options, and more integrations and partnerships. And you won’t pay a cent.
It's a no brainer for ecommerce businesses who are scaling.
We want all our customers to stay one step ahead of the competition. With Veeqo you can enjoy:
Unlimited users
No monthly costs
No hidden fees
Unlimited orders
No shipping label limits
No fees for connecting your existing carrier accounts
Veeqo is an Amazon Company
As part of the Amazon family, Veeqo offers unmatchable benefits for Amazon sellers. We’re fully integrated with Amazon’s Buy Shipping tools, which means you’ll get:
The same guarantees that come with Buy Shipping
Protection against negative feedback and late deliveries
Automatic syncing with your Amazon account
100% valid tracking rates at no extra cost
Veeqo also has an Amazon FBA integration which lets you set any sales channel (e.g. Shopify and Etsy) to have all of its orders fulfilled by FBA.
This means every order can be sent to Amazon on autopilot as soon as a sale happens, and you can save even more on your shipping costs.
And we’re a Shopify Plus partner too
We don’t just integrate with Shopify, we’re also an approved Shopify Plus app.
Veeqo has passed Shopify’s stringent quality tests for providing cutting-edge software, excellent customer service, and the ability to meet the daily challenges of even the most demanding large-scale ecommerce retailers.
Veeqo integrations
Our software integrates with leading retail apps, including marketplaces, 3PL, accounting tools, shipping carriers, ecommerce platforms, and more.
So if you sell through marketplaces like eBay, Shopify, Etsy, Walmart or Amazon, syncing with Veeqo is a breeze. With a few clicks, you can manage all your orders across multiple channels in one central place.
If you don’t see the integrations you need on our website, the Veeqo API enables you to integrate with any other external service or app using your retailer account.
Automated rate shopping
Tired of using calculators and scanning rate charts like you need to do with other shipping management tools?
Veeqo gives you instant discounted rates with FedEx, DHL, UPS, and USPS. There’s no minimum volume requirement to get these cheaper rates, and you don’t need to negotiate with carriers.
And while some shipping tools charge you extra to connect your own carrier accounts, there’s no hidden fee for this with Veeqo.
In the dashboard, you’ll see the cheapest shipping options at a glance for every order you send out, whether you’re shipping one item, or whether you need to ship 100 orders at once.
You can also set up automations for parcel value, weight, delivery options and more in advance, making it even faster to choose and print the best label options.
Advanced inventory controls
If you’re selling the same items across multiple sales channels, it can be difficult to track your total inventory in real time.
Unlike Shippo and Pirate Ship, Veeqo’s warehouse and inventory management tools ensure that you’ll never be caught out by customers ordering something that’s not in stock.
Once something sells out in your Amazon, eBay, Shopify, or Walmart stores, Veeqo automatically updates the inventory of all stores, eliminating pesky spreadsheet tracking and giving you more time to do other things.
Our inventory control tools also let you:
See exactly what’s in stock in real time
See what’s not selling
Identify your best sellers
Transfer and track stock across multiple inventory locations
Set up customizable warehouse management workflows
Mobile picking
Veeqo is highly scalable, with all the tools you need to grow alongside your business. One of our huge time-saving features is the ability to pick, pack, and ship in a flash using your own mobile device. This means less room for error, and more satisfied customers.
In-depth reporting
Shippo and Pirate Ship both have basic reporting functions. But if you’re a large commerce retailer, you’re going to need a little more data to help you keep growing and manage everything that needs to be taken care of from day to day.
Veeqo’s powerful reporting functions let you maximize your sales and minimize your losses with built-in tracking and reporting tools. You’ll be able to fine-tune your inventory based on:
Stock holding time
Number of customers waiting on back orders
Supplier lead time
Historical sales performance
Best selling items across sales channels
Plus you’ll be able to get profitability reports for all your products and marketplaces on demand. So whether you need to know gross or net sales amounts, average order values, COGS, or comparisons between sales periods—your data is only a few clicks away.
Further reading:
Any shipping management tool you use should have the ability to scale alongside your business as it grows.
Just because you’re a small or medium sized business now, doesn’t mean that will still be the case in a few years - or even months.
And if you’re a high-volume seller already, there’s a good chance that you’re looking for more advanced business shipping software with more integrations, more features, and more carrier options than either Shippo or Pirate Ship can provide.
With Veeqo’s free, comprehensive cloud tool suite, you can manage your end to end shipping needs smoothly at every stage of your business, giving you a competitive advantage and ensuring your customers come back again and again.
Create your free Veeqo account today and enjoy all the benefits of our powerful suite of inventory and shipping software, for free.
