AfterShip, Shippo, Easyship and Route are all sold as "shipping tools", but they meter different things: tracked shipments, printed labels, monthly shipment bands — or, in Route's case, nothing charged to the merchant at all. Comparing headline monthly prices across those models is how stores end up paying twice. This guide lines the four up by billing unit first, then by job.
Tracking Essentials, billed annually (1,200 shipments/year). Labels are a separate product, also from $9/mo billed annually.
Starter covers 30 labels/month free. Pro starts at $17/mo billed annually ($19 monthly) for 1–200 labels/month.
Plus plan, up to 500 shipments/month. Free plan covers 50/month. Annual billing saves about 20%.
Standard plan: no monthly fee for the merchant. Shoppers who opt in pay for package protection, typically around 2–2.5% of cart value.
| AfterShip | Shippo | Easyship | Route | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main job | Post-purchase platform: tracking first, labels and returns as add-on products | Buying and printing discounted labels, with tracking attached | Cross-border label buying with duties & taxes handled | Post-purchase layer: tracking + package protection only |
| What you are billed for | Tracked shipments (Tracking) and labels (Shipping) — metered separately, per product | Labels per month, in volume tiers (the app); the API meters per label | Monthly plan tier set by shipment volume band | Nothing on Standard — shoppers fund protection; Custom plans can be flat-fee or volume-based |
| Free option | Tracking free for 50 shipments/month; Shipping free for 10 labels/month | Starter free up to 30 labels/month; $0.05/label only if you print on your own carrier account | Free up to 50 shipments/month | Standard is $0/month for merchants (consumer-funded) |
| Paid plans from | Tracking Essentials $9/mo billed annually; Shipping Essentials $9/mo billed annually; Shipping Pro $69/mo billed annually | Pro $17/mo billed annually ($19 monthly) for 1–200 labels, rising by tier to $199/mo at 5,001–10,000 labels | Plus $29/mo (500 shipments), Premier $69/mo (2,500), Scale $99/mo (5,000); about 20% off billed annually | Custom pricing by quote for flat-fee / volume arrangements |
| Prints labels? | Yes — via the separate AfterShip Shipping product (130+ carriers) | Yes — core product (40+ carriers) | Yes — core product (550+ couriers) | No — reads tracking data only |
| Carrier rates | Pre-negotiated rates; vendor advertises up to 90% off USPS with no minimum volume (vendor-published figure) | Negotiated USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL rates, no volume minimum to start | Vendor-published discounts up to 91% off retail across its courier network | Not applicable — Route does not sell postage |
| Standout feature | Branded tracking page with custom domain, AI delivery estimates, API and helpdesk / email integrations on Premium | Simple rate shopping plus a developer API (first 30 API labels/month free, then $0.07/label) | Landed-cost calculation: duties & taxes on every plan, displayed at checkout from Premier up | Protection claims for lost, stolen or damaged orders inside the post-purchase flow |
| Trade-off to know | Tracking, Shipping and Returns are three subscriptions — the full stack costs more than any single headline price | Tracking page is a supporting feature, not the product's focus; own-account labels cost extra on the free plan | Built for international shipping; a purely domestic store pays for cross-border machinery it won't use | No labels, no rates — and Route's own branding sits alongside yours in its app and tracking flow |
Prices are USD, before tax, as published by the vendors in November 2026. "Up to" discount percentages are the vendors' own published claims for specific services and lanes — your actual rate depends on package size, weight, destination and service level, and no tool here can guarantee a saving on any given shipment. Plans change — always confirm the current price and what's included on the vendor's site before you buy.
Because each product meters something different, the honest comparison is a worked total. Both examples below use only published prices, software fees only, at annual billing where the vendors offer it. Postage is excluded — you pay the carrier on top of every option, including the "free" ones.
| Store shipping 100 orders/month | How the figure is built | Software cost / year |
|---|---|---|
| AfterShip — tracking only | Tracking Essentials at $9/mo billed annually; its 1,200 shipments/year quota matches 100/month exactly | $108 |
| AfterShip — tracking + labels | The same Tracking plan plus Shipping Essentials ($9/mo billed annually, 1,200 labels/year): two subscriptions | $216 |
| Shippo | The free tier's 30 labels/month is not enough, so Pro's entry tier (1–200 labels) at $17/mo billed annually; labels and a tracking page in one plan | $204 |
| Easyship | Plus at $29/mo covers up to 500 shipments/month; $276/year billed annually, $348 billed monthly | $276–348 |
| Route | Standard is $0/month to the merchant; protection is paid by shoppers who opt in. You still need a separate way to print labels | $0 |
| Store shipping 500 orders/month | How the figure is built | Software cost / year |
|---|---|---|
| AfterShip — tracking only | Tracking Essentials at the 500/month band: $29/mo billed annually | $348 |
| AfterShip — tracking + labels | Tracking Essentials ($348/yr) plus Shipping Pro at $69/mo billed annually ($828/yr), because the entry Shipping tier's 1,200 labels/year no longer covers the volume | $1,176 |
| Shippo | Pro tier for 201–500 labels/month, billed annually | ≈ $313 |
| Easyship | Plus still covers 500 shipments/month: $276/year billed annually, $348 billed monthly | $276–348 |
| Route | Still $0/month to the merchant on Standard, subject to any volume or GMV requirements | $0 |
The pattern to notice: at 100 orders a month, "tracking only" from AfterShip is the cheapest paid route — but the moment you also want labels on the same platform, its two subscriptions ($216/yr) pass Shippo's single plan ($204/yr). At 500 a month the gap widens sharply. Headline prices ("from $9/mo") cannot tell you this; your shipment count can. At 2,000 orders a month, Easyship's Premier ($69/mo, up to 2,500 shipments) still contains the volume, while Shippo's per-tier ladder and AfterShip's per-product stacking both climb — run your own count through each pricing page before committing.
AfterShip started as a tracking product and it shows: the core offer is a branded tracking page, proactive shipping notifications and delivery estimates across a published network of 1,100+ carrier integrations. Tracking is priced per tracked shipment: free for 50/month, Essentials from $9/mo billed annually (1,200 shipments/year; $0.08 per extra shipment) and Premium from $59/mo billed annually (6,000 shipments/year; $0.12 per extra), which adds a custom domain, full white-labelling, the API and integrations with tools like Klaviyo and Gorgias. Labels live in a separate product, AfterShip Shipping (free for 10 labels/month; Essentials from $9/mo billed annually for 1,200 labels/year; Pro $69/mo billed annually for 24,000 labels/year, across 130+ carriers), and Returns is a third subscription on top. Judged as a tracking platform, the structure is coherent. Judged as "shipping software", the stacking is the story.
Shippo's job is the label itself: import orders, compare negotiated rates from 40+ carriers (USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL among them), print, and track what you shipped. The Starter plan is free for up to 30 labels a month for one user; the one fee to understand is that printing on your own connected carrier account costs $0.05 per label on Starter, while labels bought through Shippo's accounts are charged at the postage rate alone. Pro starts at $17/mo billed annually ($19 monthly) for 1–200 labels/month and climbs through published volume tiers to $199/mo at 5,001–10,000 labels, removing the own-account label fee and adding branded tracking and more users. Developers get a separate API pricing track: the first 30 API labels a month are free, then $0.07 per label. It is the clearest "pay for labels" model of the four — and its tracking page, while included on Pro, is a supporting feature rather than a post-purchase platform.
Easyship is a label platform built around international orders: 550+ courier services, 220+ destinations, and — the feature that defines it — tax and duty calculation. Import duties and taxes are calculated on every plan, and from Premier ($69/mo) they can be displayed at checkout, so the shopper sees the landed cost before paying instead of meeting it at the door. Pricing is a simple volume ladder: free up to 50 shipments/month, Plus $29/mo up to 500, Premier $69/mo up to 2,500, Scale $99/mo up to 5,000, with about 20% off on annual billing and postage always on top. Small per-label fees ($0.03–0.05) apply when you print on your own linked courier account. Easyship publishes discounts of up to 91% off retail rates across its network — a vendor claim that will hold for some lanes and services and not others, which is true of every "up to" figure in this category.
Route is not shipping software in the label sense at all, and comparing it as if it were is the most common mistake with this product. It prints no labels and sells no postage. What it sells is the post-purchase layer: a visual tracking experience (its own app and web tracking, with real-time updates by email, SMS and push) and package protection that shoppers can add at checkout against loss, theft and damage, with coverage up to $5,000 per order according to the vendor. The merchant price on the Standard plan is $0/month, because the protection premium — typically around 2–2.5% of cart value, with a minimum per order — is paid by the shopper. Custom arrangements (flat-fee or volume-based) are quoted individually. Two caveats belong in any honest summary: Route's branding travels with the experience, since tracking lives in Route's app alongside your logo; and Route has applied minimum order-volume or GMV requirements, so very small stores may not be eligible for the $0 offer.
Tracking and notifications only → AfterShip Tracking or Route. Labels and rates → Shippo or Easyship. Both — price the combination, because on AfterShip that means two subscriptions. Buying a label tool to fix support tickets, or a tracking tool to fix label printing, is the standard failure mode in this category.
Every price here is volume-shaped: per tracked shipment, per label tier, or per shipment band. Take your real monthly count, find the tier that contains it on each pricing page, and multiply by twelve. The worked examples above show how quickly the ranking flips between 100 and 500 orders a month.
Software fees are the small line; postage is the big one. All four tools pass carrier charges through on top, and every "up to X% off" figure is a vendor claim for particular services and lanes. Compare the actual services you ship — your typical weight, zone and speed — on the free tiers before believing any discount headline.
If your inbox is full of "where is my order?" (WISMO) questions, the fix is a findable tracking page and proactive delay notifications — AfterShip Tracking or Route territory. If the pain is inside the warehouse — typing addresses, comparing rates by hand — that is Shippo or Easyship territory. Read your last fifty support messages and your last shipping day, and buy for the problem you can point at.
It means the software fee scales with each label you create, instead of being a flat subscription. In this comparison the models differ: Shippo's app uses monthly label tiers (and its API charges $0.07 per label after 30 free), AfterShip meters tracked shipments and labels as separate products with per-unit overage ($0.08–0.12 per extra tracked shipment), Easyship charges a monthly tier set by your shipment band, and Route charges the merchant nothing because shoppers fund protection. In all cases the carrier's postage is billed on top of the software fee.
It depends on which AfterShip you mean, because there are effectively three. As a tracking alternative, Route is the closest substitute (and $0/month to the merchant, with protection bundled). As a label-buying alternative, Shippo and Easyship both replace AfterShip Shipping's core job — Shippo for mostly domestic shipping, Easyship for cross-border. What none of them reproduces exactly is AfterShip's single account spanning tracking, shipping and returns; if that integration is why you use AfterShip, price its stack honestly before switching.
No honest guide can promise that. Shippo, Easyship and AfterShip Shipping give small stores access to pre-negotiated carrier rates they could not get alone, and the vendors publish "up to" discount figures (Easyship up to 91% off retail, AfterShip up to 90% off USPS) for specific services. Whether a given parcel costs less depends on its weight, dimensions, destination and service level, and on what you pay today. Test your ten most typical shipments on the free tiers and compare the quoted rates directly.
Based on the vendors' published information checked in November 2026, do not assume so. Tracking a parcel and buying its label are different capabilities: global tracking networks cover a very wide range of carriers, but label buying is narrower. Shippo's own support documentation limits non-US domestic shipping to FedEx, DHL Express and UPS where those carriers offer it, with local-carrier support as an exception. Easyship's network is oriented to cross-border shipping from Japan via international couriers and postal services. None of the four publicly presents Yamato Transport or Sagawa Express domestic label creation as a feature, and Route prints no labels at all. If your domestic shipping runs on Yamato or Sagawa, verify label support with the vendor in writing before subscribing — or scope these tools to your international orders and tracking experience only.
That problem — WISMO — is a tracking-communication problem, not a label problem. The published fixes are a branded tracking page on your own store, proactive notifications when a shipment stalls, and a clear delivery estimate: the core of AfterShip Tracking, and the tracking half of Route. Shippo and Easyship include tracking pages as part of their label platforms, which may be enough at small volumes, but swapping label tools alone will not empty a WISMO-heavy inbox.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications and pricing pages, not from hands-on testing, and it says so rather than dressing up desk research as experience. Where a judgment appears — for example, that AfterShip's costs stack — it is arithmetic on the published prices, shown in the worked examples so you can re-run it with your own numbers.