Premium Shipping Method Comparison

As you may have seen, WooCommerce comes complete with several basic core shipping methods for offering flat rates, local pickup, and free shipping. If you require more flexibility for your shipping, you may be interested in one of our premium shipping options. You can view a full list of premium shipping extensions here. We’ll compare some of the major ones below.

API Based Rates

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These are shipping methods which get rates from a third party API, such as USPS, UPS, Canada Post and FEDEX. Most support box packing, or quotes per product, and can be customised to show multiple rates, or cheapest only.

User-defined Rates

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These are shipping methods where you control the rates offered. These are typically the most flexible shipping methods available.

Shipping Method	Summary	Use-case
Table Rate Shipping	Allows you to create shipping zones for countries, states and postcodes and then create multiple tables of rates within each zone.Rates can be calculated per-order, or summed based on the items inside the order. Rows can be dependent on shipping class, weight, item count or cost, all with an optional minimum and maximum value. Costs can be given per line, per item, as a % of the item cost, or based on weight.	You have complex shipping rules which vary based on customer location and weight, price, item count or shipping class.
Flat Rate Box Shipping	Allows you to create shipping zones for countries, states and postcodes and then create multiple tables of rates within each zone.Within the zone you can define boxes with LxWxH and weight limits, which have fixed costs, % costs, or costs based on weight of the contents. Items are packed in boxes based on volume.	You have pre-defined shipping boxes to pack items inside with fixed costs per box, or fixed costs based on box weight, which can vary on customer location.
Per Product Shipping	Allows you to define shipping costs at product and variation level. Costs can be defined as fixed or percentage costs per-line or per-item, and for multiple country codes and zips/postcodes.The costs themselves can either be offered as a standalone shipping rate (if using per product shipping only) or added to other shipping method rates.	You have a handful of products with fixed shipping costs which vary depending on the product.
Local Pickup Plus	Allows you to define several pickup locations with optional costs.	You offer local pickup options in several places.

Custom Shipping Methods

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If you need something custom, or have very unique needs you may want to consider a custom shipping method plugin. Developers can get started by reading about our Shipping Method API.