Carrier Calculated Rates is the feature that lets an app calculate shipping rates while the customer checks out. Shopify calls it third-party calculated shipping rates. Every shipping app that shows live rates or pickup points uses it. For most stores it is quick to sort out: Advanced and Plus include it, and on Grow Shopify support adds it as a paid add-on. Only Basic cannot get it.
What Carrier Calculated Rates is
Without the feature, Shopify only shows the rates you type in by hand: a flat price, or a price by weight or order value. With the feature, Shopify sends the customer's address and cart to an app or a carrier during the checkout. The app answers with the rates that apply, and Shopify shows them in the shipping step.
The feature does not change your existing shipping profiles. Your manual rates keep working. It adds the option to let an app calculate rates next to them.
Why a shipping app needs it
A shipping app needs more than a flat price to do its job. Pakkeshopper uses the live request to:
- show the pickup points near the customer, with distance and opening hours,
- check the address for a house number before the order is placed,
- apply shipping rules by weight, order value, products, customer tags, zip codes and country,
- deduct discount codes before a free shipping threshold is applied,
- show one shipping price when you ship from several locations.
None of this is possible with manual rates, because Shopify does not know which parcel shops are near the customer or which rules you want. Read more about pickup points in the checkout and shipping rules.
Which Shopify plans have it
Shopify ties the feature to your plan. This is how it looks for the four plans:
Carrier Calculated Rates per Shopify plan
- Basic Not available Cannot be added
- Grow Add-on Contact Shopify support
- Advanced Included Active from the start
- Shopify Plus Included Active from the start
Shopify calls the feature third-party calculated shipping rates.
- Basic: not available. Shopify does not sell the feature on Basic, not even as an add-on.
- Grow: available as an add-on. Contact Shopify support, and they add the feature to your plan for a monthly fee. Grow was previously called the Shopify plan.
- Advanced: included from the start. Nothing to do.
- Shopify Plus: included from the start. Nothing to do.
Shopify changes plan names and prices from time to time. Shopify support and Shopify's pricing page show the current terms.
Grow with the add-on, or Advanced?
Both routes give you the same feature. On Grow you pay a fixed monthly fee for the add-on on top of your plan. On Advanced the feature is part of the plan, together with everything else Advanced offers. Compare the total monthly price of the two routes in Shopify's current pricing before you choose.
How to get the feature
What you need to do depends on your plan. You find your plan under Settings and Plan in the Shopify admin.
- Advanced or Plus: the feature is already active. Go straight to checking and testing it.
- Grow: open the Shopify Help Center from your Shopify admin and start a chat with Shopify support. Ask for "third-party calculated shipping rates" (Carrier Calculated Rates) as an add-on for your store, and say that you need it for a shipping app. Support adds it to your plan.
- Basic: move to Grow first, then ask support for the add-on. Or move to Advanced, which includes the feature.
You cannot buy or turn on the feature yourself in the Shopify admin. Keep the chat short and specific. The feature name is the key: support knows exactly what you mean when you say "third-party calculated shipping rates".
How to check that it is active
- In the Shopify admin, go to Settings and open Shipping and delivery.
- Open a shipping profile and add a rate to a zone.
- If the feature is active, you can choose to let an app or carrier calculate the rate, and the installed shipping app is listed.
If you only see manual rates, the feature is not active yet. Pakkeshopper also tells you in the dashboard when the feature is missing, so you do not have to guess.
Test the checkout
The 24-hour cache
Shopify caches the rates an app returns for up to 24 hours. The cache key is the address and the cart. When you change a shipping rule and reload the checkout with the same address and cart, you see the old rates. This is a limit in Shopify, not in the app.
Test with fresh rates
- Open your store, put a product in the cart and go to the checkout.
- Enter a Danish address with a house number and check the shipping methods and pickup points.
- Change a rule in the app, for example the weight limit on a method.
- Go back to the checkout and change the house number, or add or remove a product. Shopify now asks the app for new rates.
Use this trick every time you test. It saves you a lot of confusion.
What Pakkeshopper does once it is on
With the feature active, you install Pakkeshopper from the Shopify App Store and create your shipping methods in the dashboard. From then on, every checkout gets:
- the shipping methods that match your rules, in the order you choose,
- a list or a map of pickup points, with parcel lockers hidden if you want,
- address validation that blocks the order until the address has a house number,
- correct rates for Apple Pay and Google Pay from country and zip code alone,
- an order confirmation page with the carrier logo and the chosen pickup point.
The Starter plan is free for the first 100 orders per month. When you want more than one carrier or label printing, Pro and up cover that. See the full picture in the guide to shipping in Shopify for Danish stores, or learn how address validation avoids carrier penalty fees.