For online retailers shipping products is a big hassle without the right tools and support to amplify the shipping process. New-age online purchasers expect quick deliveries and order tracking information at every step of their purchase. So, in order to keep up with the competition and delight their customers, online retailers cannot stay behind following the traditional and manual shipping processes. With features that will help them excel in their business, third-party shipping solutions are a must. The big question that follows is how to choose between multiple solutions in the market and determine which solution is the best fit for your business.
To ease that, here is an in-depth comparison between the two most renowned shipping solutions, PluginHive and Shippo.
A complete shipping solution for the e-commerce stores?
PluginHive is a complete shipping solution that mitigates the entire shipping fuss. With PluginHive, you can display live shipping rates at checkout so your customers can choose from the available shipping services based on their budget and need, you can print shipping labels automatically, request carrier pickups from your eCommerce store & provide live order tracking updates to your customers. This is all in all a complete solution.
Shippo, on the other hand, provides the options to print shipping labels & track orders in real-time by importing and processing your orders into the Shippo dashboard. However, Shippo does not provide the feature to display shipping rates at checkout to your customers.
| Shipping Process | PluginHive | Shippo |
|---|---|---|
| Real-Time Shipping Rates At Checkout Page | ✓ | ☓ |
| One-Click Shipping Label Printing | ✓ | ✓ |
| Request Carrier Pickups From Your Store | ✓ | ☓ |
| Live Shipment Tracking With Notifications | ✓ | ✓ |
PluginHive and Shippo both integrate with the top e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, Magento, PrestaShop, and BigCommerce.
Plugin/App or External Application?
PluginHive is a plug-and-use, platform-specific shipping solution. It gets integrated within your eCommerce platforms like WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Prestashop, Magento, and so on. It displays carriers easily and helps you fulfill your orders. It makes order processing simple and convenient by providing everything within your eCommerce store Dashboard and saves you a lot of time and work.
Shippo is an external shipping solution. You have to log in to the Shippo website and complete the shipping process by importing orders from your store to Shippo’s dashboard and generating shipping labels.
Shipping Solution With The Best Value For Money
Shippo & PluginHive both offer a free trial period so you can get acquainted with the functionality and choose whether they are the best fit for you or not.
Shippo’s paid plan starts at $10/mo and offers up to 60 shipping labels. The Professional plan pricing goes up based on the number of labels, $50/mo for 750 labels, $200/mo for 10,000 labels, and so on. If you are an enterprise customer generating more than 10,000 labels you will need to opt for their Premium plan with custom pricing. You can see the detailed pricing plan below:
PluginHive subscription plan starts at $9 where you can benefit by processing up to 100 orders. The pricing stays simple and cost-effective as your business grows with $29 for up to 1000 orders,$49 for up to 3000 orders, and $99 for unlimited orders or shipping labels. If you ship huge volumes, the enterprise plan at 99$ is the max you will pay for an unlimited amount of orders. You can see the detailed pricing plan below:
Need For A Committed Customer Support
Guidance and constant support have the potential to flourish things in better ways. Similarly, with ideal shipping solutions and prompt support by the solution providers, your company may increase its revenues over years.
Both Shippo and PluginHive provide excellent customer service to guide you at every step. Shippo offers you email and live-chat support to deal with your queries.
Likewise, PluginHive takes customer support to the next level by providing 24×7 support to its customers. The customer support includes email, live chat, video, and telephonic support to prioritize all customers across 70+ countries.
Requirement For A Shipping Carrier Account
Both PluginHive and Shippo support multiple carriers all over the world. Shippo lets you use both Shippo’s as well as your own carrier accounts. You might have to pay some extra along with the subscription fee if you go for Shippo’s carrier accounts.
PluginHive enables you to add your own shipping carrier account. This way you can have more freedom and control over your shipping rates. Since you use your own carrier accounts, no commission is charged by PluginHive. You can create and print unlimited labels by paying only the subscription fee. Since PluginHive is certified by UPS, FedEx, Stamps, Canada Post, Australia Post, Purolator, Parcelforce Worldwide, you will even get assistance in getting your own account with these carriers.
Looking for a specific feature for your shipping needs?
The shipping process involves a lot of things, showing shipping rates to customers, generating labels, tracking orders, etc. If you are looking for specific features to enhance your shipping process, refer to the table below.
| Specific Features | PluginHive | Shippo |
|---|---|---|
| Integrated Platform Specific Solution | ✓ | ☓ |
| Global Coverage with Shipping Carriers | ✓ | ☓ |
| Live Carrier Calculated Shipping Rates at Checkout | ✓ | ☓ |
| Carrier Calculated Shipping Rates for Merchants | ✓ | ✓ |
| Per Label Fee | ☓ | ✓ |
| Automatic Shiping Label Printing | ✓ | ☓ |
| One-Click Shipping Label Printing in Bulk | ✓ | ✓ |
| Merchant’s Carrier Account is required | ✓ | Optional |
| Live Shipment Tracking For Merchants | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live Shipment Tracking Notifications for Customers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Shipment Tracking Email Customization | ✓ | ☓ |
| Partial Order Fulfilment | ☓ | ✓ |
| Process Unlimited Orders | ✓ | ☓ |
| Request Carrier Pickups | ✓ | ☓ |
| Hold Shipments at Carrier Locations | ✓ | ☓ |
| Multi Carrier Shipping | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer Support | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer Support via Email | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer Support via Live Chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer Support via Call | ✓ | ☓ |
| Customer Support via Zoom Call | ✓ | ☓ |
Conclusion
Both shipping solutions are revolutionizing the shipping experience globally. If your business needs specific features only, for eg. Order tracking or order fulfillment then both PluginHive and Shippo are suitable. However, if you need complete end-to-end shipping, PluginHive is a better fit for you.
We hope that our analysis will help you choose the best shipping solution according to your business criteria and needs.
