Pirate Ship: CheapARR Shipping

Pirate Ship is phenomenal. Simple, easy to use, and great customer service that has always made me smile when talking to them.

Pirate Ship offers significant savings on shipping compared to traditional carriers like USPS Retail or UPS. They leverage commercial pricing from USPS and UPS, allowing you to pass on those savings to your customers or boost your profit margins.

Simple to use, and allows me to choose my own return address on the label. Exactly what I needed!

Terrible for scale. Never use if your'e an Amazon seller.

They send automated messages even after we disabled it, their support is no help. It's risking getting our high volume business banned on amazon and has hurt our customer service.

Their customer service actually used be good, now it's outsourced garbage.

Does not work with Canada. When you start registration you have to choose one of the US states.

I used to use ShipStation, but when USPS prices rose in January 2017, I looked into alternatives and was super happy to have found Pirate Ship! In addition to having amazing customer service and support, the app is incredibly easy to use and cuts down the time to create batch shipping by a ton. Highly recommend using Pirate Ship for all your batch shipping needs!

I truly can't say enough about this shipping service. Pirate Ship is by far the best I have ever used in all of my years of business to this point. Easy to use program. Huge savings over any other. Customer service is absolutely fabulous! And I mean FABULOUS! Their Pirate theme is fun too! I love these guys! www.dogcollarfancy.com

OH MAN. This review is long overdue.
If you're on the search for a new shipping app, STOP AND DOWNLOAD THIS APP.
I was in your shoes too. I was coming from stamps.com and didn't feel like paying the monthly $16 fee anymore, so I scoured the shopify app store for an alternative. I searched and searched the crowded sea of shipping apps, and Pirate Ship stuck out to me. It had 0 reviews at the time, so I was a bit scared, but I decided to give it a shot.
WOW. One of the best decisions I've ever made!
Definitely THE BEST app on Shopify. Why?
1. The team responds in MINUTES. I work 24/7 and I received assistance just now at 10pm on a Saturday night! (which prompted me to write them a review - they deserve it!)
2. The software itself is very straightforward and user-friendly. I can't believe I wasted so much time and energy with stamps.com (still gives me nightmares). Pirate ship is easy sailing compared to all other softwares I've used!
3. The team is a great bunch and are always working on improving the app and updating it. And they are always open to suggestions!
4. It's FREE. FREE. FREE!!!!! It's crazy. Really. For such a great app and service it's hard to believe but true. You just pay for postage. And you get the same discount as stamps.com. And postage is even cheaper than Shopify labels!! And you don't have to pay 5 cents per label like other apps out there!! It's completely FREE!!!!!! Unbelievable!!!
I love this app so much. I am so glad I took the leap of faith and downloaded this app. This app deserves so many 5 star reviews. They don't really ask for reviews but they really should!! There would be so many others in the same boat (or should I say pirate ship).
Also shoutout to Bjorn for always helping me out!
NOW STOP SEARCHING AND DOWNLOAD THIS APP!!
THANK YOU PIRATE SHIP!!!

If you use it wisely it can benefit you greatly but you must monitor what is happening always. They do have very good usps & ups rates. Holiday surges can be a bit much. Insurance (shipsurance) is in added choice but shipsurance company can be very difficult to deal with once we go above anything that is $200 in value. They have a very long list of regulations (all responsibility is solely on seller!) and pirateship have not guided us very well. You MUST make sure to know all the regulations if you would like to insure something of great value as shipsurance will try to find the smallest of reasons why not to pay (even if you did an amazing packaging job and it is evident UPS is at fault). I cannot repeat this enough! Another point to be on the lookout for is "label cost adjustment", especially with UPS, it took me a good while to understand that even post delivery UPS sends some package measurement & weight adjustments that are wrong and you will be automatically charged more. We have very specific box dimensions and ups keeps claiming the dimensions are different than those we carry and we have to dispute the "adjustments" on a regular. You can see that in your "reports" section. make sure to monitor it. Make sure you know what is needed also for small claims up to $100, they are good with those for lost mail, damaged mail, etc. Never had an issue with them and pirateship team has been helpful with that. All in all it is a fair service but not for anything that is above $200 and you must always monitor the label cost adjustments weekly. Hope this helps others.

Update:
so for a while I was thinking to change my review for the better since the rates were much better and $100 coverage of items was included in basic shipping and also UPS was added as an option, was really "smooth sailing" Arrrrrrhhh....no issues for a long while until a package was damaged, previously I filed claims and the ones under $100 coverage were easy to settle. Have not filed a claim in a very very long time. I submitted everything that is required and did it with the system not with the agents, the claim was not being processed (I already send a replacement to my customer because we take care of our customers promptly) so I contacted an agent who told me it is 1-2 weeks for processing a claim (meaning to get an initial response not approval). I now understood that shipsurance in not the only problem, it is pirateship too, and I will explain. The customers are require to hold on to all the packaging and damaged items because after a few weeks they come up with requests that should have been cared for upon happening, obviously it is an issue but those are the policies so you cannot argue about it, by delaying the process of the claim there are less chances for the claim to be approved and we end up disturbing our customers. Also, I work with other 3 party services that resolve any issues within no time. So the agent was rude, and when I told him that in the past it was not like this with pirate ship and that I cannot work with 1-2 weeks for processing a simple claim and that other companies offer better services so I will have to choose them for these complication he replied that he was "happy to help" and sent a smiley emoji. I was shipping mostly with pirateship but since the support for customers is an issue when an actual problem occurs I will have to stop, too bad, I really liked using their services, but occasionally there are issues and support is needed. We too offer it to our customers but with pleasure.

This is an amazing app. Great prices. Would like to see a back/edit button and a smaller stamp option, with tracking number separate. (my return address and send to would already be on there).

There was one order that I had to partially refund. After refunded it closed the order. So I had to manually enter it. Also when doing multiple the box weights are different I'd like an option to at least see what customer I was packing and shipping....

I'm hoping this app stays free. You never know. Flawlessly works with Shopify.