Shippo is a multi-carrier label platform organized around an account and a plan, with a Starter tier that is free for up to 30 labels a month and a Pro tier listed at 17 USD/mo (per goshippo.com/pricing, checked 2026-08-22). SMKlog approaches the same job from the opposite end: describe one box, take one live price, pay as a guest, and have nothing left running afterwards.
The box in the table below went through the SMKlog calculator on 2026-08-22. The plan figures beside it were read off Shippo's own pricing page the same day.
Everything in this list was read directly from goshippo.com/pricing on 2026-08-22. We have not paraphrased the numbers or filled gaps from memory, and where the page did not state something we have left it out.
That is a coherent product and a fair price for what it does. It is aimed at somebody who ships often enough that a monthly relationship makes sense, and it earns its keep through volume, integrations and multi-user access.
To keep this concrete we picked a box most sellers would recognize: a 12 × 12 × 12 in carton at 15 lb, going coast to coast. Every figure below is the whole amount collected at checkout, with SMKlog's charge already inside it, and none of the rows were reordered or trimmed.
| Carrier | Service | Price | Transit window returned |
|---|---|---|---|
| USPS | Ground Advantage | $25.18 | 3-4 business days |
| FedEx | Ground Economy | $28.93 | 8-9 business days |
| UPS | Ground Saver | $29.17 | None returned |
| UPS | Ground | $35.30 | 5-6 business days |
| FedEx | Ground | $44.74 | 5-6 business days |
Buying that USPS row costs $25.18 and nothing else. No plan starts, no renewal date gets set, and there is no label count to watch.
Note the empty transit cell on the UPS Ground Saver row. That service came back without a window attached on the day we quoted, so we have printed the gap rather than inventing a number to fill it.
Feature grids tend to blur vendors together. These four rows are the ones that change what you actually do on a Tuesday afternoon with a box on the kitchen table.
| What you are comparing | Shippo | SMKlog |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring cost | No subscription on Starter, 17 USD/month on Pro | No fee to quote or buy a single label |
| Label allowance | 30 a month on Starter | No label count; the Free plan meters quotes, not purchases |
| Getting started | Account creation on every tier | First three quotes need no account, and checkout runs as a guest |
| Carriers advertised | USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL Express and 40+ for comparison | USPS, UPS and FedEx on US domestic parcels, plus four international lanes |
Two honest caveats belong here. Shippo quotes carriers we do not, including DHL Express, and it sells into international lanes broadly; we sell US domestic parcel labels plus exactly four international lanes (Canada, the UK, Germany and Australia), and our sole storefront integration is an eBay sync on the Pro plan. If either of those matters to you, the comparison is already settled and it is not settled our way.
Shippo's Starter tier already removes the fee at low volume, so the more useful comparison is against the platforms that charge from the first label, and the one that charges nothing at any volume. We read the following straight off each company's own site this afternoon.
| Alternative | Starting cost, published | Where it's aimed |
|---|---|---|
| Pirate Ship | Says it charges nothing itself and is paid by the carriers | One-off USPS or UPS labels behind a free account |
| ShipStation | 14.99 USD/month to start, built for order automation more than a single box | Growing order volume that needs a rules engine and an API |
| Stamps.com | 14.99 USD/month for Basic, the only one of the four that also sells postage stamps | Anyone who franks envelopes alongside boxing parcels |
All three, plus Shippo itself, answer to a shipper who ships often enough to want a dashboard: Pirate Ship, ShipStation, Stamps.com. SMKlog is for the shipment that happens once, priced in the carton table above the moment you need it.
A monthly charge is a bet that you will ship steadily. Shippo's Starter tier removes that bet at low volume, and its Pro tier is priced to pay back when the label count climbs. The moment your shipping goes quiet for six weeks, though, a plan is still a plan, and that is the situation SMKlog is shaped for.
We are not fee-free in every direction. Our Free plan allows 15 quotes a month, three of them before you make an account, and the paid tiers listed on our pricing page lift that ceiling. What we do not do is put a wall between you and buying a single label.
Counting carriers is the least useful comparison in this category. What decides your bill is the box, the ZIP pair and the service, which is why we put a real carton and a real route in the table above instead of a logo wall.
Its Starter tier carries no monthly subscription charge and covers up to 30 labels a month, per goshippo.com/pricing checked 2026-08-22. You do still create an account to reach it, which is the practical difference from buying a single label as a guest.
Not as a blanket claim, and we will not make one. Shippo's Starter tier is free at low volume, so on a straight USPS label the deciding factor is which commercial rate each side lands on for your exact box. Quote the box on both and compare the total, which is the only comparison that settles it.
The number you see is the number you pay. For a 12 x 12 x 12 in carton at 15 lb running Berkeley Heights to Los Angeles on 2026-08-22, the cheapest live rate came back at $25.18 with USPS Ground Advantage, and that figure already contains our charge.
Only barely: an eBay sync on our Pro plan is the entire integrations list. There is no order sync in the Free tier and no fulfillment arm, so if pulling orders out of a storefront automatically is the job, a platform like Shippo is built for it and we are not.
Pirate Ship, ShipStation and Stamps.com answer the same account question three different ways, from no subscription ever to a workflow platform built for order volume. Their published figures, read on 2026-08-22, sit in the alternatives table earlier on this page.