Shipping software for UK online stores, compared

A UK online store has plenty of shipping software to choose from. Royal Mail gives its own tool away ^S1, Shopify sells labels inside the admin ^S7, and British firms in Bolton and Bristol build tools around Royal Mail, Evri and DPD. ^{S14,S15,S35,S39} The real choice turns on whose postage rates you use, which carriers you need, and how much of the packing the software should run. This roundup checks nine tools against their own pages and says who each suits.

How we judged

Five questions separate these tools for a UK store. Each entry answers them where the vendor's own pages do.

• Whose rates? Some tools sell labels on their own carrier contracts. Others print on accounts you hold, so the carrier bills you. The trade-off is in Aggregator rates or your own carrier contract.
• Which UK carriers? Check that the carriers you use are on the list, on your account or the vendor's.
• A Royal Mail business account? Royal Mail points senders of over 20 parcels a week to its Online Business Account (OBA) ^S1, and some tools connect your own Royal Mail account only through one. ^S23,S36
• Returns and pickup points. Return labels and Post Office or parcel-shop collection are not in every tool.
• Customs. Click & Drop needs customs information on every order leaving the UK mainland ^S5, so what a tool fills in matters.

The nine tools at a glance

In the order they appear below.

Left off after checking: Packlink PRO, whose UK PRO page returned an error on the check date; Easyship and Starshipit, whose Shopify listings name few or no UK carriers; and Linnworks and Mintsoft, which are order and warehouse systems first.

Free to use: you pay through the postage

These four charge nothing for the software itself. You pay for each label at the rates the vendor or carrier sets, and any margin sits inside that price. Parcel2Go also sells optional plans, and Veeqo sells inventory plans on top. ^S16,S18

Parcel2Go Smart Send

Parcel2Go's tool for sellers, from a company based in Bolton. ^S14 It imports Shopify orders, compares couriers and prints labels in bulk. The couriers named include Royal Mail, Evri, DPD, Parcelforce Worldwide, DHL eCommerce, DHL Express, Yodel, DX and UK Mail. ^S15 It also connects WooCommerce, eBay, Amazon, Etsy, TikTok Shop, Magento and Squarespace. ^S17 Parcel2Go says “100,000+” active sellers ship with it. ^S15

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Free to connect, with “no minimum volume contracts” and rates “from £1.99 exc. VAT”. ^S15 The Free plan is £0 a month. Plus is £9.99 a month and Pro £49.99, both exc VAT, or £7.99 and £39.99 a month billed annually. Pro adds “Business tariff courier rates” and parcel protection up to £50. ^S16 Customs forms and commercial invoices “are generated automatically when you book”. ^S15 Using your own courier accounts, return labels and a pickup-point picker at checkout are not stated.

• Choose it if you have no courier account, ship a mix of UK and international parcels, and want to compare couriers for each one.
• Skip it if you hold your own courier contracts, since using them is not stated ^S16, or want an app with a long review record: 3.4 from 22 reviews. ^S14

Royal Mail Click & Drop

Royal Mail's own tool, “completely free to use, all you pay for is your postage”. It imports orders from Amazon, Shopify, eBay and other stores and books Royal Mail and Parcelforce services. Royal Mail says over 35,000 businesses use it. ^S1 It connects to WooCommerce as well. ^S4

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. No monthly cost. Senders of “over 20 parcels a week” are pointed to an OBA for “discounted rates and specialist support”. ^S1 The Shopify app is free to install, label prices vary, and discounted bulk postage is for OBA customers only. ^S2

What to know on Shopify. Click & Drop imports orders that are unfulfilled, paid and “no older than 7 days old”, every 15 to 30 minutes, and can mark them despatched. It “does not support multiple store locations”. ^S3 The app's listing covers customs documents and return labels, and it held 1.6 from 90 reviews on the check date. ^S2

• Choose it if you ship mainly Royal Mail and Parcelforce from one location and want the carrier's own tool at no software cost.
• Skip it if you need Evri, DPD or other carriers in the same queue, since the page names only Royal Mail and Parcelforce services ^S1, or you ship from more than one store location. ^S3

Shopify's own shipping labels

Labels bought in the Shopify admin on Shopify's carrier accounts, with no app to install. From a UK fulfilment location the carriers are Evri, DPD, Royal Mail, InPost UK and DHL Express Europe. For some carriers the store must also be based in the UK. ^S7

What each UK carrier covers. Royal Mail, Evri, DPD and InPost UK labels from Shopify are domestic only. ^{S9,S10,S11,S12} Royal Mail and InPost UK labels cannot be bought from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. ^S9,S12 Evri and DPD offer no pickups, so you drop parcels off. ^S10,S11 Included cover is £25 on Evri and InPost UK, £60 on DPD and £75 on Royal Mail. ^{S9,S10,S11,S12}

Pickup points and returns. UK stores can offer pickup points at checkout: Royal Mail Local Collect at Post Office branches and Customer Service Points, and Evri ParcelShops. ^S9,S10,S13 Pickup points are not offered with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay or PayPal, or on B2B orders. ^S13 Return labels need a location in the United States or Canada, and “discounts for shipping labels vary based on your Shopify plan”. ^S8

• Choose it if you sell only on Shopify, ship within the UK, and want labels and pickup points with no extra software.
• Skip it if you also sell on WooCommerce or marketplaces, need return labels from a UK location ^S8, or need Royal Mail, Evri or DPD labels for parcels abroad. ^S9,S10,S11

Veeqo

Listed on Shopify as “Veeqo: An Amazon Company” ^S19, Veeqo puts shipping beside inventory and order tools. Its shipping features are “free to use for everyone”, and it “isn't just for Amazon sellers”. It connects Shopify and WooCommerce among other channels. ^S18

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Shipping is free, and “we make a small commission on labels purchased through Veeqo”. You can “use our pre-negotiated rates with Amazon Shipping, Royal Mail, Evri, DPD and FedEx”. Inventory plans start “from £17/month”, including VAT. ^S18 The size of the commission is not stated.

Your own accounts. You can connect your own Evri account and “see your own rates” ^S20, and UK sellers can use their own DPD Local account. ^S21 Veeqo's article on connecting your own Royal Mail and Parcelforce accounts needed a sign-in, so we could not read it. Customs, return labels and pickup points are not stated.

• Choose it if you sell on Amazon as well as your own store and want shipping, stock and orders in one tool that is free to start.
• Skip it if you want to see the vendor's margin on each label before you sign up: the commission's size is not stated. ^S18

Shipping software with a monthly fee

These charge for the software, by plan, by volume or per label. In return they bring several carriers into one queue. Three of the four sell their own rates as well as connecting your accounts. ^S22,S27,S41

Sendcloud

Sendcloud “fully supports shipping from 8 European nations”, the UK among them. ^S27 Its UK carriers include Royal Mail, Evri, DPD UK, InPost UK, Parcelforce, UPS, FedEx and DHL, and you can “use our pre-negotiated rates, upload your own shipping contracts or combine them”. ^S30 Its WooCommerce plugin has 7,000+ active installations and 3 out of 5 from 13 ratings. ^S32 When stores leave it is covered in Sendcloud alternatives.

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Free is £0 a month and ships only on Sendcloud's rates. Lite is £7 a month plus £0.07 per label, Growth £31 plus £0.06, Premium £79 plus £0.05, and Pro “upon request” plus £0.05. The monthly label limits are 400, 1,000, 10,000 and 30,000, with “an additional £0.15 per label” above them. ^S27 The label fee applies on your own contract too. ^S28 Its trial buttons open yearly plans, so we read these as yearly-billing prices; monthly prices and VAT are not stated. ^S27

By our arithmetic, 1,000 labels a month costs £91 on Growth and £167 on Lite, where 600 go over the limit. ^S27 Lite includes your own courier contract, pickups, customs documents and a service-point picker at checkout; the returns portal starts at Growth. ^S27

Royal Mail on Sendcloud's rates. Without your own contract, Royal Mail labels run under Sendcloud's. Those services are “drop-off only”, collections are booked with Royal Mail directly, and each label carries the text “MARKETPLACE SELLER”. ^S29

• Choose it if you want UK and European carriers in one account, on your contracts or Sendcloud's, with a returns portal from Growth.
• Skip it if you mind paying a fee on every label even on your own contract ^S28, or want Royal Mail labels without the “MARKETPLACE SELLER” line and hold no Royal Mail contract. ^S29

ShipStation

ShipStation's UK site lists Royal Mail, UPS, DPD, FedEx, Global Post, DHL, Evri, InPost, Amazon Shipping, Parcelforce and APC Overnight. ^S22 UK accounts get discounted rates from ShipStation on DPD, Evri, Royal Mail and UPS, and international rates through GlobalPost. ^S24 WooCommerce connects through Woo's own ShipStation extension, which needs a ShipStation plan. ^S26 Its Shopify listing has 4.3 from 710 reviews. ^S25

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Priced by plan and monthly shipments, with “+£0.000 per label”. Free covers 50 shipments. At 1,000 a month, Starter is £60, Standard £115 and Premium £460 on monthly billing, or £576 and £1,104 a year for Starter and Standard on annual billing. Every label counts as a shipment, returns included. ^S22 VAT on plan prices is not stated on the plan cards.

Own accounts and Royal Mail. “Bring your existing carrier account” is on Standard and Premium only. Return labels are on every plan; the returns portal and branded tracking start at Standard. ^S22 Connecting your own Royal Mail account needs a UK ShipStation account and an OBA sending more than 20 parcels a week; smaller senders are pointed to Royal Mail from ShipStation. For international parcels, VAT and EORI numbers are required, and Royal Mail provides the commercial invoice or CN23 when needed. ^S23

• Choose it if you ship on several UK carriers and want discounted rates and your own accounts side by side.
• Skip it if you want your own carrier accounts on a low plan, since they start at Standard ^S22, or send 20 Royal Mail parcels a week or fewer and want them on your own account. ^S23

Shiptheory

Bristol-based, per its Shopify listing ^S35, Shiptheory connects your stores, marketplaces or ERP “directly with your own carrier accounts”. It says it is “integrated with all of the UKs carriers not just one or two”, and it includes a returns portal. ^S34 Its listing names DPD, Evri, FedEx, Royal Mail, UPS and USPS, with rules “based on destination, weight, SKUs and more”. ^S35 On WooCommerce it imports orders and sends the tracking number back. ^S38

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Earth is £39 a month on annual billing or £49 monthly, with one user, one sales channel, two carriers and up to 1,500 shipments a month. Saturn is £99 or £119, Jupiter £217 or £255 and Cosmos £433 or £590; Enterprise is bespoke. Each adds a per-shipment fee of 0.03 or 0.02, shown without a currency, and VAT is not stated. ^S33 The Shopify listing offers a 14-day free trial. ^S35

Royal Mail and live rates. Shiptheory does not connect to Click & Drop; it works with your Royal Mail OBA instead. ^S36 Live rates at checkout depend on the carrier, and its help page names UPS, FedEx, USPS and DHL Express. ^S37 Discounted rates of its own and customs documents are not stated.

• Choose it if you hold your own carrier accounts, including a Royal Mail OBA, and want rules by weight, SKU or destination.
• Skip it if you have no carrier accounts, since shipping on its rates is not stated, or need more than two carriers on the entry plan. ^S33

Zenstores

Listed on Shopify as “Zenstores: UK Shipping”, from Mechfeed Ltd in Bristol. ^S39 It offers “discounted shipping rates across major UK carriers”, and “you can also connect your own carrier accounts if you have existing contracts”. Its carriers include Royal Mail, DPD, Evri, DHL, DHL Express, FedEx, APC, DX, Parcelforce and InPost. ^S41 On WooCommerce it handles carrier selection, label printing and tracking sync. ^S42

Pricing, as published on 5 November 2026. Billed annually: Essential is £79 a month plus £0.07 a shipment, with two carriers, two stores and two teammates. The Zenstores plan is £159 plus £0.04, unlimited, and adds shipping rules, auto print and barcode scanning; Pro is £499 plus £0.03. A Founders plan is free plus £0.25 a shipment, for one store and up to 100 orders a month on Evri and DPD. Annual billing saves 20% against monthly, whose prices are not shown, and VAT is not stated. ^S40

By our arithmetic, 1,000 shipments a month costs £149 on Essential and £199 on the Zenstores plan. ^S40 Its listing says CN23s, IOSS and HS codes are “added automatically” on international orders ^S39, and its home page says EU customs and IOSS compliance “are handled automatically”. Returns appear only as “Returns label automation”, with no detail. ^S41

• Choose it if you ship to the EU often and want customs data filled in, on its rates or your own accounts.
• Skip it if you ship a few hundred parcels a month on more than two carriers: the plan without carrier limits starts at £159 a month, billed annually. ^S40

A pick-and-pack platform on your own accounts

One entry, ours, and a narrow one for UK stores.

OrderKrab

Ours. A fulfilment platform for Shopify, WooCommerce and PrestaShop stores - orders, labels, barcode pick and pack, returns. It sells no labels: each prints on your own carrier account. ^S44 For a UK store it books Royal Mail, through Click & Drop on your OBA, and DHL Express, FedEx and UPS. ^S44,S45

Royal Mail. OrderKrab books Royal Mail through Click & Drop with your OBA's API key, for stores shipping from the UK ^S45; Click & Drop's API returns labels only for OBA accounts. ^S6 You set the price customers pay, with no live Royal Mail rates. Outside Great Britain and the Isle of Man, OrderKrab sends the item data and gets a customs form back with the label. Cash on delivery, pickup points and Royal Mail return labels are not available. ^S45

DHL Express, FedEx and UPS. All three take senders from any country, quote live rates at checkout, take pickup requests and support return labels. Each builds the customs invoice from OrderKrab's line items. ^S46,S47,S48 On DHL Express and FedEx you choose per country who pays import duties (DAP or DDP). ^S46,S47 None offers cash on delivery or pickup points through OrderKrab. ^S46,S47,S48

Pricing, as published on 8 November 2026. Per order, graduated, with no subscription base. Labels: €0.10 per order for the first 500, then €0.09, €0.08, €0.07 and €0.05, with a €10 minimum a month. Pro adds Pick & Pack, mobile picking and inventory at €0.14 down to €0.09, with a €25 minimum. Free gives all of Pro for 50 orders a month. ^S43 At 1,000 orders that is €95 on Labels and €135 on Pro, by our arithmetic, before postage. ^S43 OrderKrab's GBP rates, fixed conversions of those prices at ECB rates of 12 October 2026, give £85 and £115 by the same arithmetic. ^S52 VAT is stated only for Lithuanian customers. ^S43

• Choose it if you ship Royal Mail through an OBA and DHL Express, FedEx or UPS abroad, pack your own orders, and want barcode-checked picking with your labels.
• Skip it if much of your volume rides on Evri or DPD, neither offered to UK senders ^S44; you need Royal Mail returns, pickup points or cash on delivery, or have no OBA ^S45; you want routing by weight or SKU, since our rules match only the checkout method's name and destination country ^S49.

EU customs: what you still type in

Click & Drop needs customs information for every order leaving the UK mainland, which excludes Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands. ^S5 Royal Mail's help centre sets out what that involves:

• From 1 November 2026, items posted to the EU must carry a product SKU and a “Non-standardised Manufacturer ID” on Royal Mail services when the item's customs category is “E-Commerce Goods”, and on Parcelforce services for OBA customers. Click & Drop requires both from 26 October 2026, and “postage cannot be applied until they are provided”. ^S5
• A physical CN23 must still be attached, and the CN22 “has now been retired”. ^S5
• EU destinations need an EORI number. ^S5
• Much of this cannot be imported yet: “it is not currently possible to import much of this data directly from eCommerce marketplaces or webstores”. ^S5

Elsewhere, Parcel2Go generates customs forms when you book ^S15, Zenstores adds CN23s, IOSS and HS codes automatically ^S39, and Sendcloud includes customs documents from Lite. ^S27 ShipStation requires VAT and EORI numbers for international Royal Mail parcels. ^S23 Shiptheory and Veeqo do not state their customs handling. The test for any tool: do HS codes, values, origin and SKU come from your product records, or does someone type them per parcel?

How to choose in five steps

1. 1

   Count last month's parcels by carrier

   List them by carrier and service. Over 20 Royal Mail parcels a week is where Royal Mail points senders to its OBA. ^S1 A store mostly on Evri or DPD can rule out tools without them.

2. 2

   Decide whose rates you ship on

   With no carrier accounts, start with the free tools or a tool that sells rates. With contracts, check which plan unlocks them: Lite on Sendcloud, Standard on ShipStation. ^S27,S22

3. 3

   Price it at your real volume

   Add the plan fee and any per-label fee at your volume and billing period: at 1,000 parcels a month, £0 to £460 before postage on the GBP prices above. ^S22 Then compare label prices.

4. 4

   Book one EU parcel in a trial

   Check that HS codes, values, origin, SKU and your EORI number arrive from your product data, not from typing. ^S5

5. 5

   Test the checkout on your own store

   Check what customers see. On Shopify, pickup points do not appear with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay or PayPal. ^S13

No tool here suits every UK store. A store sending a few Royal Mail parcels a day is well served by Click & Drop or Shopify's own labels at no software cost. A store with several carrier contracts and regular EU orders gets more from a paid tool whose plan unlocks them.