Rating Overview

Rating & Billing is where you tell ShipStream what shipping costs, so it can choose the cheapest acceptable service for every Shipment and quote rates back to your integrations. The pages below build on each other: rate data first, then the methods that consume it.

The screens are under Rating in the Admin UI. The rating data itself is yours to supply, so the order below is also the order to set it up in.

Setting up rate data

• Rating Maps - the tables that map postal codes to zones, transit times and surcharge areas.
• Rate Groups and Plans - the base rates for each carrier service and address classification, grouped into a complete rating set.
• Fee Schedules and Adjustments - the surcharges and adjustments layered on top of a base rate.

Using rate data

• Rate Shopping - how ShipStream resolves a virtual method to the most cost-effective real one, and how Merchant Rates assign a Rate Group to a Merchant.
• Virtual Shipping Methods - the placeholder methods your customers and integrations choose from.

Related pages

• Shipping Accounts - the carrier credentials the chosen service is bought with.
• External Shipping Methods - custom methods that can take part in rate shopping.

The billing half of Rating & Billing — generating merchant Invoices from Billing > Invoices — is covered on the Billing page, which is still being written.