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Frequently Asked Questions

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General Questions

Smart Shipping is an advanced shipping rate calculator app for Shopify stores. It allows you to create complex shipping rules based on zones, weight, price, quantity, and product groups, giving you complete control over your shipping strategy.
Smart Shipping offers two pricing plans:
  • Monthly Plan: $10/month with a 7-day free trial
  • Annual Plan: $100/year (save 17%)
Both plans include all features, unlimited zones, and unlimited rates.
Yes! All new installations include a 7-day free trial with full access to all features. No credit card required to start the trial.
Smart Shipping works with all Shopify plans that support carrier-calculated shipping:
  • Shopify Basic
  • Shopify
  • Shopify Advanced
  • Shopify Plus

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Installation & Setup

  1. Visit the Smart Shipping page on the Shopify App Store
  2. Click “Add app”
  3. Review permissions and click “Install app”
  4. Choose your subscription plan
  5. Start configuring your zones and rates
No! Smart Shipping is designed to be user-friendly. The interface is intuitive, and you can set up basic shipping rates in just 5 minutes. For complex configurations, our documentation provides step-by-step guides.
Yes, you can switch from another shipping app to Smart Shipping. However, you’ll need to manually recreate your zones and rates as there’s no automatic import feature. We recommend:
  1. Document your current setup
  2. Install Smart Shipping
  3. Recreate zones and rates
  4. Test thoroughly before removing the old app
Smart Shipping creates a new carrier service that works alongside your existing Shopify shipping settings. Your current settings remain intact, and you can choose which zones use Smart Shipping rates.

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Features & Functionality

Unlimited! You can create as many zones as needed for your business, whether that’s 2 zones or 200.
Smart Shipping supports multiple rate types:
  • Free Shipping: With optional thresholds
  • Flat Rate: Fixed price regardless of order details
  • Weight-Based: Rates based on total order weight
  • Price-Based: Percentage of order value
  • Quantity-Based: Rates based on number of items
Yes! You can set free shipping thresholds for any rate. For example, “Free shipping on orders over $75” or “Free shipping for orders over 5 items.”
Product Groups allow you to apply different shipping rules to different types of products. For example:
  • Fragile items can have a handling surcharge
  • Oversized items can use different rates
  • Digital products can be excluded from shipping
Yes! The Rate Sandbox feature lets you test your shipping configuration with sample orders before customers see them. You can verify rates for different destinations, cart values, and product combinations.

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Shipping Zones

Zones define geographic areas where specific rates apply. You can create zones based on:
  • Countries (e.g., US, CA, GB)
  • States/Provinces (e.g., California, Ontario)
  • Postal codes (including wildcards like 902*)
Yes! When zones overlap, the most specific zone takes priority. For example, a postal code zone will override a country zone for addresses in that postal code.
Create an international zone by:
  1. Adding specific countries to a zone, or
  2. Creating a zone with no country restrictions (acts as a catch-all)
Then add appropriate international rates to that zone.
Yes, by not including those areas in any zone. If an address doesn’t match any active zone, no shipping rates will be offered for that destination.

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Troubleshooting

Common causes:
  • The customer’s address doesn’t match any active zone
  • All rates in the matching zone are inactive
  • The carrier service is disabled
  • Product restrictions are blocking the rates
Use the Rate Sandbox to test the specific address and cart combination.
Slow calculations can be caused by:
  • Complex rate rules with many conditions
  • Too many active rates (try to keep under 20 per zone)
  • Network latency
Contact support if rates consistently take over 2 seconds to calculate.
Yes! Use Product Groups to:
  1. Create a group for products that shouldn’t use Smart Shipping
  2. Set the group modifier to exclude from shipping
  3. Assign products to that group
Smart Shipping has 99.9% uptime. In the rare event of downtime:
  • Shopify will fall back to your backup shipping rates (if configured)
  • Our status page will show current system status
  • Priority support is available for urgent issues

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Billing & Account

Billing starts after your 7-day free trial ends. You’ll receive an email reminder before the trial expires.
Yes! You can switch between monthly and annual plans at any time from the Billing section. When upgrading to annual, you’ll receive a prorated credit for any unused monthly time.
Uninstalling will:
  • Cancel your subscription immediately
  • Remove the carrier service from your store
  • Delete all your zones and rates (cannot be recovered)
  • Stop all shipping calculations
No pause feature is available. However, you can:
  • Deactivate all zones to stop calculations
  • Keep the app installed without active zones
  • Reactivate zones when ready

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Advanced Features

While Smart Shipping doesn’t directly support customer-specific rates, you can:
  • Use Shopify’s native customer tags
  • Create product groups for wholesale items
  • Offer discount codes for specific customers
Yes! You can add fees by:
  • Including handling in your base rates
  • Using product groups to add surcharges for specific items
  • Setting minimum rate amounts
Smart Shipping is designed to work through the Shopify admin interface. Direct API access is not currently available, but all features are accessible through the app dashboard.

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Getting Help

You can reach our support team:
Yes! You’re reading it now. Our documentation includes:
  • Step-by-step setup guides
  • Feature explanations
  • Troubleshooting guides
  • Best practices
Yes! Annual plan subscribers get priority support which includes:
  • Setup assistance via email
  • Configuration recommendations
  • Best practices for your use case
We love feedback! Send feature requests to:
Can’t find your answer? Contact our support team for personalized help.
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