A merchant selling large freight items needs location-based shipping quotes that account for delivery conditions (loading dock, forklift, residential vs. commercial). They found a third-party app ($50/month) to connect their internal SOAP-based shipping estimator but discovered it requires Shopify’s Carrier Calculated Shipping (CCS) feature.
Key Requirements & Costs:
CCS is available on Advanced ($399/month), Plus, or standard Shopify plan with conditions
On monthly Shopify plan: $20/month add-on fee for CCS
On annual Shopify plan: CCS included at no extra cost
Solutions Offered:
Two app providers responded offering integration services:
JsRates can fetch live rates from third-party APIs without requiring Plus plan
Both confirmed CCS feature is necessary for displaying custom shipping rates at checkout
Unanswered Questions:
The original poster’s questions about Shopify Payments/Stripe access and billing shipping separately after order placement were not addressed. The discussion remains focused on technical requirements for implementing custom shipping calculations.
Summarized with AI on October 31.
AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
I have pointed a client to Shopify who sells large items which often require freight shipping which is based on location as well as the presence of a loading dock, forklift, commercial, residential, etc.
We’ve located a provider app ($50/mo) that claims to be able to communicate with our internal shipping estimator (SOAP web service) but then discovered they’ll also need to upgrade their Shopify plan to the $399/mo option in order to make use of any custom shipping APIs. This was a deal-breaker, so they’ve asked me to look into the following:
Does Shopify Payments allow access to the Stripe account from where the order originated?
If not, and Stripe is not listed as a payment option, does that mean Stripe is not available?
Does it conflict with Shopify’s terms if we were to display a notice stating that shipping will be estimated and billed separately (after the order is placed?)
We might be able to help you integrate your internal shipping estimator to Shopify checkout using our app JsRates (https://apps.shopify.com/jsrates-shipping-rates). JsRates can be used to fetch live rates from a third-party API. Your client’s store does not need to be on Shopify Plus plan. You client’s store needs to have third-party carrier calculated shipping (CCS) feature enabled to display live rates at checkout. CCS is available on Advanced, Plus, and on Shopify (yearly billing or as add-on Shopify plan on $20 monthly fee). See more info here: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/fulfillment/setup/shipping-rates/third-party-carrier-calculated-shipping/index
If you are keen, contact us on support@jsrates.com to discuss your requirements in detail. We also provide free setup services.