Shipping

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Goal: Set shipping so Product A (a book with cheaper postage in the U.S.) and Product B have different rates, but when both are in the cart, only Product B’s (higher) rate applies instead of summing rates.

Current behavior: Shopify combines shipping costs when items come from different shipping profiles, producing higher-than-expected totals in mixed A+B orders. The user shared specific examples and desired outcomes where the order should follow Product B’s rules when mixed.

Guidance provided:

  • Suggestion: Use a single Generic shipping profile with flat rates based on order value to avoid rate stacking across profiles. This may simplify mixed-cart logic but may not capture the “books ship cheaper only when alone” nuance.
  • Limitation: Shopify cannot change the default behavior of summing rates across multiple profiles.
  • App-based solution: Calcurates app with Table Rates can group products (by tag, collection, SKU, vendor, metafield) and, for mixed carts, apply the highest group’s rate (or lowest/sum). Vendor notes free initial setup on most plans.

Status: No native solution; app recommended. No images or code are central.

Summarized with AI on December 12. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hello. I am trying to set up a shipping profile that lets product A be sold at one shipping price, product B at another shipping price (both are cost related - A is one for $4, 2 or more for $6, B is up to $20 shipping is $8 anything after $20 is a different rate. What we would like to happen is that when someone buys product A and product B, it uses the rate for Product B instead of combining the two.

Example:

Sale 1. One of product A (at $14.99), shipping for $4.

Sale 2. Five of product A (at $14.99, totalling $74.95) , shipping for $6.

Sale 3. Product B (at $5), shipping for $10.

Sale 4. Five of product B (at $5 each for a total of $45), shipping for $6.

The sales that trip us up are:

Sale 1. One of product A ($14.99), and product B (at $5), totalling 19.99, shipping for $13.

Sale 2. Five of product A ($74.95) and five of product B (at $45), totalling $119.95, shipping for $14.

What should be happing for both is that the shipping rate should fall under the pricing for product B rules.

Sale 1 should be at $9 (any sale up to $20), and Sale 2 should be at $6

How can we make this happen?

Thanks in advance - happyhandyman

2

Hello @donna_ethan @happyhandyman ,It’s better to set up shipping prices based on order value under a Generic Shipping profile, rather than assigning shipping prices to individual products with different shipping profiles. If multiple shipping profiles are used, their costs will be combined when products from different profiles are added to the cart.

3

Thank you for your reply. The reason for two different profiles is because one item (out of all in our online store) is a book. In the USA, books can ship at a lower cost, but when they are combined with other items, then the lower shipping rate does not apply. Can you recommend an app that will help us navigate this situation?

happyhandyman

4

Hi @happyhandyman ,
Shopify sums up shipping rates per multiple shipping profiles if there are items from different profiles in Cart. While it looks like you prefer to apply the highest shipping profile’s rate if there are items from different profiles in Cart.

Bad news: there is no way to change this Shopify’s behaviour, it can only sum up rates across shipping profiles.
Good news: our Calcurates app has a powerful Table Rates feature, where you can set individual shipping rates for certain products grouped by tag, collection, SKUs, vendor or even metafield. Next, there is an option to sum up rates if there are multiple product groups in Cart or apply the highest or lowest group’s shipping rate to the entire order.

Note, that the free initial app setup made by our team is included into most of our subscription plans.