Create a Shippo shipment, retrieve rates, and purchase a transaction (label)
domain: shippo.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Authenticate using your Shippo API token in the 'Authorization: ShippoToken <token>' header on all requests to https://api.goshippo.com.
POST /shipments with a JSON body containing 'address_from', 'address_to', and 'parcels' (array); each address needs name, street1, city, state, zip, country, and phone. The parcel needs length, width, height (in inches by default), and weight (in ounces by default) plus 'distance_unit' and 'mass_unit'.
The response includes a 'rates' array; each rate has 'object_id', 'provider', 'servicelevel' (with 'token'), 'amount', 'currency', and 'estimated_days'. Note the 'object_id' of the chosen rate.
POST /transactions with body {'rate': '<rate_object_id>', 'label_file_type': 'PDF', 'async': false} to synchronously purchase the label; the response includes 'label_url', 'tracking_number', and 'tracking_url_provider'.
If 'async' is true, poll GET /transactions/{transaction_id} until 'object_status' is 'SUCCESS' or 'ERROR' before reading label data.
Known gotchas
Rates expire within a few minutes of shipment creation; always purchase a transaction promptly or re-create the shipment to get fresh rates.
Unit fields ('distance_unit', 'mass_unit') must be explicitly set on the parcel object — the default may vary and mismatches cause carrier rejection.
A 'SUCCESS' transaction status does not guarantee the label was accepted by the carrier; always check 'messages' in the response for warnings.
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