Get rates and choose a service on an order
Pick the carrier and service for a shipment, compare live rates and delivery dates, set the ship date, signature and Saturday delivery, and read what the customer chose at checkout.
Updated October 23, 2026
Each shipment on an order has its own carrier and service. Parcello fills them in when the order arrives, and you can change them and compare live rates before you buy the label.
Carrier and service
Open a shipment under Shipments on the order page. The left column holds:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Carrier | The carrier for this shipment. Lists the carriers you connected on the Carriers page. Estes and FedEx Freight are offered on the Freight plan, only when the shipment goes from the United States to the United States |
| Service | The carrier’s service. Before rates, a plain list. After rates, each option shows its price and delivery date |
| Declared Value | The value declared for the shipment. See Box weights and declared values |
When an order arrives, Parcello picks the carrier and service from the product, the customer’s checkout choice and your store default. See How Parcello picks the carrier and service.
Choosing another Carrier sets Service to that carrier’s default service (from Shipment defaults on the Carriers page), clears the rates, and sends the address check back to Pending.
Get rates
Click Validate Address & Get Rates (for Estes and FedEx Freight, Get Freight Rates). Parcello checks the address and asks the carrier for a quote for this shipment’s boxes, weights, declared values, ship date, signature and Saturday delivery settings. The button is available once the shipment has a carrier and at least one box with items in it.
The Service list then shows each quoted service with its price and delivery estimate, for example a service at $18.27 followed by Del. by Wed 5/6. A delivery time shows when the carrier commits to one (Del. by Wed 5/6 10:30am). When the carrier only gives transit days, you see ~3 business days instead.
Pick a service from the list to use it. It is saved right away.
For UPS, FedEx and FedEx Freight, the prices are your account’s negotiated rates when the carrier returns them, and the published rates otherwise.
Shippo
Shippo can quote the same service from your own carrier account connected in Shippo and from Shippo’s carrier accounts. Each option says which: · Your account or · Shippo account. If Shippo shipping insurance is included in a price, the option adds · Incl. $X insurance. See Connect Shippo and Shipping insurance and high-value shipments.
When your service isn’t quoted
If the service on the shipment isn’t among the carrier’s quotes (for example a domestic ground service on an international shipment), Parcello switches to the service the customer chose at checkout when it is quoted, or to the cheapest quote otherwise, and tells you in a yellow banner:
“UPS Ground wasn’t quoted for this shipment. Switched to UPS Worldwide Expedited ($141.50). Pick another service from the dropdown if you prefer.”
With Saturday delivery ticked, the switch goes to the cheapest service that delivers on Saturday, and the banner says so: “UPS Ground doesn’t deliver Saturday from this ship date. Switched to UPS Next Day Air ($40.01). …”
Large boxes on FedEx
When a box is larger than FedEx’s parcel services allow, FedEx may quote its air freight services instead, such as FedEx 1Day® Freight or FedEx 2Day® Freight. They appear in the Service list like any other service.
How long rates last
Rates stay on screen for 30 minutes. After that the prices disappear from the list. Click Validate Address & Get Rates again for fresh ones.
Rates are also cleared when something that changes the price changes: the boxes, their contents, weights or declared values, the address, the ship date, the signature setting or Saturday delivery.
Ship date
The Ship date field sets the day you hand the shipment to the carrier. You can pick any day from today up to 7 days ahead. Carriers use it for their delivery estimates, and FedEx labels carry it.
When you don’t pick one, the field shows the next ship day:
- If you use live checkout rates, it follows the cutoff and shipping calendar on the Checkout rates page: today, or the next shipping day once the cutoff has passed.
- Otherwise it’s today, or the next weekday the carriers run.
- Estes and FedEx Freight use the next pickup day.
After you get rates, the label goes out on the date those rates were for, as long as that date is still today or later. A date you picked that has passed moves to the next ship day.
Changing the ship date clears the rates. Get rates again to see delivery dates for the new day.
Signature required
Tick Signature required to have the carrier collect a signature on delivery. The checkbox sits under Ship date on every carrier except Estes and FedEx Freight (freight deliveries are signed for anyway).
- It starts ticked when the customer’s checkout rate included a signature, with the note The customer’s checkout rate included it.
- The quote and the label both carry the setting, so the signature fee is in the price you see.
- Changing it clears the rates. On Shippo shipments, Create Labels stays disabled until you get rates again. On UPS and FedEx, get rates again to see the new price.
Saturday delivery
Tick Saturday delivery to ask UPS or FedEx to deliver on a Saturday. The checkbox sits under Signature required on UPS and FedEx shipments within the United States. Tick it before Validate Address & Get Rates if you can: ticking or unticking it later clears the rates.
Whether a service reaches a Saturday depends on the ship date: overnight services when shipped on Friday, 2-day services when shipped on Thursday.
With the box ticked, the rates change:
- UPS adds its Saturday fee to every service and drops Next Day Air Saver and 2nd Day Air A.M. A service that delivers on Saturday shows · Saturday delivery · +$16.00. A service that still delivers on a weekday shows · Saturday fee · +$4.00: UPS charges the fee on it anyway.
- FedEx quotes only the services that deliver on Saturday, usually First, Priority and Standard Overnight from a Friday. When your account’s rate has no Saturday fee, the option just says · Saturday delivery.
If no service reaches a Saturday from the ship date, a yellow banner says so.
Once you’ve ticked or unticked it, Create Labels stays disabled until you get rates again, the ship date is still the one those rates were for, and, with Saturday ticked, the service delivers on Saturday.
Without the box ticked, FedEx’s Saturday options don’t appear: on a Friday, each overnight service is listed once, with its weekday delivery date.
What the customer chose at checkout
Under Carrier, the shipment shows the shipping lines from the Shopify order:
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Customer checkout: a title and a price | The shipping the customer picked at checkout |
| Added: a title, a price and a date | A shipping line added later with Edit Order in Shopify, with the day Parcello first saw it |
| A struck-through line with · Removed and a date | A shipping line removed with Edit Order |
Notes can follow the lines:
| Note | Meaning |
|---|---|
| “Service set to … for …” | The shipment moved to the service a line added after checkout paid for |
| “The customer paid for … This shipment is set to …” | The shipment is on a slower service than one the customer paid for, usually one you picked yourself |
| “The customer paid for … This label is …” | The label was bought on a slower service than one the customer paid for |
| ”… was added … and didn’t change the service” | A line added after checkout that Parcello couldn’t read, or that asks for nothing faster |
See Shipping upgrades added after checkout.
If the customer paid with Parcello’s live checkout rates (Advanced plan), a second line can show:
| Text | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Promised del. and a date | The delivery date shown at checkout |
| Free shipping (quoted $X) | The order qualified for free shipping. $X is what the rate would have cost |
| Signature | The checkout rate included signature on delivery |
| Declared value or Full-value coverage | The checkout rate included coverage |
| Freight services such as liftgate | The freight extras included in the checkout rate |
When Shopify combined several rates into one line, you see “Checkout rate consolidated by Shopify — per-carrier detail unavailable.” See Live rates at checkout.
Notes and limits
- The carrier, service, ship date, signature and Saturday delivery settings lock when labels are created. Void the labels to change them.
- Shippo, Estes and FedEx Freight shipments need quotes on file before Create Labels (or Create BOL). If the rates were cleared, get rates again.
Troubleshooting
“No quotes on file. Get rates before creating labels; quotes are cleared whenever the insurance setting, the signature setting or the ship date changes.” A Shippo shipment changed since its last quote. Click Validate Address & Get Rates.
“Ship date must be within the next 7 days.” Pick a date from today to 7 days ahead.
“Get rates before creating labels: Saturday delivery changes the services and the price.” Saturday delivery was ticked or unticked since the last rates. Click Validate Address & Get Rates.
“Get rates again: the ship date is now …, and Saturday delivery depends on it.” The rates are for an earlier day. Get rates again for the new date, or pick the ship date you want first.
”… doesn’t deliver Saturday from this ship date. Pick a service marked Saturday delivery, or untick Saturday delivery.” The shipment’s service delivers on a weekday. Pick a service marked Saturday delivery, or untick the box.
“Carrier and service must be selected” Choose both before creating labels.
“Failed to get rates:” followed by the carrier’s message. The carrier refused the quote. Common causes are a box over the carrier’s size or weight limits, or a service the carrier doesn’t offer on that route. Check the boxes, or try another carrier.
The Service list shows no prices. Rates were never fetched, expired after 30 minutes, or were cleared by a change. Get rates again.