Head to head · Shipping rates · October 2026 research run
EasyPost vs Shippo
Shippo scores 61.9 (C) on agent readiness against EasyPost's 54.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. EasyPost leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust. Both do shipping rates.
Which one, for what
EasyPost C
Good for An agent that quotes rates across carriers, buys a label, verifies an address, follows tracking by webhook and requests a refund from one merchant account, mainly on US carriers.
Ahead on
- Maintenance & community, 85 against 77
- Transparency & trust, 70 against 61
Watch for
No OpenAPI spec was found in the docs or in the EasyPost GitHub organisation. The reference is prose and tables, with a Postman workspace
Shippo C
Good for An agent that quotes and buys parcel labels across USPS, UPS, FedEx and DHL Express for a small or mid-size shipper, with a free test mode and public unit prices.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 59 against 53
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 55
- Security & auth, 52 against 47
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 22
Watch for
No idempotency key on label purchase or other writes. Only the Reporting API accepts one
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | EasyPost | Shippo | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 53 | 59 | Shippo +6 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 55 | 83 | Shippo +28 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 63 | 64 | Shippo +1 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 47 | 52 | Shippo +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 22 | 40 | Shippo +18 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 85 | 77 | EasyPost +8 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 70 | 61 | EasyPost +9 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | 54.3 · C | 61.9 · C |
Facts side by side
| Fact | EasyPost | Shippo |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Simpler Postage, Inc. (d/b/a EasyPost) | Shippo |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.easypost.com/v2 | https://api.goshippo.com |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for shipping rates | not published | $0.01 per call |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under the EasyPost Master Customer Agreement. The official client libraries on GitHub are MIT, with the Go library under ISC | Proprietary service under Shippo's terms of use. The SDKs and the goshippo/ai repository (skills and MCP bridge) are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 4 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | not listed | com.shippo/shippo-mcp |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-01 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-08-25 | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-08-25 | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | 149 stars, 100k npm/wk, 42k PyPI/wk | 3 stars, 73k npm/wk, 20k PyPI/wk |
Verdicts
EasyPost
Docs written for agents (llms.txt, a Markdown copy of each page, a JSON page index), seven official SDKs and free test keys make the REST API easy to start on. No OpenAPI spec or idempotency keys were found, every key has full account access, and the status page shows a connectivity outage on 23 July 2026 that affected all operations.
Shippo
Per-label and per-call prices are public, test keys are self-serve, and the OpenAPI spec, llms.txt and Markdown docs are open to a fetch. Label purchase has no idempotency key, API keys carry no scopes, and the status page logged carrier-side incidents on most days between July and October 2026.
Before you call either
EasyPost
- Use a test API key while building. It buys no postage and contacts no carrier, and test tracking codes simulate each tracking status
- Don't blind-retry
POST /shipments/:id/buyafter a timeout. Retrieve the shipment first and check forpostage_label, since no idempotency key exists - Send the API key as the HTTP Basic username with an empty password on the REST API, and as a Bearer token on the MCP server
- Handle
errorsas either an array of objects or an array of strings. The docs say both shapes occur - Pass a scoped
carrier_accountslist when rating. Only the first 60 accounts are rated and the call doesn't fail when more are enabled
Shippo
- Build and test with a shippo_test_ key. Test and live object IDs are separate, and the hosted MCP server has no test mode
- Send
Authorization: ShippoToken <key>, not Bearer, and pinShippo-API-Version: 2018-02-08 - Before retrying a failed POST /transactions, list recent transactions. There is no idempotency key, and a second purchase is a second charge
- Pass
async: falseon shipments and transactions, or poll the object until its status leaves QUEUED - Set
resultson list calls (under 200). Defaults vary by resource, and list calls are limited to 50 a minute on live keys
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, EasyPost or Shippo?
Shippo scores 61.9 (C) on agent readiness against EasyPost's 54.3 (C), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. EasyPost leads on maintenance & community and transparency & trust.
Do EasyPost and Shippo need an API key?
EasyPost needs an API key. Shippo takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in.
Can an agent call EasyPost and Shippo without installing anything?
Yes. EasyPost has a hosted endpoint at https://api.easypost.com/v2 and Shippo at https://api.goshippo.com.
Other comparisons with EasyPost or Shippo
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/easypost-vs-shippo.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/easypost.json·/api/v1/tools/shippo.json - From a terminal
anchor compare easypost shippo(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "easypost", "b": "shippo"}at/mcp, no key