# Easyship vs Karrio

> Easyship scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Karrio's 48.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do shipping rates. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio.md (~2,250 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

Easyship scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Karrio's 48.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do shipping rates.

- Easyship: grade B, 68.8/100, rank #173 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/easyship.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/easyship.json
- Karrio: grade D, 48.7/100, rank #617 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/karrio.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/karrio.json

## Which one, for what

### Easyship (B)

Good for: An agent that ships parcels for a small or mid-sized merchant, mostly cross-border, and wants rates, labels, duties and pickups from one account without carrier contracts.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 87 against 68
- Agent ergonomics, 73 against 57
- Security & auth, 61 against 44
- Maintenance & community, 56 against 29
- Transparency & trust, 71 against 56

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Runs on your own machine
- No incidents deducted, where Karrio loses 7 points for them

Watch for: No idempotency keys in the 132-operation spec, and no Retry-After or backoff guidance for 429

### Karrio (D)

Good for: A team that wants to host its own multi-carrier API with its own carrier contracts and can maintain a Django and PostgreSQL stack.

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: No release since 2026.1.32 on 23 June 2026, 107 days before this check, and fix pull requests opened in September 2026 were still open


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Easyship | Karrio | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 76 | Easyship +4 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 87 | 68 | Easyship +19 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 73 | 57 | Easyship +16 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 61 | 44 | Easyship +17 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 56 | 29 | Easyship +27 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 71 | 56 | Easyship +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -7 | |
| **Total** | | **68.8 · B** | **48.7 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Easyship | Karrio |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Easyship Inc. | Karrio, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://public-api.easyship.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| Price for shipping rates | $0.01 per call | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Easyship's terms of service. The easyship-mcp server on PyPI and the plugin repository are MIT | LGPL-3.0 for the server, SDK and modules. Code under `ee/` is under the Karrio Enterprise licence and needs a subscription for production use. The MCP package in `packages/mcp` is Apache-2.0 |
| Tools exposed | 25 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `com.easyship/mcp` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-08-21 | 2026-06-23 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-07-28 | 2025-04-08 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-28 | 2025-04-08 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 0 stars, 79 PyPI/wk | 799 stars, 338 PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**Easyship.** Per-resource read and write scopes, separate sandbox tokens, a 132-operation OpenAPI contract and a 25-tool hosted MCP server with read-only and destructive annotations on every tool. No idempotency keys or Retry-After were found, the MCP server has no test mode, and the API changelog's last entry is dated 30 October 2025.

**Karrio.** A current OpenAPI 3.0.3 contract with 65 paths, a free LGPL-3.0 server and 30 carrier connectors suit a team that hosts it. The last release was 23 June 2026, the `@karrio/mcp` package the docs install is absent from npm, and `api.karrio.io` didn't resolve on 8 October 2026.

## Before you call either

### Easyship

1. Use a sand_ token against https://public-api-sandbox.easyship.com for API tests. Production rejects sandbox tokens, and sandbox allows 6 requests a minute
2. The MCP server calls production only. Create the shipment without buy_label first, then call create_label once the user confirms the courier and price
3. Don't retry a timed-out label purchase blindly. There's no idempotency key, so read the shipment's label_state first
4. Give every item a category or an hs_code. The API rejects shipments and rates requests that have neither
5. Stay under 60 requests a minute and 10 a second, and wait for the next window on 429

### Karrio

1. Run your own instance with Docker Compose and call it at `http://localhost:5002`. Don't rely on `api.karrio.io`, which didn't resolve on 8 October 2026
2. Don't run `npx karrio-mcp` or `npx -y @karrio/mcp`. Neither name is published on npm, so build the server from `packages/mcp` in the repository
3. Change the default `admin@example.com` and `demo` login before the instance is reachable, and upgrade to 2026.1.32 or later so passwords aren't stored as MD5
4. Don't blind-retry `POST /v1/shipments` with a `service` set or `POST /v1/shipments/{id}/purchase`. Fetch the shipment and check its status first, since no idempotency key exists
5. Use a test-mode API key while building. Send it as the HTTP Basic username or as `Authorization: Token key_...`

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Easyship or Karrio?

Easyship scores 68.8 (B) on agent readiness against Karrio's 48.7 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Easyship and Karrio need an API key?

Easyship takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Karrio needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Easyship and Karrio without installing anything?

Easyship has a hosted endpoint at https://public-api.easyship.com. No hosted endpoint is listed for Karrio.

### Are Easyship and Karrio open source?

No open-source release is listed for Easyship. Karrio is open source (LGPL-3.0 for the server, SDK and modules. Code under `ee/` is under the Karrio Enterprise licence and needs a subscription for production use. The MCP package in `packages/mcp` is Apache-2.0).


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-karrio.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "easyship", "b": "karrio"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare easyship karrio`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/easyship.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/karrio.json

## Other comparisons with Easyship or Karrio

- [EasyPost vs Easyship](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easypost-vs-easyship.md)
- [EasyPost vs Karrio](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easypost-vs-karrio.md)
- [Easyship vs Sendcloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-sendcloud.md)
- [Easyship vs ShipBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-shipbob.md)
- [Easyship vs Shippo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/easyship-vs-shippo.md)
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- [Karrio vs Sendcloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/karrio-vs-sendcloud.md)
- [Karrio vs ShipBob](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/karrio-vs-shipbob.md)
- [Karrio vs Shippo](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/karrio-vs-shippo.md)
- [Karrio vs ShipStation API](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/karrio-vs-shipstation.md)
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- [Karrio vs Ship24](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/karrio-vs-ship24.md)