Looking for a ShipStation alternative to handle your ecommerce shipping? If you’re tired of dealing with poor customer support, long wait times, overly complicated features, fees, and shipping volume restrictions, you’re in the right place.
As an ecommerce business leader, you need on-time, cost-competitive delivery services that meet customer expectations, AND shipping software that can keep up with order volume, create efficiencies, control operational costs, and consistently deliver.
Six reasons to choose Descartes ShipRush as an alternative to ShipStation:
- Free live customer support
- Unlimited number of shipments
- No fee to use your own carrier accounts
- Powerful, user-friendly shipping software
- Experts in growing your business
- More than just shipping software
1. Free live customer support
Are you frustrated by long wait times, slow responses, and the lack of knowledgable customer support? At Descartes, we believe in fully supporting our customers to grow their businesses, regardless of where they are in their entrepreneurial journey. This commitment means that you receive free customer support via live chat, email, and phone with a human on all Descartes ShipRush plans.
We meet you however you’d like to talk with us, with no restrictions on which user contacts us, how often, or how long it takes to answer your questions. We are here to ensure your success and satisfaction with our shipping platform.
ShipStation’s least expensive plan offers customer support only via email*, as of the date of this publication. To expand customer service with live chat and 24/7 support, you must choose the Growth plan with at least 500 shipments per month. Phone support is no longer listed as a customer support option for any plan on the ShipStation pricing page as of this article’s publication date.
At Descartes, you know you will be taken care of regardless of the size of your business because we’re focused on building a relationship with you to help you scale and grow.
2. Unlimited number of shipments – no matter the plan
Regardless of the plan you’re on, Descartes offers an unlimited number of shipments at no additional cost! ShipStation, however, has monthly shipment maximums associated with every plan that it offers except for “High Volume,” which costs $399.99 per month*. Depending on the price of the ShipStation plan and the volumes associated with it, your shipping costs per label may vary significantly.
Also, check to see if ShipStation still counts return labels, any external fulfillment (like FBA), or any “mark as shipped” order processed using the system as a single shipment. If so, that will affect your total number of shipments and may bump you up into the next pricing tier. In contrast, Descartes places no limits on the number of parcels you ship each month, providing even greater value for the price of its plans.
3. No fee to use your own carrier accounts
With the Descartes ShipRush Speedy, Warehouse, and Enterprise plans, you have a wide choice of carriers at no extra charge, whereas ShipStation charges a monthly fee to use your carrier accounts, requiring shippers to use the “Your Carriers” add-on**. The fee amount varies by plan, according to ShipStation’s pricing page on the date of this publication:
$5 per month, Starter Plan
$20 per month, Growth-Bronze Plan
$30 per month, Growth-Silver Plan
$40 per month, Scale-Gold Plan
$60 per month, Scale-Platinum Plan
$95 per month, Scale-Enterprise Plan
Per shipment fee, High-Volume Plan
Your Carriers is included in the High Volume plan, which costs $399.99 per month* as of the date of this publication, but ShipStation still charges a per-shipment fee for every label printed from a Your Carriers account**.
In contrast, Descartes offers you the flexibility to use as many carrier accounts as you need at the same monthly price. For instance, you may need four UPS accounts because you operate as four different brands. We never charge extra fees to use your own carrier accounts with Descartes ShipRush.
4. Powerful, user-friendly shipping software
No one should have to struggle through a sea of knowledge center articles, flop around in customer forums, or waste countless hours in trial and error to learn a shipping platform. That’s why we provide powerful, user-friendly shipping software backed by live customer support to help all customers onboard and understand the program.
What’s the point of having so many features if you can’t figure out how to use them? The most frequent complaints we’ve seen across review sites such as G2, Capterra, and Software Advice for companies like ShipStation are poor customer support and poor ease of use. One ShipStation review said, “Automation is nearly impossible to set up without an expert.”
It’s true that robust shipping platforms and feature sets often come with a learning curve, and Descartes ShipRush is no exception. The difference is that you don’t have to struggle and figure it out alone. And once you have shipping automation in place, shipping processes basically run themselves with little to no room for user error.
5. Experts in growing your business
For growing ecommerce businesses, Descartes delivers proven results. Our solutions are a standout choice, offering extensive shipping and fulfillment features, cost savings, and efficiency to help our customers scale.
- Blue Sky Distribution achieved an 80% increase in fulfillment efficiency
- BW Retail Solutions achieved 4x throughput while growing at a rate of 30-40% per year
- State & Liberty achieved 75% faster fulfillment using 67% less labor
“Frankly, we were looking for a shipping solution that seemed too good to be true in terms of ease of use and a simple plug-in to all our sales channels but, within an hour, Descartes ShipRush was up and running—like magic! Now we’re able to handle extreme daily shipping volumes and meet customer expectations without missing a beat, or having to triple our warehouse staff like in the past, while simultaneously keeping shipping costs in check.”
Jason Lewin, CMO, American Paper Optics
Customers appreciate our live customer support, carrier flexibility, cost-effective pricing structure, and extensive integrations with other technology platforms you might already use.
Descartes ShipRush is built for scale with more advanced ecommerce functionality, such as shipping automation, NetSuite integration, and a pre-built integration with our Descartes Peoplevox warehouse management system (WMS), purpose-built for ecommerce.
6. More than just shipping software
Unlike ShipStation, Descartes ShipRush is more than a standalone shipping platform. It’s part of a family of ecommerce operations solutions purpose-built to help your business grow. Today, you may be struggling to control shipping costs and handle order volume. But with the right technology, you can easily offer more products, expand your customer base, and add new sales channels—without needing to hire more employees or increase labor costs.
Since ShipStation is essentially a parcel and LTL shipping solution, shippers and merchants using ShipStation have to partner with different vendors (i.e., multiple contracts) for an inventory management system (IMS), order management system (OMS), warehouse management system (WMS), multichannel listing management software, and purchasing software to scale their business as it grows. With Descartes, on the other hand, you have only one contract to manage as your business moves upmarket—a unique feature that sets us apart and makes your journey to success a smooth one.
Descartes WMS, IMS/OMS, multichannel listing, and purchasing software
As your business outgrows the garage and expands into a warehouse (or multiple warehouses!), we can seamlessly add purpose-built solutions to support your increasingly complex operations:
- Descartes Sellercloud – Best all-in-one ecommerce growth platform with inventory and order management, multichannel listing and catalog management, predictive purchasing, and warehouse management capabilities
- Descartes OzLink Mobile Warehouse – Best lite WMS for NetSuite, offering the fastest implementation and employee training to speed up pick-pack-ship and eliminate errors in the warehouse
- Descartes Peoplevox – Best WMS for D2C, B2C, and fashion brands, providing a seamless pick-pack-ship workflow for busy warehouses to replace outdated operations
- Descartes pixi – Our WMS for B2C/D2C brands based in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, effortlessly handling serialized and batch products, providing exceptional warehouse performance and control
You can keep your existing Descartes ShipRush account and start using new interfaces with any of these solutions. You even have the option of adding other products (e.g., a transportation management system, denied party screening, route planning, or customs classification) to support your operational needs as you grow.
Why try Descartes ShipRush as an alternative to ShipStation?
For any ecommerce business looking for a ShipStation alternative, we believe Descartes ShipRush is the winning choice, and we challenge you to give it a try. Sign up for a free trial, receive free live support for onboarding, and discover how Descartes can help you eliminate shipping headaches, cut costs, and enhance your ecommerce shipping operations.
While improving home delivery performance is challenging, especially in today’s uncertain economic environment, ecommerce retailers can survive and thrive. Take action today and ensure that you have the right shipping practices and technology in place to drive top and bottom-line performance gains.
Try Descartes ShipRush free for 15 days. Cancel anytime with no hassle.
* Retrieved from https://shipstation.com/pricing/ on May 1, 2025
** Retrieved from https://help.shipstation.com/hc/en-us/articles/22354433862555-Shipment-Fees-by-Plan#undefined on May 1, 2025
