ShipStation vs Pirate Ship vs Veeqo for Amazon FBM (2026): what the plan fee adds to each label
Two of the three charge nothing for the software. ShipStation’s cheapest plan costs 8 cents a label at 500 or 1,000 shipments a month, and one of the free tools does not list Amazon at all.
- Amazon is most of your orders: Veeqo, free, lists Amazon and uses Amazon Buy Shipping rates.
- Amazon is a side channel: Pirate Ship, free, up to 89% off USPS and UPS rates; Amazon orders by spreadsheet.
- A team packs the orders: ShipStation, from $14.99 a month, 30-day free trial, 3 to 15 users.
- Over 5,000 shipments a month: ShipStation Standard or Premium; Starter stops at 5,000.
How we built this page. We read each vendor’s published pricing page, integration list and help text on 26 October 2026, checked each site is live and still sells the product, and drew demand from the questions AI assistants cite BagEngine for. We did not buy these plans or ship parcels for this comparison; where a free plan or trial exists we say so, and prices are as published on the date shown.
| Tool | Price as published | How it makes money | Lists Amazon | Free way in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 ShipStation | $14.99 to $799.99/mo | Monthly plan; $0.000 per label | Yes; Buy Shipping US and UK | 30-day trial, no card |
 Pirate Ship | $0 | "paid by the carriers, not by you" | No (14 platforms listed) | Free account |
 Veeqo | $0 shipping | "a small commission on labels" | Yes; an Amazon company | Free shipping plan |
| Free, then $19.99/mo+ | Monthly plan | Yes | 25 shipments free; 30-day trial | |
| Free, then $59 or $149/mo | Monthly plan | Not on page read | 100 labels free; 15-day trial | |
| Free, then $29 to $99/mo | Monthly plan | Not on page read | 50 shipments free |
Which shipping tool should an Amazon FBM seller use?
For a seller whose orders are mostly on Amazon, Veeqo is the free tool that lists Amazon, uses rates powered by Amazon's Buy Shipping and charges nothing for shipping. Pirate Ship suits a seller whose volume is on other platforms, because it does not list Amazon among its 14 integrations. ShipStation is the paid option for teams: a 30-day trial, 3, 10 or 15 users by plan, and volume tiers from $14.99 to $799.99 a month.
Pick Veeqo
Because it lists Amazon, ships "Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Walmart, WooCommerce" orders from one place, uses pre-negotiated rates including Amazon Shipping, and its shipping features are free to use for everyone.
Pick Pirate Ship
Because it has no monthly fee, lists Shopify, eBay and WooCommerce plus spreadsheet uploading, and claims up to 89% off USPS and UPS rates. Plan on uploading Amazon orders by spreadsheet and confirming shipment in Seller Central yourself.
Pick ShipStation Standard
Because it includes 10 users, publishes a price at every volume from 50 to 100,000 shipments, names Amazon Buy Shipping for US and UK merchants, and gives 30 days free with no card.
Pick ShipStation Standard or Premium
Because Starter stops at 5,000 shipments a month, while Standard and Premium publish prices up to 100,000.
What Amazon sellers use every day
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What does each one cost, and how does it scale?
ShipStation prices by shipments a month and by plan. Its pricing page lists Starter at $14.99 for 50 shipments, $39.99 for 500 and $79.99 for 1,000, with "+$0.000 per label" shown on every plan. Standard is $29.99, $89.99 and $149.99 at the same volumes; Premium is $349.99, $449.99 and $599.99. Starter stops at 5,000 shipments ($174.99). Annual billing is advertised at "20% SAVINGS", but the page prints no annual figures, so every number here is monthly. Pirate Ship and Veeqo's shipping features cost $0 at every volume.
Divide the fee by the shipments and the scale changes the question. ShipStation's Starter plan works out to 8.0 cents a label at 500 shipments, 8.0 cents at 1,000 and 3.5 cents at 5,000. Standard is 15.0 cents at 1,000 and Premium 60.0. A free tool charges nothing, so a paid plan pays for itself only if its rates, automation or team features are worth more than that per parcel.
How are the two free tools paid for?
Both say so on their own pages. Pirate Ship: "No monthly fees, markup or hidden costs" and "we're paid by the carriers, not by you". Veeqo: "Our shipping features are free to use for everyone. We make a small commission on labels purchased through Veeqo". Neither is a loss leader in the sense of a trial: the business model is on the label itself, which is why both can offer unlimited shipping software and why the rate you are quoted, not the software price, is the thing to compare.
Veeqo
Free, and part of AmazonVeeqo's page says it was "founded in the UK by an ecommerce seller in 2013 and acquired by Amazon in 2021". The Shipping plan lists unlimited users, products, warehouses and shipments, up to 5% back in Veeqo Credits on labels, and labels that are OTDR and claims protected as standard. Inventory plans start from $19 a month, and "Any FBA orders fulfilled by Amazon are excluded from your chargeable order volume".
Pirate Ship
The simplest free optionPirate Ship claims up to 89% off USPS and UPS rates with "pre-negotiated discounts", with UPS discounts for US-origin shipments and support 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Its help centre lists 14 integrations: Big Cartel, BigCommerce, Cratejoy, Discogs, eBay, Ecwid, PayPal, Shopify, Spreadsheet Uploading, Subbly, Square, Squarespace, Wix and WooCommerce. Amazon is not among them.
ShipStation
The team and automation choiceShipStation lists Amazon among its marketplaces and carriers, and its API documentation says Amazon Buy Shipping works "for all Merchant Fulfilled Network orders, including Amazon Prime orders" for merchants based in the US and UK. Starter includes 3 users, rate shopping and basic automations; Standard 10 users and Premium 15; every plan starts with a 30-day free trial, no card.
How do they connect to Amazon?
Three things matter for merchant-fulfilled orders: whether the tool imports Amazon orders, whether it can buy labels through Amazon Buy Shipping, and whether tracking goes back to Seller Central. Veeqo's developer guide says that booking a label for an Amazon order means "the tracking number and shipment details are automatically synced to Amazon Seller Central", which "will mark the order as shipped". ShipStation's API documentation describes Buy Shipping as available for merchants in the US and UK. For Pirate Ship we found no statement that a spreadsheet upload updates Amazon, so plan to confirm shipment in Seller Central yourself.
What do the label discount claims mean?
Every vendor leads with an "up to" discount, and each measures against a different baseline, so the percentages cannot be ranked. Pirate Ship claims up to 89% off USPS and UPS rates. ShipStation says its rate shopping can "Save up to 90%" across 200+ parcel carriers and describes 80 to 90 percent discounts from major carriers. ShippingEasy claims up to 82% off UPS Daily Rates. Easyship's listing states "Up To 91% Off Shipping Rates". Veeqo makes a different claim, up to 5% back in Veeqo Credits on every label.
These are the vendors' own figures, attributed and not verified by us. The only comparison that settles it is a rate quote on your own lanes and weights, which is step six of the break-even sheet below.
What about ShippingEasy, Ordoro and Easyship?
ShippingEasy has a free Starter plan for up to 25 shipments a month, then Growth at $19.99 for 26 to 200 shipments; higher tiers up to 10,000 shipments are priced by a selector, and it lists Amazon Seller Central among its integrations with a 30-day trial.
Ordoro offers a free Shipping plan with 100 labels a month, Advanced at $59 for 3,000 labels and Premium at $149 for unlimited labels, with a 15-day trial.
Easyship lists a free plan for 50 shipments a month and paid plans from $29 to $99 a month on the Shopify App Store, with a 14-day trial on paid plans. Neither the Ordoro pricing page nor the Easyship listing we read mentions Amazon, so check the integration list before relying on either for Amazon orders.
How do you decide whether a paid plan beats the free tools?
Do the arithmetic before the trial, not after it. The fee per label is the number a paid plan has to beat on rates, and it is small enough at volume that a modest discount gap covers it. At 500 shipments on Starter, 8.0 cents a label is 1.3 points of discount on a $6.00 label (an example you replace with your own average). The harder part is the rate itself, which only a quote on your lanes can show.
STEP 1: your monthly shipments ______
STEP 2: ShipStation plan fee at that volume (pricing page ladder) $______
STEP 3: fee per label = step 2 / step 1 ______ cents
(Starter at 500 shipments: 8.0 cents. At 1,000: 8.0. At 5,000: 3.5.)
STEP 4: your average retail label cost $______
STEP 5: break-even gap = step 3 / step 4 ______ points of discount
Example, replace with yours: 8.0 cents on a $6.00 label = 1.3 points.
STEP 6: ask each vendor for its actual rate on your three most common
lanes and weights. Compare the rate, not the "up to" claim.
If a paid tool's rate is better than the free tool's by more
than step 5 on those lanes, the plan pays for itself.
STEP 7: count the people who pack. Starter 3 users, Standard 10, Premium 15.
STEP 8: check that tracking posts back to Amazon without a manual step.
Date read: ____________ Plan fee read from: ______________The bottom line
If Amazon is most of your orders, start with Veeqo: it is free, it lists Amazon and it uses Amazon Buy Shipping rates. If Amazon is one channel among several and most volume is on Shopify or eBay, Pirate Ship has no monthly fee and the simplest set-up, with the caveat that Amazon orders are a spreadsheet upload. If several people pack, or you need published prices up to 100,000 shipments, ShipStation is the paid choice and its 30-day trial is long enough to run a real week of orders. Whichever you pick, ask for a rate quote on your three most common lanes before you compare anything else.
Sources behind this page
Every price and status on this page comes from the vendor's own page (or its Shopify App Store listing where named), read on 26 October 2026. Each link below says what it supports.
- ShipStation pricing: Starter, Standard and Premium by shipments, 30-day trial, 20% annual savings, users per plan.
- ShipStation: marketplaces and carriers listed, discount claims.
- ShipStation API docs: Amazon Buy Shipping: Buy Shipping for Merchant Fulfilled Network orders, US and UK merchants.
- Pirate Ship: no monthly fees, paid by the carriers, up to 89% claim.
- Pirate Ship help: integrations: the list of 14 integrations, Amazon not included.
- Veeqo pricing: free shipping features, commission on labels, Inventory from $19, Amazon ownership.
- Veeqo for Amazon: rates powered by Amazon Buy Shipping.
- Veeqo developer guide: ship Amazon orders: tracking synced to Seller Central marks the order shipped.
- ShippingEasy pricing: free to 25 shipments, Growth $19.99, 30-day trial, 82% UPS claim.
- Ordoro pricing: free Shipping plan, Advanced $59, Premium $149, 15-day trial.
- Easyship on the Shopify App Store: free plan, Plus $29, Premier $69, Scale $99, 91% claim.