Flat-rate shipping is a guess. Sometimes you guess too high and lose the sale. Sometimes you guess too low and eat the difference. Live carrier rates remove the guesswork entirely — your customer pays exactly what shipping actually costs, and you charge exactly that amount.
Here’s a complete look at how live rates work in the TheForge EasyPost Shipping plugin.
The Rate Fetching Flow
When a customer enters their shipping address at checkout, the plugin sends a rate request to the EasyPost API. That request includes:
- The customer’s destination address (street, city, state/county, postcode, country)
- Your store’s origin address
- Package weight and dimensions (calculated using the 3D bin packing engine)
- Which carriers and services you’ve enabled in the plugin settings
EasyPost returns rates from every connected carrier and service in typically under a second. The plugin filters the response to show only the services you’ve enabled, then displays them to the customer.
Which Carriers Are Supported?
EasyPost connects to over 100 carriers globally. For most WooCommerce stores, the relevant ones are:
- USPS — Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, First Class, Media Mail, Parcel Select
- UPS — Ground, 2nd Day Air, Next Day Air, Worldwide Expedited
- FedEx — Ground, Express, Overnight, International
- DHL — Express, Paket, eCommerce
- Regional carriers (vary by country)
You connect your own carrier accounts to EasyPost, so the rates you receive are your negotiated rates, not retail rates.
Enabling and Ordering Services
Not every carrier service makes sense for every store. A craft shop doesn’t need UPS Next Day Air. An electronics retailer might need it. The plugin’s carrier management panel lets you enable exactly the services you want to offer, drag them into your preferred display order, and add handling fees or discounts per service.
Rate Caching
Making a live API call for every keypress in the address field would be slow and expensive. The plugin caches rates intelligently: once rates have been fetched for a given address and basket combination, they’re cached for a configurable period. Return visitors or customers who refine their address see instant results without another API call.
Delivery Estimates
EasyPost returns estimated delivery days alongside each rate. The plugin can display these next to the rate label. You control the format: “Estimated delivery: {days} business days”, “— arrives in {days} days”, or any custom string with the {days} placeholder.
Free Shipping Threshold
You can configure a free shipping threshold directly in the plugin settings. Orders above a certain value get free shipping — the plugin adds a “Free Shipping” option to the rates list and can optionally hide the paid options when the threshold is met.
Troubleshooting: No Rates Appearing
If no rates appear at checkout, the most common causes are:
- Missing package dimensions — products need weight and dimensions set in WooCommerce
- No carrier accounts connected in your EasyPost dashboard
- No services enabled in the plugin’s carrier management panel
- Address too incomplete for EasyPost to rate — the customer needs to enter at least a postcode
Full documentation and troubleshooting help is available at the ThePluginForge support page.