A rate sheet is a spreadsheet provided by your carrier, shipper, or 3PL (third-party logistics company) that Zonos can use to calculate your shipping rates when a carrier account connection is not available or service level calculation for a connected carrier does not return rates via API.
A rate sheet is needed when your carrier has zone and weight-specific rates and they cannot be tied into Zonos with a carrier account connection. This is often the case if you are using a 3PL. For example, if you are using a 3PL and they use UPS, even though we have a UPS account connection, it won’t work because it is the 3PL’s account and not your own UPS account. If you are not sure if you need a rate sheet, your Zonos onboarding specialist can help you or you can reach out to support@zonos.com to find out if you need one.
You need a rate sheet when your live shipping rates cannot be pulled in via an API (carrier account connection) so that you are able to charge your customers your negotiated rates. This will help to ensure that you are not overcharging or undercharging the customer and having to absorb the excess fees yourself.
While there is a process to import a rate sheet into Zonos Dashboard, converting your rate sheet to the format that is needed can be complicated, so you’ll typically end up sending your rate sheet to your onboarding specialist or emailing it to support@zonos.com with your store ID and name so that they can assist you in getting your rate sheet uploaded and new custom service levels added. See a complete email and rate sheet checklist below.
Before you send in your rate sheet, make sure your onboarding specialist has as much of the following information as possible, which will allow them to get your rate sheet into our system more quickly.
When requesting a rate sheet from your shipper, please ask them to make sure they include the following:
Be sure to include the following in your email when sending your rate sheet to Zonos:
Store ID
Store name
Display name - Let us know what you want to name the new custom service level created from this rate sheet. This is what your customer will see/select at checkout, e.g. International shipping
Transit time - optional
The shipping provider that gave you these rates
If you have the rate sheet properly formatted, you can follow these steps to assign it to an existing carrier service level in Dashboard:
If you need to create a custom service level and add a rate sheet, you can follow these steps:
Create a custom service level with a rate sheet
Learn what a rate sheet is, when and why it’s required, and what you need to do to create a custom service level in Zonos Dashboard.