Account & Billing

Usage metering and limits

How ShipWave tracks labels, API calls, and storage against your plan, what counts, and what doesn't.

What gets metered

Three resources are tracked against your plan:
  • Labels — one per successful shipping label purchase. Voids and refunds do not credit back to your cap (we metered the work, not the success).
  • API calls — outbound calls to the ShipWave API from your code. Free for the first 10,000/month on every plan, then 0.01¢/call. The address verification API has its own metering (see that article).
  • Storage — primarily order data, label PDFs, and uploaded photos. Free up to 10 GB across all plans. Above that, $0.05 per GB-month.

Monthly resets

All meters reset on the 1st of each calendar month at 00:00 UTC. Your current usage is visible at Admin → Settings → Billing → Usage with a 30-day chart showing label, API, and storage trends.

UsageRecord audit log

Every metered event creates a UsageRecord row in your account. The audit log at Admin → Settings → Usage → Audit lists every label, API call, and storage delta with timestamps and references. If you ever question a charge, this is the source of truth.

Approaching the cap

At 80% of any monthly cap, ShipWave emails the account owner and shows a banner in the dashboard. At 95%, the banner becomes a modal that blocks until dismissed. At 100%, the relevant operations return 402 Payment Required until you upgrade or the next reset. The pre-cap warnings are there so you're never surprised mid-shift.

Pay-as-you-go for overflow

On Starter and Growth, you can opt in to pay-as-you-go overflow: instead of being blocked at the cap, additional labels bill at $0.10 each, additional API calls at the standard rate. Opt in at Settings → Billing → Overflow. Scale and Enterprise plans don't need this since they're uncapped.

FAQs

Do void labels refund my label count?
No. The metering counts work performed, not labels in active use. We tracked the EasyPost call and any associated work the moment you purchased.
Are webhook deliveries metered?
Inbound webhooks (from Shopify, EasyPost, etc) to ShipWave: no. Outbound webhooks (ShipWave -> your endpoint): yes, counted as API calls.
How do I check API call usage by endpoint?
The usage audit page has a per-endpoint breakdown. Useful when a misbehaving integration is burning through calls—you can find it in 30 seconds.
What if I export and delete old order data—does my storage go down?
Yes. Storage is measured at billing time as your current footprint. Deleting old orders, PDFs, or photos reduces your bill on the next cycle.

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