The Shipping Cost dashboard gives you a comprehensive view of your shipping spend and the relationship between what you charge customers for shipping versus what you actually pay carriers. It is designed to help finance and operations teams understand total shipping expenditure, identify where shipping costs are absorbed versus recovered, and pinpoint which services, package types, and shipping zones drive the greatest net shipping cost.
The dashboard defaults to the last 30 days of label create date data and can be filtered across eight dimensions. The timestamp in the top-right corner shows when the data was last updated.
The filter bar controls the data scope for all KPI tiles, charts, and maps on the page simultaneously.
This table details the available dashboard filters and how each controls the scope of your shipping, order, and inventory data.
|
Filter |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Label Create Date |
The date a shipping label was created. Defaults to "Last 30 Days." This is the primary date dimension for the dashboard. |
|
Order Date |
The date the original customer order was placed. |
|
Requested Service |
The shipping service the customer selected at checkout (e.g., "Standard," "Free Shipping on $50+"). This is the customer-facing service name from the store, not the carrier product. |
|
Carrier |
Filter to a specific carrier (e.g., USPS, UPS, FedEx). |
|
Shipping Service |
The actual carrier service used to fulfill the shipment (e.g., USPS Ground Advantage, UPS® Ground Saver). This may differ from the Requested Service — for example, a customer selecting "Standard Shipping" at checkout may be fulfilled via USPS Ground Advantage. |
|
Package Name |
Filter by the package or box type used (e.g., 12x9x9, Mailer, 10x6x6). |
|
Store Name |
Filter to a specific connected store or sales channel. |
|
Warehouse |
Filter to shipments originating from a specific warehouse or ship-from location. |
Five KPI tiles at the top of the dashboard provide a financial summary of shipping costs and revenue for the selected period.
Example value: $5,917.96
The total amount paid to carriers for all shipments in the selected period.
This is the gross cost of postage: the sum of every label's actual carrier charge across all shipments in the filter window.
Example value: $1,630.47
The total amount collected from customers for shipping across all orders in the period.
This is the shipping fee charged to the customer at checkout, not the carrier cost. Orders where shipping was offered for free contribute $0 to this figure.
Example values: 752 Shipments | 755 Orders
The count of shipping labels created and the count of associated orders within the filter period.
The slight difference between shipments and orders can occur when a single order is split into more than one shipment (e.g., items fulfilled from different warehouses or at different times).
Example value: $7.83
The average carrier cost per individual shipping label, calculated as Total Shipping Expense divided by Number of Shipments.
Use this metric to track whether your average label cost is trending up or down over time, or to benchmark cost efficiency across carriers and services by applying filters.
Example value: -$4,262.93
The net result of Shipping Revenue minus Total Shipping Expense.
A negative value means you are spending more on carrier postage than you are recovering from customers in shipping fees. The difference represents the shipping cost your business is absorbing.
A positive value would mean the shipping fees collected exceed carrier costs. This is the primary financial lens for the entire dashboard, and all charts throughout the remaining sections display Net Shipping Revenue broken down by different dimensions.
An interactive geographic heat map of the continental United States visualizing the average net shipping revenue per order by customer destination region.
This shows where you are recovering the most, or absorbing the most, shipping cost at a geographic level.
Color Scale:
-
Red/pink tones → Destinations where carrier costs exceed the shipping revenue collected (negative net). The darker the red, the greater the loss per order shipped to that area.
-
Green tones → Destinations where shipping revenue meets or exceeds the carrier cost (positive or near-break-even net).
-
Light/neutral → Near break-even regions or areas with insufficient data.
Use this map to identify geographic regions that are disproportionately expensive to serve. This can inform decisions around shipping rate rules, free shipping thresholds, zone-based pricing, or carrier selection strategies for specific regions. You can zoom and pan the map using the +/- controls to inspect individual metro areas.
This section analyzes net shipping revenue broken down by the customer-requested shipping service, that being the shipping option name the customer selected at your store's checkout (e.g., "Standard," "Free Shipping on $50+," "Ground Shipping," "Economy"). This is the customer-facing label, not the carrier product used to fulfill it.
A bar chart showing the total net shipping revenue by actual carrier service used.
The most negative bars reveal which carrier services account for the greatest total shipping cost absorption in dollar terms across the period.
The chart plots Total Net Shipping Revenue ($) along the Y-axis against individual Shipping Service Names on the X-axis, allowing users to quickly identify which specific carrier products generate or absorb the most revenue.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Total Net Shipping Revenue ($) |
|
X-axis |
Shipping Service Name (actual carrier product) |
Use Case
Identify which store shipping options are costing the most in aggregate. "Free Shipping" tiers will naturally show large negative values since no revenue is collected from the customer, while paid options may be closer to break-even.
A bar chart showing the average net shipping revenue per shipment by actual carrier service. This normalizes for volume and reveals the true per-shipment economics of each carrier service.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Average Net Shipping Revenue per shipment ($) |
|
X-axis |
Requested Shipping Service Name |
Use Case
Identify which checkout shipping options lose the most money on a per-order basis. A service with a small bar on the Total chart but a deep bar here may represent a low-volume but high-cost offering that warrants a pricing review.
This section shows the same net shipping revenue analysis broken down by the actual carrier service used to fulfill the shipment (e.g., USPS Ground Advantage, UPS® Ground Saver, FedEx Ground®). This is the carrier-side view of costs, as opposed to the customer-facing view in Section 4.
A bar chart showing the total net shipping revenue by actual carrier service used. The most negative bars reveal which carrier services account for the greatest total shipping cost absorption in dollar terms across the period.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Total Net Shipping Revenue ($) |
|
X-axis |
Shipping Service Name (actual carrier product) |
Use Case
See which carrier services are driving your total shipping spend. High-volume ground services (e.g., USPS Ground Advantage, UPS® Ground Saver) will typically dominate this chart. Cross-reference with the Average chart to understand whether high totals are driven by volume or by per-shipment cost.
A bar chart showing the average net shipping revenue per shipment by actual carrier service. This normalizes for volume and reveals the true per-shipment economics of each carrier service.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Average Net Shipping Revenue per shipment ($) |
|
X-axis |
Shipping Service Name |
Use Case
Identify which carrier services are structurally most expensive per shipment. Expedited services such as UPS Next Day Air Saver® and FedEx Standard Overnight® will typically show the deepest negative averages here due to high postage rates, even if their total volume is low.
This section breaks down net shipping revenue by the package type used to fulfill orders. Package names correspond to the box or mailer configurations saved in your ShipStation account.
Note on Null ∅ Values
Shipments where no specific package name was assigned in ShipStation appear under the ∅ (null) category.
A bar chart showing the total net shipping revenue grouped by package type (e.g., ∅, 12x9x9, Mailer, 10x6x6). This reveals which package dimensions are generating the greatest total shipping cost across all shipments in the period.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Total Net Shipping Revenue ($) |
|
X-axis |
Package Type Name |
Use Case
Understand which package sizes drive the most aggregate shipping spend. Larger boxes carry higher postage due to dimensional weight (DIM weight) calculations by carriers.
A bar chart showing the average net shipping revenue per shipment by package type. This normalizes for volume and shows the per-shipment cost burden of each box size.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Average Net Shipping Revenue per shipment ($) |
|
X-axis |
Package Type Name |
Use Case
Identify whether specific package sizes are disproportionately expensive per shipment. Such insight may signal an opportunity to right-size packaging and reduce dimensional weight surcharges from carriers.
This section breaks down net shipping revenue by shipping zone (1–8), revealing how geographic distance from your fulfillment origin affects your net shipping economics.
Zone 1 is the shortest distance from origin; Zone 8 is the farthest.
Note on Null ∅ Categories
International shipments and shipments without an assigned zone appear under the ∅ (null) category, consistent with the zone definition used across other Shipments Overview dashboards.
A bar chart showing the total net shipping revenue by shipping zone. Higher-numbered zones (longer distances) typically show the deepest negative values as carrier postage rates increase with distance.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Total Net Shipping Revenue ($) |
|
X-axis |
Shipping Zone (1–8) |
Use Case
Understand which zones account for the greatest aggregate shipping cost absorption.
A spike at Zone 5 or 6, for example, may indicate a high volume of mid-to-long-haul shipments where carrier costs are significant but customer shipping fees are flat or free. This data can support decisions around adding fulfillment locations closer to high-cost zones.
A bar chart showing the average net shipping revenue per shipment by shipping zone. This controls for volume and reveals the per-order economics of serving each geographic distance band.
|
Axis |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Y-axis |
Average Net Shipping Revenue per shipment ($) |
|
X-axis |
Shipping Zone (1–8) |
Use Case
Determine whether per-shipment economics worsen predictably as zone distance increases, or whether specific zones are anomalously expensive — which may point to a carrier or service issue for that distance band. This chart is particularly useful when evaluating a zone-based shipping rate strategy to better align what customers pay with what you spend.