Lifetimely: How to Connect ShipStation
At a glance
Connect ShipStation to Lifetimely to pull your real per-order shipping costs automatically into your profit reports, so your margins reflect what you actually paid to ship — not an estimate.
Note: ShipStation is available on paid Lifetimely plans.
What this enables
- Real ShipStation shipping costs feed into your Profit & Loss, contribution margin, and net profit.
- Ask the Profit Agent shipping-aware questions, like "Which products are least profitable after shipping?"
How it works
Once connected, ShipStation shipping costs are matched to your Shopify orders by Shopify order number, and they take priority over any manual or flat shipping rates you've set for those orders. Manual rates continue to apply only to orders ShipStation didn't fulfil.
What you'll need
- A ShipStation account with admin access.
- Admin access to your Lifetimely account.
Setup
- In Lifetimely, go to Integrations and select ShipStation (or go directly to
https://lifetimely.useamp.com/integrations/shipstation). - Connect your ShipStation account. [Connection steps to be confirmed before publishing.]
- Lifetimely tests the connection before saving, so an invalid entry is flagged straight away.
Once saved, your ShipStation cost data begins syncing automatically. The first import can take from a few minutes up to a few hours.
Troubleshooting
Orders show a flat or manual rate instead of ShipStation actuals: this almost always means the order reference ShipStation holds doesn't match your Shopify order number. It's common when fulfilment routes through a 3PL or middleware that passes an internal code (for example, an SO- reference) rather than the Shopify order number. A re-sync won't fix this on its own — the order reference needs to be corrected on the fulfilment side so it carries the Shopify order number. Once ShipStation is sending the correct order numbers again, costs start matching automatically.
Notes
- Lifetimely only reads data from ShipStation — it never writes to or changes anything in your ShipStation account.
- Disconnecting ShipStation removes the shipping-cost data that came from ShipStation. Costs you imported by CSV are kept. If you want to preserve ShipStation history before disconnecting, export it to CSV first.
- For how often data refreshes after the first import, see How Often Does My Integration Data Sync?