Shipping Costs Explained

Setting Up and Calculating Shipping Costs in Lifetimely

To accommodate the different factors that play into your orders' shipping costs, there are multiple ways these costs can be entered or integrated into Lifetimely. You can:

• Integrate ShipStation, ShipBob, or Shopify Shipping accounts that automatically import your shipping costs to Lifetimely.
• Set shipping costs equal to Shipping Charged (what your customers pay for shipping).
• Integrate a Google Sheet that matches shipping costs to specific Order IDs.
• Upload a CSV file that matches shipping costs to specific Order IDs.
• Set specific shipping rates for individual products.
• Set flat shipping rates based on the country you ship to.

This article explains the calculation logic behind how we decide on the shipping costs to apply to your orders.

⚠️ Note: Shipping costs here mean what you paid to your shipping provider. Shopify maintains separate calculations of customer shipping costs, which they label “shipping charged.”

💡 Tip: For a step-by-step guide to setting up your shipping costs, check out our Account Setup Walkthrough.

Shipping Cost Calculation Logic

Here’s a quick summary of how Lifetimely makes a final determination on shipping costs when one or more settings are applied:

• Priority 1: Integrations with Shopify Shipping, ShipStation, or ShipBob
• Priority 2: Shipping Charged when "Use Shipping Charged" is selected
• Priority 3: Imports from Google Sheets and/or CSV files
• Priority 4: Product-specific shipping costs entered in the Product Costs tab
• Priority 5: Country-level shipping rates

Now let’s take a closer look at each of these options with specifics on how calculation logic is applied.

💡 Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: How can we ensure that uploaded shipping cost data takes priority over other sources?

Shipping cost priority is outlined above. In short, manually uploaded shipping costs will override lower-priority sources (like default estimates) as long as the Order ID matches.

Q2: What happens if an order has multiple shipping labels (e.g., split shipments)?

Currently, Lifetimely does not support split shipments. If your upload includes separate shipping cost rows with modified order IDs (e.g., #1232-1, #1232-2), they won’t match and therefore won’t be captured or summed together. You'll need to consolidate the cost manually under the original Order ID before uploading.

Q3: Can I compare shipping costs before and after uploading?

Yes - the simplest method is to download the Income Statement before your upload and compare the Shipping row under COGS after the update. This lets you quickly see any changes from the import.

📌 Platform-Specific Notes

• Amazon: Currently, Amazon integrations in Lifetimely only support:
  • Shipping Charged (what the customer paid for shipping), and

  • Country-Level Shipping (aggregated costs by destination country).

    Other shipping cost methods (e.g., per-product, CSV uploads, ShipStation/ShipBob integrations) are not supported for Amazon.