Our mission is to simplify everything about logistics. This not only includes maintaining integrations with the world's leading carriers for you to leverage, but also making EasyPost itself easy to integrate with. The steps outlined below should serve as a roadmap to ensure our customers get the maximum benefit from our platform.
Before getting started, here are some links to our technical docs if you are building a custom integration: Main documentation, Helpful guides and Client libraries.
Sections in this article:
- Create a test shipment
- Add a carrier(s)
- Webhooks [optional]
- Branded tracking page [optional]
- Add a billing method
- Create a production shipment
Create a test shipment
A great first step is to see how robust and simple EasyPost is to use. You can instantly begin testing our API once you create an account. Check out our getting started guide here.
Make sure and use your TEST API credentials. You will NOT be charged for any services or postage, while still experiencing an almost identical depiction of our production environment behavior.
Add a carrier(s)
Your EasyPost account will come with a USPS Commercial Plus Pricing account enabled, but if you wish to add any additional carriers that we support (and there are lots of them), now is a great time to do that. Visit this page and follow the intuitive account adding process.
You can also visit our carrier guide for more information about this step.
To add a carrier: account_email > Carrier Accounts > Select desired carrier from right hand column
Webhooks [optional]
Links to our official documentation: Webhooks Guide and Advanced API Docs - Webhooks
Webhooks are a URL that receives real-time updates from EasyPost whenever there is a new tracking event for a shipment. While this step is not mandatory to using EasyPosts core shipment API, webhooks can improve the utility of tracking updates while simultaneously eliminating the need for excess calls to the EasyPost API.
Branded tracking page [optional]
Instead of providing customers with a link to the carriers tracking page, give them a link to a standardized EasyPost tracking page that is customized to look like your brand. You can add your logo, change the color scheme and even create ads with links routing back to your website. A custom tracking URL to a branded tracking page is included with every shipment purchased through EasyPost.
Visit our guide that walks you through customizing your branded tracking page.
To customize brand page: account_email > Brand
Example of a branded tracking page:
Add a billing method
In order to create a production shipment, you will need a positive balance in your EasyPost account. To add money, you will need to add a payment method and make a deposit. If you would like the payment process to be automated, you can configure recharge thresholds and recharge amounts. View our payment guide if you are seeking detailed instruction.
We connect to hundreds of US-based banks to accept ACH transfers (may take up to 5 days), and we also accept all major credit cards (instant, subject to 3.75% processing fee).
To add billing, click: account_email > Billing
Create a production shipment
Once you have completed/viewed all of the steps above, you are now ready to create a shipment in production mode. Make sure to use your [production] API keys, have enough money in your account to cover the cost, and have added all the carriers you intend on using.
If you wish to use our custom branded tracking URL or utilize webhooks, make sure you have those systems in place. Once you have created a successful production label, you should get a success response to your API call...and can also see a list of shipment on your EasyPost dashboard.
