I’ve spoken to enough WooCommerce store owners to know that shipping costs can make or break your conversion rates. Abandoned carts can stack up thanks to inaccurate, inflexible, or perplexing shipping rates. The solution to this—formerly Fish and Ships—is my focus in this Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce review.
Standard WooCommerce shipping options don’t handle complex real-world scenarios well, but this plugin could do the job. Come with me as I explore this table rate plugin to see if it can transform your complex shipping needs into a straightforward rule-based workflow without needing a developer.
Smarter Shipping, Better Business: An Overview of the Plugin
On my first look at Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce, it seems to address all the core pain points that plague many online stores:
- It can prevent financial losses by letting you create precise, conditional shipping options based on almost any criteria. You don’t need to stick with flat rates that either overcharge or undercharge—you can fine-tune your rates to match the actual shipping costs.
- Your cart abandonment can improve through offering customers transparent, fair shipping options. The plugin’s ability to display appropriate shipping methods based on a cart’s contents means fewer surprises at checkout.
- You can build trust with your customers through consistent, logical shipping rates. When shipping costs make sense to customers (such as charging more for heavier items or offering discounts on bulk orders), they’re more likely to complete their purchase.
What impressed me most though is how Advanced Shipping Rates accomplishes all this without the need for technical skill. It gives you a visual rule builder that transforms what would normally be complex conditional logic into an intuitive interface.
Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce Review: What Makes This Plugin Stand Out
I’ve seen and worked with several shipping plugins over time, so a solution that stands out is important. Advanced Shipping Rates distinguishes itself in a few ways. Firstly, the plugin offers up to 38 different selection methods (or ‘conditions’) to determine shipping rates:
- Product attributes. Weight, dimensions, price, volume, and even volumetric weight (crucial for courier services).
- Cart metrics. Total items, grouped products, and shipping classes.
- Customer context. User roles, geographical location, and the time and date of order.
- Advanced selectors. Min/mid/max dimensions, shipping zones, and ZIP/postcodes.
The powerful aspect is how you can combine these conditions using logical operators (AND/OR in the premium version) to create sophisticated rules to handle your scenarios.
Advanced Shipping Rates also includes about 20 special actions that trigger when you meet conditions. For instance, you can implement stop processing rules, abort shipping methods, or skip specific rules. There are also visual feedback elements such as custom messages, but more complex operations such as mathematical expressions and the ability to hide other shipping methods.
This plugin is a comprehensive shipping logic system; but while the free version provides solid functionality, the premium version adds more. For instance, the ‘Packer’ algorithm automatically calculates the most efficient way to pack products into shipping boxes. This can solve a major headache if you sell varied product sizes:
There are other aspects to consider, such as its notifications system. You’re able to create custom cart messages and even let users know when a shipping method won’t be an option. For you, the logging system lets you understand when the plugin triggers a shipping rate calculation.
This begins to get into Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce in a deeper way. In fact, it’s something you should do sooner rather than later too.
Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce Review: How It Works
At its core, the Advanced Shipping Rates plugin operates on a straightforward principle: it processes rules in sequence. Each rule contains three components—selection conditions, shipping costs, and special actions.
Before you do anything though, you’ll want to install and activate the plugin, then run through the introductory wizard from the notification at the top of the screen:
I think the wizard’s presentation is excellent. The guiding notification at the top for each step is neat, as is the helpful hints and tooltips you can find around the interface:
For instance, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t save my new shipping zone, but the guidance makes it clear: edit the zone.
Part way through these steps, you get the option to load a ‘full case example’. These are simply templates for common ways to use the plugin. It makes the setup process even faster:
I can’t stress how stunning, accessible, and helpful this onboarding process is. The floating tooltips as you work through the complex number of steps makes the process a breeze:
The wizard doesn’t end, so much as transition into using the plugin proper. This is where I want to talk more about individual components and functionalities.
Using the Advanced Shipping Rates Plugin
Let me walk you through a practical example of a clothing store that needs a shipping structure of tiers based on weight:
- Rule 1. For orders under four pounds, charge a flat rate of $5.
- Rule 2. For orders between four and ten pounds with volume under 1000 cubic inches, charge $10.
- Rule 3. For orders over ten pounds or with volume exceeding 1000 cubic inches, disable this shipping method.
With Advanced Shipping Rates, you’d create these three rules using the visual builder.
Here, you can set the weight and volume conditions, appropriate costs, and necessary special actions (such as disabling the shipping method for the third rule). Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce uses a complex ‘range’ option: a way to create a near-infinite number of shipping tiers using a single rule:
This is an impressive and intuitive process to me. The plugin uses the familiar WordPress interface rather than creating a completely custom system. It’s a usable and easy to learn system for all types of users.
The Group-By Function
Before I move on, I want to look at one of the more robust parts of Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce. The Group-By functionality determines how the plugin analyzes shipping calculations for products in the cart.
There are a few ways it will do this:
- No grouping. The plugin analyzes each product individually
- Per ID/SKU. It groups products with the same reference.
- Per product (group variations). It groups all variations of a product together.
- Per shipping class. This will group products that share a shipping class.
- All grouped as one. The plugin treats the whole cart as a single group.
This flexibility will be crucial if you want accurate shipping calculations—and I assume you do!—especially if you offer varied product types.
Pricing: Free vs Premium Options
Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce is primarily a premium plugin, but does also offer a stellar free version that doesn’t hold back on functionality.
In this edition, you can access basic selection methods (such as price, weight, volume, and cart items). You also get to access essential shipping cost calculations and core flow control. However, it’s the premium version that will ‘whet your whistle’.
This provides the full feature set on offer, which includes the additional selection methods (such as volumetric weight, date and time, user roles, and others), conditional logic, and those beguiling special actions.
As for the pricing itself, there are four tiers that don’t restrict functionality—my favorite type of pricing:
- A single-site Starter licence at around $55 per year.
- The Business tier that costs around $93 per year for five licenses.
- A 25-site licence Agency tier costing about $187 per year.
- A non-profit license that nets you 50 percent off of any of the other three plans.
Each purchase comes with a 15-day money-back guarantee and a 50 percent discount on future recurring renewals – 75 percent for non-profits. It’s a competitive package, especially considering you get lifetime updates
It’s a reasonable annual cost if you compare it to other premium shipping plugins, particularly the Business tier. I think it offers excellent value if you’re an agency or multiple store owner. Also, because you get full functionality, scaling your shipping rates calculations and implementations won’t bring about further costs or plugin extensions.
As an aside, I appreciate that the developer doesn’t cripple the free version—it could give you the functionality you need without a premium upgrade. Those paid aspects are actual enhancements for me, rather than re-establishing the limitations not present in the free plugin. In any case, you have full demos of both the free and premium versions on the WP-Centrics website to test out the functionality of each.
Support and Documentation
If you regularly read my reviews, you’ll know I am a big fan of in-depth and comprehensive documentation. Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce is no exception on this front, as it offers a Help area I appreciate.
While the documentation for other plugins structures it almost like a library, this setup is more akin to a walk-through tutorial. If you start from the Main help page and follow along, by the end you’ll have expert knowledge in the inner workings of the plugin.
There are some excellent insights and tutorials on the dedicated blog also:
Finally, there’s support. This happens through a dedicated support form on the WP-Centrics website:
It’s not my ideal preference for contacting support, but I do appreciate how easy it is to find and use. This is at least better than a more convoluted system that may not suit the workflows of the developers.
Who Needs the Advanced Shipping Rates Plugin
The most obvious user for Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce is stores that run a complex inventory. If you sell products that vary in size, weight, or shipping requirements, you’ll want to investigate what this plugin can do to help you create tailored shipping rules.
In addition, furniture stores, electronics retailers, or mixed-inventory shops will find the flexibility invaluable for similar reasons.
Don’t think Advanced Shipping Rates will be useless once you expand your markets either. Creating region-specific rules and combining this with support for multi-currency and multilingual setups makes the plugin ideal for international selling. For one simple concept, you could create different shipping structures for different countries or locales without creating multiple shipping zones.
Another niche I think will benefit is subscription boxes or regular delivery offerings. This is because the date and time selectors you have access to let you create shipping rules that vary based on delivery schedules.
You can easily set up free shipping thresholds based on the cart total, weight, or any other condition. You can even create complex thresholds such as: free shipping for orders over $50 unless they contain oversized items.
All in all, your shipping requirements will become more complex as your site grows. Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce can scale with your business to let you start with simple rules, then develop more sophisticated logic as you need.
Final Thoughts: Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce is Shipping Simplified
Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce transforms the typically complex task of shipping configuration into a manageable, visual process. The plugin strikes a rare balance between power and accessibility—providing deep customization without requiring technical expertise.
The free version offers enough functionality for many stores, while the premium offering delivers if you have more complex needs. The pricing is reasonable too, especially if you compare this to the potential cost of custom development or the revenue you can lose to abandoned carts.
Does this Advanced Shipping Rates for WooCommerce review speak to you? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments section below!
