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💰Rates

The Rate Tester

The tester lets you simulate a shipment without creating it and see exactly how the system arrives at a price. And when it doesn't, it tells you where the chain…

Updated 28 Jul 2026 · 5 min read

🎯 What it’s for

The tester lets you simulate a shipment without creating it and see exactly how the system arrives at a price. And when it doesn’t, it tells you exactly where the chain broke.

It’s the fastest way to answer these questions:

  • Why doesn’t this shipment get a price?
  • Why is it charging me this rate and not the other one?
  • Why doesn’t one of my services show up when getting a quote?
  • Is the zone I just created properly configured?

You’ll find it under Rates → Rate Tester.

The tester doesn’t create shipments or modify anything. It only queries. You can use it as many times as you want.

🚀 How to use it

  1. Choose the delivery mode: door-to-door or agency-to-agency.
  2. Fill in the origin and the destination. You don’t need the full address: the country is enough to start, and you can narrow it down with state, city, or postal code.
  3. Enter the weight. Dimensions are optional, but it’s worth adding them if your rates have size limits.
  4. If you want to check the price agreed with a specific customer, select them under Quote as customer.
  5. Click Test rate.

📖 How to read the result

At the top you’ll see the outcome: whether the shipment can be quoted and at what price, or the exact reason it can’t.

Below that, the full chain in three stages. The one that fails opens by itself.

Stage 1: Which zones do the addresses fall into?

Shows every zone that matches each address, and why each one matches:

What you seeWhat it means
Exact city matchThe address matches a specific city you defined
Full state matchThe zone covers the entire state
State interpreted as a city nameYou typed something in the state field that’s actually a known city, and the system understood it
Exact postal codeThe ZIP is listed as-is in the zone
Postal code rangeThe ZIP falls within a range you defined
Whole-country zoneThis is the catch-all zone, which is always added as a fallback

It’s normal and correct for several zones to appear. The catch-all always accompanies the specific ones. Who wins is decided in stage 3.

If only the catch-all zone appears, it means no specific zone covers that address: the shipment will be quoted using the country’s general rate.

Stage 2: Is there an active route between them?

Here you see every possible origin-destination zone pair, with its status:

  • Active: the route exists and is turned on. This is the one that can carry rates.
  • Inactive: the route exists but is turned off. If you expected it to work, turn it on.
  • Not created: there’s no route between those two zones. Create it if you need it.

This stage explains, in one shot, the most frustrating case: having your zones set up correctly and still not getting a price.

Stage 3: Which rate rule wins?

First you’ll see the rates that didn’t even compete, with the reason: disabled, a different delivery mode, or outside their validity dates.

Then, grouped by service level, the ones that did compete, with their verdict:

VerdictWhat it means
WinnerThis is the one that sets the price
DiscardedThe package exceeds one of its limits; it tells you which one and by how much
Never evaluatedA lower-priority rate had already won, so this one was never tested

That last case matters: if you see “never evaluated” on the rate you expected to apply, the problem isn’t with that rate, but with the one that won before it. Check the priority numbers.

🔍 Symptom → what it’s telling you → what to fix

What you seeWhat it meansWhat to do
No zone covers one of the addressesNeither the specific zones nor a catch-all recognize that addressAdd the postal code or location to the corresponding zone, or create a catch-all zone for that country
There’s no active route between those zonesThe zones are fine, but you haven’t connected themCreate the route, or turn it on if it shows as inactive
The route has no rate rulesThe route exists and is active, but it’s emptyCreate a rate for that route
The rates are for a different delivery modeYou have rates for that route, but for door-to-door when testing agency-to-agency (or vice versa)Create the missing rate for that mode; modes don’t substitute for each other
All rates are out of validityThe rates exist but their dates have already passed or haven’t started yetUpdate the validity dates
The package exceeds the limits of every rateThere are rates, but this shipment is too large or heavy for all of themExpand the limits, or add a fallback rate with a higher priority number
Priority tieTwo rates for the same service share a priority numberGive each one a different number: while they’re tied, which one wins can’t be predicted
This template is used by several ratesThe price comes from a shared templateIf you edit it, all those rates will change. Check first which ones they are
Only the whole-country zone matchedNo specific zone covers that addressThis is valid, but if you expected a specific rate, add that address to its zone

💡 Time-saving uses

  • After creating a zone: test it before assuming it works.
  • Before changing a priority: check which rate wins now, change it, and check again.
  • When a customer disputes a price: reproduce their exact shipment and you’ll see which rate was applied.
  • When adding a fallback rate: verify the large package falls into it and the small one still gets the cheap one.

Ran into a case you can’t figure out? Contact our support team.

💡

Still have questions?

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