---
title: "The Rate Tester"
description: "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…"
url: https://sistrack.com/en/docs/pricing/probador-de-tarifas/
category: pricing
section: docs
updated: 2026-07-28
---


*Markdown version for agents. This page on the web: https://sistrack.com/en/docs/pricing/probador-de-tarifas/*


# The Rate Tester


## 🎯 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 see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Exact city match | The address matches a specific city you defined |
| Full state match | The zone covers the entire state |
| State interpreted as a city name | You typed something in the state field that's actually a known city, and the system understood it |
| Exact postal code | The ZIP is listed as-is in the zone |
| Postal code range | The ZIP falls within a range you defined |
| Whole-country zone | This 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:

| Verdict | What it means |
|---|---|
| **Winner** | This is the one that sets the price |
| **Discarded** | The package exceeds one of its limits; it tells you which one and by how much |
| **Never evaluated** | A 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 see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| **No zone covers one of the addresses** | Neither the specific zones nor a catch-all recognize that address | Add 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 zones** | The zones are fine, but you haven't connected them | Create the route, or turn it on if it shows as inactive |
| **The route has no rate rules** | The route exists and is active, but it's empty | Create a rate for that route |
| **The rates are for a different delivery mode** | You 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 validity** | The rates exist but their dates have already passed or haven't started yet | Update the validity dates |
| **The package exceeds the limits of every rate** | There are rates, but this shipment is too large or heavy for all of them | Expand the limits, or add a fallback rate with a higher priority number |
| **Priority tie** | Two rates for the same service share a priority number | Give each one a different number: while they're tied, which one wins can't be predicted |
| **This template is used by several rates** | The price comes from a shared template | If you edit it, all those rates will change. Check first which ones they are |
| **Only the whole-country zone matched** | No specific zone covers that address | This 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.

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