Overview
Choosing the right carrier service for each shipment often means balancing cost, delivery speed, and reliability. Managing this manually can become difficult when rates change, a carrier's performance changes on a particular route, or your shipment volume increases.
Smart Carrier Recommendation automatically selects the best carrier service for each awaiting shipment. It checks live rates from your connected carriers, removes services that may be unreliable or unlikely to meet your delivery-time requirements, and selects the service that offers the best balance of cost and delivery speed.
You can review every recommendation before creating the label and change the selected service if needed.
What does Smart Carrier Recommendation do?
Smart Carrier Recommendation:
Compares live rates across your connected carrier services, including services available through Ship by AfterShip.
Excludes services with a high exception rate for the shipment's origin and destination, based on AfterShip tracking data.
Excludes services that are unlikely to provide reliable transit-time performance or meet your maximum transit-time requirement.
Shows why a service was recommended, so you can review the selection before printing the label.
Re-evaluates each shipment, so you don't need to update rules when carrier rates or performance change.
What stays under your control
Smart Carrier Recommendation does not automatically change your shipping workflow:
It is off by default and only starts working after you turn it on.
Buyer-selected services and existing automation rules take priority over Smart Carrier Recommendation.
You can change the recommended service on any shipment before creating the label.
Turning off Smart Carrier Recommendation immediately returns your shipments to the previous selection behavior.
Prerequisites
Before enabling Smart Carrier Recommendation, you must:
Connect your carrier account and service. Go to Shipping > Carriers.
Review your existing automation rules. Automation rules run before Smart Carrier Recommendation, so shipments that match an existing rule keep the service assigned by that rule.
Set up and use Smart Carrier Recommendation
Step 1: Turn on Smart Carrier Recommendation
Go to Shipping > Settings > Automation rules > Carrier recommendations.
Enable Smart Carrier Recommendation.
Step 2: Understand the selection priority
AfterShip checks the available selection sources in the following order:
Priority | Source | What it does |
1. | Buyer's selection | Uses the carrier service selected by the buyer at checkout. |
2. | Automation rules | Uses the service assigned by your active automation rules. |
3. | Smart Carrier Recommendation | Selects the best-value service based on your preferences. |
Smart Carrier Recommendation only applies when neither the buyer's selection nor an automation rule has already determined the carrier service.
Good to know:
If a broad automation rule matches every order—for example, a rule that assigns the cheapest service to all orders—Smart Carrier Recommendation will never apply. Narrow the rule's conditions or turn it off for the shipments you want Smart Carrier Recommendation to optimize.
Step 3: Set your selection preferences
Smart Carrier Recommendation has two preferences enabled by default. You can turn either one off if you want it to consider a wider range of services.
Preference | Default | What it does |
Reliability check | On | Excludes services with a high exception rate for that lane, based on AfterShip's historical tracking data. |
Delivery time check | On | Only considers services likely to provide stable transit-time performance. |
Custom transit time | Not set | Available when the Delivery time check is on. Lets you set a maximum transit time for a lane. Smart Carrier Recommendation only selects services likely to deliver within that time. |
Step 4: Review the selected service
Go to Fulfillments > Awaiting shipment.
The Carrier service column shows the service selected for each shipment. Shipments selected by Smart Carrier Recommendation are marked with an indicator. You can also filter Carrier recommendations to Active to see shipments that have been automatically assigned a service.
The Est. delivery date column shows the expected delivery date for the selected service.
Step 5: Review or change the selection
Open a shipment to view the Carrier services panel.
Here, you can see:
The selected service, its rate, and its estimated delivery date.
The reason the service was recommended such as being cheaper, faster, or more reliable than an alternative.
Other available services that you can compare and select instead.
Select Show all rates to view the full list of available services. Services are sorted by price, and the Smart Carrier Recommendation remains marked wherever it appears.
To override the recommendation, select a different service. The change applies only to that shipment and does not change your Smart Carrier Recommendation settings.
Select Create and print label as usual.
Step 6: Review savings on your dashboard
When AfterShip identifies meaningful savings across your recent shipments, a banner appears at the top of the Awaiting shipment list.
For example: Save up to $53 and 4 days per month on shipping.
Select See how to save money with AfterShip to review the affected shipments and the projected savings for each shipment. You can then decide whether to apply the change to your current awaiting shipments.
Dismissing the banner hides it.
How Smart Carrier Recommendation chooses a service
For each shipment, Smart Carrier Recommendation follows four steps:
Step | What happens |
Step 1: Build the candidate list | Requests live rates for the shipment and returns from every available carrier service, including your Ship by AfterShip services. |
Step 2: Filter | Removes services that do not pass your Reliability check or Delivery time check. |
Step 3: Compare value | Compares the remaining services with the cheapest option and selects the best cost-to-speed value. |
Step 4: Select and explain | Applies the selected service to the shipment and records why it was chosen. |
Get recommendations for services you haven't connected
Smart Carrier Recommendation only selects from services you have already connected.
However, when AfterShip identifies a service you haven't connected that could consistently perform better on your shipping lanes, it can surface that service as a new service recommendation.
A service is recommended only when:
It would be selected for a meaningful share of your shipments, rather than only a few edge cases.
It is significantly cheaper, faster, or both compared with the service you currently use.
Recommendations appear on the shipment list with the projected savings and number of affected shipments. They also appear on the shipment detail page.
When Smart Carrier Recommendation can't select a service
Situation | What you'll see | What to do |
No carrier service is available for the shipment | No available options appear on the shipment list, and Create and print label is disabled. | Check the address, package dimensions, and weight. Then confirm that your carriers cover the destination. |
Services are available, but none pass your preferences | Not selected appears on the shipment list, and Create and print label is disabled. | Select a service manually, or relax the Delivery time check or custom transit time for that lane. |
The service selected by the buyer isn't available | Not selected appears with a note that the buyer's selected service is unavailable. | Select the closest equivalent service manually. |
Key takeaways
Smart Carrier Recommendation is off by default and only applies after you enable it.
It considers live carrier rates, reliability, and delivery-time performance when selecting a service.
Buyer selections and automation rules take priority over Smart Carrier Recommendation.
You can review the recommendation and override it before creating a label.
Smart Carrier Recommendation applies only to awaiting shipments.
You can also receive recommendations for carrier services you haven't connected when AfterShip identifies a meaningful opportunity to improve cost or delivery speed.
FAQs
1. Will Smart Carrier Recommendation buy labels automatically?
No. It only selects the carrier service. You still need to review the shipment and create the label yourself.
2. Does Smart Carrier Recommendation override my automation rules?
No. Automation rules run first. Smart Carrier Recommendation only applies to shipments that your rules haven't already assigned a service to.
3. Can I override the selected service?
Yes. Open the shipment, select a different service from the list, and create the label. The override applies only to that shipment.
4. Will it ever pick something more expensive than the cheapest option?
Yes. It can select a more expensive service when the delivery time saved is worth the additional cost.
5. Where do the delivery estimates come from?
Delivery estimates come from AfterShip's delivery date model, which uses historical tracking data for the carrier service on that specific lane. The estimate reflects actual service performance rather than the carrier's published transit time.
6. What happens if I turn Smart Carrier Recommendation off?
Selection returns to the buyer's choice and your automation rules. Shipments that have already been assigned a service by Smart Carrier Recommendation keep their current service until you change it.
7. Does Smart Carrier Recommendation work on shipments that already have a label?
No. Smart Carrier Recommendation applies only to awaiting shipments. Once a label has been purchased, the carrier service is fixed.