Running a business is one of the most complex things you will ever do! Having to account for everything from inventory, logistics, expenses, marketing, employees and the ten thousand other things that are involved to make sure that you are successful is not just time consuming and overwhelming but it takes careful execution on all fronts. One rash decision on what vendor to use, which employee to hire or which expense to cut can all lead to a very unpleasant outcome. This is why it is extremely important to always be confident in your decision, knowing that it is the absolute best one for your business. Who you use as your shipping partner for your business (big or small) can make the world of a difference.
Imagine this….being rushed because you have a deadline and 20 others things on your list to get to, so you choose a shipping partner that you didn’t fully look into and weigh out the pros and cons. This shipping partner you chose is $0.22 cents higher in price per package than the other one on your list. Now, let’s say that you ship an average of 50 orders per week out. So, 50 orders x $0.22 per package is $11.00 a week, multiply that by 4, that gives you $44.00 per month and $572 per year that you just lost out on because you were in a hurry. As a small business owner, $572 is cringeworthy to hear as that can help pay for quite a bit of inventory and supplies. With that being said, make sure to read on further for this exclusive small business shipping tip as we have your best solution to make sure that you are putting your every penny back into your pocket!
What Is Sendle
Now if you are reading this from Australia, chances are that you probably already know who Sendle is. However, if you are reading this from the USA, you may or may not have heard of them. But, you might have researched them which is how you ended up here and you may have also seen some reviews that gave you some conflicting messages regarding their service. We go over their reviews more in depth in the section below named “What about Sendle’s Mixed Reviews Online?”. Sendle is an Australian-based company that provides courier services in Australia and as of recently the United States of America. Sendle has created a way that is not only super simple for small business to use, but also affordable, reliable and good for the enviornment. They bring small businesses access to multiple shipping carriers that have traditionally only existed for big businesses. In doing so, they give you the same advantages that the bigger fish have so you can compete.
Instead of adding more vehicles to the road, Sendle's technology creates a network of its own, tapping a once empty space in existing national and regional delivery behicles, making existing routs more efficinet. A Sendle package gets routed through multiple carriers, depending on what is the most efficient option for that specific day and destination, utilizing hundreds of thousands of existing routes. With this model, Sendle helps its shipping partners make their routes more efficient and profitable, and in turn passes that savings along to Sendle customers. However, their platform goes above just negotiating cheap shipping rates and faster routes for customers like yourself, so make sure to continue reading for further information regarding Sendle as a shipping service.
What is Sendle’s Pricing
Let’s talk money, after all we did promise that we will be putting every penny back into your pocket earlier. As long as you are shipping under 20 pounds, Sendle is the way to go regarding cheap shipping for your business! Unlike other popular shipping platforms such as Shippo and Shipstation, Sendle does not require a monthly fee to use their service or limit you on features depending on the plan you are on. Sendle wants to make using their service and you operating your business as seamless as possible. They want to be your business partner not your vendor. Creating an account is free, and there is absolutely NO monthly fee or charge to use their service. In addition to that, since you’re looking for cheap shipping rates for your small 
business, they also offer the best shipping rates and delivery speed around! On average Sendle can save you 88% compared to the other guys!
Now the pricing really depends on what level your account is on, which depends on how much shipping you do every month. Sendle offers 3 plans depending on your volume and the shipping rates are discounted higher and higher depending on the plan that you are on. More than likely, you will be on either the Premium or the Pro plan. When it comes to Local delivery (within 150 miles) the rates are the same on both plans, but when it comes to the National rates you will see a few cents of a difference, and if we learned anything from earlier, a few cents can amount to a big deal. Of course, with time you can always switch over the Pro plan or just apply and see if you can get accepted if you are near but not quite at the 200 packages/month minimum.
Now the biggest takeaway and advantage here when it comes to their pricing is the shipping speed. Anything under 1 lb (Micro & Mini ) gets shipped out using USPS First Class Mail, but anything above that (Small, Medium & Large) gets shipped out using USPS Priority Mail. So can you imagine getting your item(s) into the hands of your customers in about 2 business days! Talk about customer satisfaction and return businesses!
What does Sendle have to Offer
No Membership Fees: We have already covered how they have no membership fees, and how they don’t limit your features and accessibility depending on the membership level you choose. This keeps that extra unnecessary cost back into your pocket. If you are a brand-new business still establishing yourself and not getting many orders at this time, having that extra expense of a membership that you didn’t even really get to use can be painful. With Sendle even if you don’t ship anything one month or you ship 200+ packages, you are only paying for the shipping labels and nothing more. Not only that, but Sendle has surcharge-free shipping during the busy holiday season, so you are not paying anything extra for each shipment.
Flat Rate Shipping: Why is this important? First, that makes setting up your shipping rules for checkout extremely easy. Second, it gives you flexibility to add extra goodies, promos and fancy packaging in your shipment without having to worry about adding extra weight to your shipment and paying more. Third, if a customer orders multiple items in your store, depending on how much they weigh, the customer doesn’t have to pay extra in shipping cost because the weight went up with each package. Let’s say you sell candles, if your customer orders 1 candle or 3 candles (depending on the size of course) the shipping cost will be the same, giving you flexibility to run Buy 2+, Get Free Shipping Offers, or other variations. As long as the package is between 1-5 lbs, 5-10 lbs or 10-20lbs the rate will be the same for each bracket. You don’t have to worry about paying $X.X0 for a package that weighs 2.5lbs or a package that weighs 4.9lbs, it’s all one rate.
Delivery Speed: As mentioned earlier, if you ship anything over 1lb you are automatically getting USPS Priority Mail delivery speed. So your customers can receive your goods as quickly as 2 business days! Instead of using USPS Retail shipping service which takes 2-8 business days for delivery, you are getting USPS Priority Mail shipping for less than the cost of USPS Retail shipping service pricing! Now, that’s a deal that just makes sense not just financially but also in regards to customer satisfaction! With quick delivery and cheap shipping for business packages under 20lbs, Sendle not only satisfies you as their customer, but it appeases your customers knowing that they don’t have to pay high shipping prices and they can expect their item in just a few short days making you be able to compete with big players like Amazon and their incredible delivery speeds.
100% Carbon Neutral Shipping: No other shipping carrier in the United States of America is 100% carbon neutral, but Sendle is and they don’t charge you anything extra! Now, you might be thinking but earlier you mentioned they work with other carriers for their delivery, how can they be carbon neutral? Great question! For every package you ship out through Sendle, they will offset the carbon emissions that your package delivery emits and invest in positive environmental initiatives. As a Sendle member, you get the option to choose what impact they have on your environment. Sendle does the hard work and calculates what the highest (not lowest or the average) CO2 that your shipment could generate. They have partnered with South Pole to then take a portion of the shipping cost you paid them, and invest it back into sustainable projects in the US, Canda and Austria. Sendle will send you a survey with different projects they are looking to invest in and you get to vote for the one that matters most to you!
Since Sendle first started in 2014, they have contributed in offsetting the carbon emissions of 13 billion miles of packages and counting! In the United States, their funds went into the “Lower Mississippi Valley Reforestation” which is restoring biodiversity, isolating carbon and restoring the watershed of one million acres throughout Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. In Peru, they contributed toward eliminating the impact of human immigration and eliminating unsustainable practices of timber concessions so that the Madre de Dios rainforest can stop the threat of human interference to its eleven endangered wildlife species. In Australia, Sendle contributes towards regenerating the Boobera Native Forest to eliminate carbon and restore local flora and fauna to the land. In addition, they also contributed to the ”Myamyn Conservation” project to stop the constant threat that the long-nosed potoroo community is facing and eliminating their threat of endangerment and extinction.
Impeccable Customer Service: We have been an avid customer of Sendle for over a year now and we can honestly say that their Customer Service is unlike any other shipping carrier you will encounter. While they don’t have a phone number where you can call to speak to a representative, they do make up for this by having exceptional and prompt email support. In the one and a half years that we have been dealing with them we have only had to reach out to them twice regarding filing a claim on two packages due to USPS misdelivering the item (no fault on Sendles part). Their representatives are located in Australia and USA, so you don’t have to deal with someone who won’t understand your concern because English is their second language. Additionally, their prompt response to tickets makes you feel like you are valued and not just another customer in the queue that they are trying to quickly resolve and move on.
Additionally, they also serve as the front line for any tracking and delivery questions and issues your customer has. When your customer receives their tracking email from Sendle, they have the option to contact Sendle and file a claim through them. If there is a delay or an issue with the delivery, your customer will contact Sendle instead of you. While personally we encourage our customers to reach out to us with any issues regarding their orders, we did notice that 73% of them go straight to Sendle to resolve their issue, which eliminates a huge load from our customer support team.
All Packages are Insured: As a business owner every cent counts, so when your package gets lost in the mail stream due to the carrier's negligence you are stuck taking the loss and having to make it right by your customer. Well Sendle, has your back! Every package, you heard correct, EVERY package no matter the weight includes the Sendle Protection at no extra cost to you! Unlike other carriers you don’t have to pay extra for insurance or have your package be of a certain weight/service minimum to include coverage to protect you as the sender. If your package is lost by the carrier, and you’re within their policy requirements, Sendle will cover the loss of all eligible parcels and the cost of replacing the lost goods up to $150. This is just another way that Sendle is helping you put every penny back into your pocket.
Ship Beyond the 50 States: This is a big deal! Having the ability to ship to Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, as well as PO boxes and Domestic Military Bases can increase your business! Other carriers such as FedEx and UPS either do not deliver to some of the above-mentioned places or they charge an exuberant fee to do so, making it near impossible for you to get orders from those areas. If you can’t ship there, you won’t get orders from there, and if you can ship there but charge an extra $30+ to do so, slim chance you’re going to get orders from there. But if you can ship to all those areas at no extra cost, you bet that you’re going to have the upper hand when it comes to your competitors.
Introducing Sendle Swift an even cheaper shipping option: On September 2, 2021 Sendle unveiled their new program called Sendle Swift! This new program gives Sendle Pro account holders access to even faster and cheaper shipping than the already discounted previously mentioned rates. Sendle Swift is a great tool to maximize your profits all while offering incredibly low cost shipping to your customers. This program does not work nationwide at this time, it is currently available within a single Swift zone which includes; Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Utah, or Arizona. So if your package pickup address and the destination are in the same zone, you qualify for rates as cheap as $3.40. But the biggest savings would be in regards to any large package, instead of paying $19.05 for a shipment, you now get it for $9.00, that’s over $10.00 is shipping cost savings! For more information on Sendle swift read our in-depth article covering the program and all of its benefits by clicking here.
How does Sendle Work
Sendle can easily be integrated with: Ebay, Shopify, Woocommerce, Bigcommerce, Etsy and Squarespace. So if your small business or side hustle is on any of these platforms, you can easily integrate it with your store so that the order information automatically syncs into Sendle and all you have to do is print the shipping label. If you are not on any of the mentioned platforms you do have the option of manually inputting the address information to create orders, or doing a bulk upload via CSV. We have done both and we can truly say that both options are extremely easy to navigate with Sendle’s easy-to-use interface.
Once your store is integrated, inside of their online portal, simply select the order you wish to “Sendle”, select the weight, add a description if desired and click create order. If you are not integrated, you will just need to input the customer's shipping address as well.
Next, you will be prompted with a window to review the details of your shipping label. This window will tell you the package selection you chosen regarding the weight, and you also have one more chance to review that the address you entered is correct before confirming that you want to purchase the shipping label. This window also gives you an estimated timeframe of how long the package will take to be delivered.
After you confirm your label, you are taken to a new screen where you are assigned a Sendle tracking number. This is the tracking number that your customer will receive if you integrated your store with Sendle. This tracking number allows your customer to track their package with Sendle, but most importantly, your customer can reach out to Sendle through their tracking email and open up an investigation if there is a problem with the delivery. Sendle will fully handle locating the package and talking to your customer, so you don’t have to worry about that extra customer service and frustration. All of this is included in the price of your shipping label and at no extra charge to you.
In the "
Confirm your order" window as seen in the image on the right you are able to download your shipping label in the format of a letter to print on a regular printer or cropped so you can print it on a thermal label printer. Additionally, you can also schedule a USPS pickup for your package(s) so that a mail carrier will come out to your location and pick up your outgoing packages. The mail pickups are scheduled for the next business day, so if you wish to get your packages out the same day, you will need to drop them off at a USPS authorized location.
If you integrate your store with Sendle, the tracking will automatically be updated on your order and the customer will be notified of the tracking information.
As an added bonus, Sendle did just recently release the ability to print a “Return shipping label” at the same time that you print your outgoing label. This way you can include a Return label inside the package for your customer is they wish to send your item back for any reason. You will only be charged for the return shipping label postage if the customer actually uses the label otherwise you will not incur any additional charges for printing the return label.
What about Sendle’s Mixed Reviews Online?
If you are reading this article, it means that you are probably doing your research on Sendle to find out if it's a good fit for your business. That is exactly what we did when we first started looking into a new shipping company to use that would give us cheaper shipping rates. Well during your search, you might have encountered some mixed reviews about the company, some saying how they are the holy grail of shipping companies while others saying stay clear of them. Well, we are here to lay it all out for you and debunk the negative reviews in one simple explanation. If you are from the United States of America, the negative reviews that talk about how: “My package was never picked up”, “it’s been 4 days and no one has come to pick up my orders”, “my package was lost”, “my package was not delivered”, well you get it, you’ve seen them. The thing is, do not let those reviews scare you away, I repeat DO NOT let those bad reviews scare you away if you are in the United States of America! You have to remember Sendle is an Australia based company, which is where they have been operating out of up until November 2019, when they expanded to the USA. As a daily user of this service for well over a year, I can honestly say that those reviews about the service being subpar are all coming from their Australian customers, their USA customers are the ones that consider this the holy grail of shipping companies. And at the end of the day, it is 100% free to try, there are never any membership fees, so you can try it for yourself and form your own opinion to see if it’s a good fit for your business.
Lets Recap. What Is Sendle Shipping?
If you like to skim through, we get it, you’re a busy person, so here are a few questions you might have quickly answered!
What Platforms does Sendle Integrate with? It can easily integrate to any of these platforms: Ebay, Shopify, Woocommerce, Bigcommerce, Etsy and Squarespace. They are constantly working to integrate with more platforms. When we first started using Sendle, they certainly did not have all these integrations.
Can I Use Sendle’s Shipping Rates If I am Located in USA? As of November 2019, Sendle expanded out of Australia, and into the United States of America. You can now take advantage of their cheap domestic shipping rates all over USA, including: Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands, as well as PO boxes and Domestic Military Bases.
Can I ship internationally with Sendle? At this time that this article is being written, Sendle does not offer international shipping to their USA customers. They have been receiving similar questions and their product team is already working on getting an international service for the US market. International delivery is already a feature actively running in Australia so they are very hopeful that this is something that they can also do in the USA very soon.
How much does Sendle cost? There is no Sendle membership cost! That is correct, their service is absolutely free to join and use. There are no limitations based on membership levels, like other shipping services. It is free to join and free to use. If your business if off-season or taking a break, there’s no payment to unsubscribe from or membership to cancel. Since there are no contracts, or membership fees, you are free to join and leave at any point without breaking any commitments.
How fast is the delivery? Not only do they offer discount shipping for small business or for personal shipping but their rates are for 2–3-day delivery. Yes, not 2-8 business days like USPS Retail shipping service. Given their vast network of of carriers, packages between 1-20lbs can be shipped out using out USPS Priority Mail, anything under 1 lb, is shipped using USPS First Class Mail.There are also other carrier options to use as well. You will be given an estimated delivery time frame before you purchase the label.
Is Sendle for Business or Personal use? It’s for everyone! Small Business, Large Businesses, Side Hustles or Personal use! No requirements and no commitments.
From our experience we can honestly say that Sendle is all about helping your small business thrive all while making sure that your success is be constructed on a strong foundation that is sustainable for our planet. Would we recommend it to our mom, absolutely!
Click Here to Give Sendle a try for free.
All of the information provided is based on the information and pricing that was current at the time the article was published (October, 2021). Information and pricing is subject to change over time.
