Shoppers abandon their cart if shipping rates take too long to show. Most checkouts have a cutoff to make rates show up fast, but that means any rates that take too long are left behind. Plus, carriers can have outages and delays, during which they may not return a rate at all, costing you sales.
Zonos' store-specific Instant rates shrink shipment response times from 1500ms to only 20ms and work even during a carrier outage—so you never lose a sale due to speed.
In this example, the merchant's cheapest shipping rates never showed because the carrier's responses took too long. The lowest shipping rate their shopper saw was 145% ($184) more than their best rate.
Real example with carrier service levels anonymized.
This accuracy still applies even when cartonization is used or when your negotiated rates change. Most common reasons for inaccuracy >2% are fees that are inconsistently applied by carriers (such as a carrier's "Other" fee) and Saturday pickup fees.
Carrier surcharges can shift without notice—new fees, regional adjustments, or service changes can temporarily reduce Instant Rate accuracy before the model has a chance to catch up. To protect merchants during those windows, Zonos now supports a configurable accuracy threshold.
Set a minimum accuracy percentage over a rolling period. If accuracy falls below that threshold on a carrier-by-carrier basis, Zonos automatically reverts to live rates for that carrier until accuracy recovers—so you're never serving stale rates without knowing it.
How to set your threshold
The lower your threshold, the more protected you are. A threshold of 1% means the system will default to live rates if Instant Rate accuracy drops below 99% for any carrier within the rolling period. Rate-sensitive merchants should set a lower threshold; merchants who prioritize speed above all may prefer a higher one.
Find it in Settings → Shipping / Manage Rates → Advanced Settings — the same location as the Instant Rate toggle.
Works with all major carriers
Works with both express and postal carriers (USPS, APC, UPS, FedEx, and DHL). If other carriers are used in addition to these, accuracy won't decrease. Instead, Instant rates will not be triggered for those services.
Frequently asked questions
Read some of the frequently asked questions about Zonos Instant rate:
Increase conversion with Instant rates
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Carrier rating is unreliable and slow, which can cost you sales. Zonos Instant rates are the opposite. They're fast, reliable, and always include your best rates and prepaid duties and taxes.
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