Buying a Shipping Label
When an order is ready to ship, you buy its label right from the order — pick a rate, confirm, and print. This article walks through the Buy Label flow.
New to labels? The Ship your first order guide walks you through paying for labels, your boxes and your first one.
You'll find Buy Labels on any confirmed sales order, both on the order's detail page and in the Orders list.
Step 1 — Package details
Tell us what you're shipping:
- Ship-from preset — choose which saved address and package defaults to use. The dimensions below fill in from the preset you pick; adjust them for this specific package if needed.
- Weight (pounds and ounces) and dimensions (length × width × height, in inches).
If you don't have a ship-from address saved yet, you'll be sent to Shipping Settings to add one first — it's needed to quote rates.
Choose Get Rates to continue.
Step 2 — Choose a rate
Iraca gathers rates from every source available for the order and shows them in one list, grouped by delivery speed (Overnight, 2-Day, Ground):
- Each rate shows the carrier logo, carrier name and service, a delivery estimate, and the final price.
- A tag tells you where the rate comes from — Via Iraca, Your EasyPost account, Your carrier account, or the marketplace (Amazon, Walmart, Etsy). Rates on your own accounts ship at your negotiated price with no Iraca fee.
What a label costs
A label bought Via Iraca has two lines, on every rate, on the confirm step and on your wallet statement:
- Postage — the carrier's price on Iraca's account. It's usually below the counter price, and it already includes EasyPost's own charge.
- Iraca fee — a share of the postage, set by your plan, with a floor and a cap per label:
| Plan | Iraca fee | At least | At most |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 20% | $0.50 | $3.00 |
| Standard | 12% | $0.50 | $3.00 |
| Scale | 8% | $0.50 | $3.00 |
So a $9.00 label on Standard is $9.00 postage plus a $1.08 fee; a $3.00 letter-rate label carries the $0.50 floor; an $80 overnight label carries the $3.00 cap, never more. The fee is never more than the postage itself.
Labels on your own carrier or EasyPost account, and marketplace labels, carry no Iraca fee: they're billed by that carrier or marketplace. Shipping → Settings shows your plan's fee and, once you've bought labels, what the last 30 days would have cost in fees on each plan.
Iraca-billed labels are paid from your shipping wallet.
Topping up your wallet by bank transfer
You can add funds to the wallet two ways, under Shipping → Settings → Shipping Wallet → Add funds:
- Card. Charged to the card on file and added to your balance right away. The minimum is $10, and automatic reload always uses the card.
- Bank transfer. Choose Bank transfer, pick an amount (the minimum is $50) and choose Continue to your bank. Stripe opens a secure page where you connect your US bank account and approve the debit. You don't need a card on file for this.
A bank transfer isn't instant. Once you've approved it, the wallet shows Bank top-up of $500 started, usually clears in 3–5 business days, and the History tab lists it as Pending. Nothing is added to your balance until the money arrives; then it is added once, and the owners and admins of your workspace get an email. Plan ahead: if you ship every day, keep enough in the wallet to cover the days the transfer takes, or top up by card when you're short.
- If your bank refuses the transfer (for example, there isn't enough money in the account), nothing is added, the wallet says why, and owners and admins are emailed. You can top up again by card or bank.
- If your bank takes the money back later (a returned or disputed transfer), the amount comes off your wallet balance, even if that takes it below zero. While the balance is below zero, Iraca-billed labels can't be bought; top up to start again.
Neither way carries a fee for you. If you hold a label block or ship more than 50 labels in three months, the wallet mentions once that bank top-ups cost Iraca less than a card, which helps keep block prices where they are.
Included labels and label blocks (no Iraca fee)
Some labels carry no Iraca fee at all, only the postage:
- Labels your plan includes. Standard includes 10 labels a month at postage only, Scale 100. Free includes none.
- A label block. If you ship regularly, buy a block on the Billing page: a fixed monthly price for a set number of Iraca-billed labels at postage only. It's sold on every plan, Free included.
| Block | Price a month | Works out at |
|---|---|---|
| 50 labels a month | $25 | 50¢ a label |
| 200 labels a month | $89 | 45¢ a label |
| 500 labels a month | $199 | 40¢ a label |
Each month Iraca uses your included labels first, then your block, then charges the fee above on every label after that. The rates say which one a label will be: Included: no fee (3 of 10 left), Block label: no fee (37 of 200 left), or the usual Iraca fee 12%: $1.08. When your block is used up, the confirm step says so before you buy (Block used up for October; this label carries the 12% fee, $1.08), and if this month's fees past the block already cost more than the next size up, it suggests switching.
- Blocks are monthly and don't roll over. The count starts again on the 1st, in your workspace's time zone; unused labels are gone.
- Only labels Iraca bills count. Labels on your own carrier or EasyPost account, and marketplace labels, never use an included or block label.
- A refunded label comes back. When the carrier refunds a label, it goes back to the month it was bought in, the way the postage goes back to your wallet.
- Changing size. You hold one block at a time. Choosing another size switches your subscription (Stripe prorates the difference); the labels you've already used this month count against the new size.
Shipping → Settings → Labels this month shows your labels by kind, your block (size, used, and when it resets) and, once there is something to show, a plain comparison: At your last 3 months' volume, the 200 block would have saved $41 a month.
To be straight with you: dedicated label tools sell their paid tiers at a few cents a label, and Iraca's blocks cost more than that. A block is worth it for the labels living next to your orders, stock, storefront and marketplace in one place, on postage that's still discounted below the counter; block prices will come down as Iraca's shipping volume earns better terms from the carriers.
If one rate source can't be reached, you'll see a short notice and the rates we could fetch — you can still buy from any of those.
Pick a rate and choose Review.
Step 3 — Confirm
Review the rate you chose. If your workspace uses a shipping wallet, you'll see your current balance here:
- Enough balance? Choose Confirm & Buy.
- Short on funds? Top up right in the dialog — we'll suggest an amount that covers the label and charge your saved card. If you don't have a card on file, you'll be pointed to the Billing page to add one.
Marketplace and own-account labels are billed by that carrier or marketplace, so there's nothing to top up for those.
After you buy
Once the label is purchased you'll see the tracking number and a Download Label button — the download is a print-ready PDF with the shipping label and packing slip together. The order then moves forward automatically: to Ready to Pack if fulfillment mode is on, or straight to Fulfilled otherwise.
Moving to Fulfilled does everything the Fulfill button does: stock is deducted for every line on the order, and the sale is booked in your journal (revenue, cost of goods, and the receivable or marketplace clearing). With fulfillment mode on, the same happens when you choose Mark as Shipped on a Ready to Pack order.
If the order can't be fulfilled — most often because there isn't enough stock for a line — the label is kept and the order waits at Ready to Pack with a message explaining why. Correct the stock, then use Fulfill on the order to finish.
Your customer's tracking page
As soon as a label is purchased, Iraca automatically emails your customer a link to a branded, no-login tracking page showing their carrier, tracking number, estimated delivery, and live status — no setup required. The email only goes out if the order has a customer email on file, and it's separate from the order confirmation email (which sends when the order is confirmed, not when it ships).
You can also share the link yourself: on the order's detail page, each shipment shows Track shipment and Copy tracking link next to its tracking number. The same link appears on the Buy Label confirmation screen right after you purchase.
Refunding a label you won't use
Bought a label with the wrong weight or address, or the order is not going out after all? On the order's detail page, each shipment bought through Iraca's carrier account shows Refund label. Click it and Iraca asks the carrier to refund the postage.
The carrier, not Iraca, decides: it checks that the label was never scanned, which takes a few days for most carriers and up to two weeks for USPS. While it checks, the shipment reads Refund pending. When the carrier agrees, what you paid for the label goes back the way you paid it, to your shipping wallet or your card, and the shipment reads Refunded. If the label was used, the carrier refuses and the shipment reads Refund refused.
Refunding a label does not change the order. Buying the label is what shipped it in Iraca's books, so the order stays as it was; buy a new label to send it, or handle a cancelled sale as a return.
Labels bought on your own EasyPost account are refunded in your EasyPost dashboard, and marketplace labels (Amazon, Walmart, Etsy) in that marketplace. Labels bought before October 2026 can't be refunded from Iraca; ask support.
Shipping multiple packages for one order
If an order needs more than one box, use Split Shipment instead. Split Shipment lets you define each package separately and choose a carrier per package (or the same carrier for all). See Split Shipments.