Rates
Bird Rates vs CCS Rates
Bird offers two rate engine modes: Bird Rates and Bird Rates with CCS (carrier-calculated shipping). Most stores only need Bird Rates — CCS becomes necessary in three specific cases, covered below.
Why CCS matters
Carrier Calculated Shipping (CCS) is a Shopify feature, not a Bird one — Bird can plug your rates into it, but doesn’t need to by default. Three situations change that: you want a live rate from a last-mile courier integration, you sell subscription products, or your store has a large number of rate rules. This article covers what CCS is, which Shopify plans support it, and what to watch out for with each mode.
The two modes
- Bird Rates — Bird calculates and displays rates directly, independent of Shopify’s carrier-calculated shipping system.
- Bird Rates with CCS — Bird’s rates run through Shopify’s carrier-calculated shipping (CCS) system instead.
Carrier-calculated shipping is a Shopify checkout feature that lets an app like Bird hand Shopify a live rate at checkout, instead of Shopify pulling from its own shipping settings.
Both modes support the exact same rate conditions — price, weight, product/SKU, day, time, urgency, and date — described in Rates Overview & Conditions. Switching modes doesn’t change what you can configure, only which system shows the rate at checkout.
Which one can you use?
CCS availability depends on your Shopify plan:
| Shopify Plan | CCS Available? |
|---|---|
| Starter | No |
| Basic | No |
| Shopify | Yes, but you may need to ask Shopify Support to turn it on for your store |
| Advanced | Yes |
| Plus | Yes |
Bird Rates, by contrast, works on every plan from Basic upward with no extra setup. If your plan doesn’t support CCS, use standard Bird Rates — there’s no workaround, since this is a Shopify plan restriction, not a Bird one. Shopify’s plan requirements can change, so double-check current CCS eligibility on your Shopify plan page before switching.
You must use Bird’s own rate engine (not Shopify’s native local delivery or shipping rates) to configure pickup rates either way — Shopify’s native pickup flow conflicts with Bird’s own pickup flow when both are enabled. See Why Do I Need to Disable Built-in Shopify Pickup?
Limitations of CCS
- Plan gating — only available on Shopify, Advanced, and Plus plans (see table above); Starter and Basic stores can’t use it at all.
- Weight switches from kilograms to grams — turning on CCS changes how Bird measures weight for your rates. If you have weight-based rate rules, double-check them after switching — don’t assume a rule written in kilograms still means the same thing.
- Conflicts with manual Shopify shipping rates — once CCS is on, Bird handles your rates. Any rates you’ve manually added in Shopify Admin → Settings → Shipping and delivery will conflict with CCS and can cause checkout errors; remove them.
Limitations of Bird Rates
If your store has grown a large or complex set of rate rules, checkout can start acting unpredictably — the right rate might not show up, or show up with the wrong price. Switching to Bird Rates with CCS is the fix, since it hands the heavy lifting to Shopify’s own rate system, which handles complex setups more reliably.
When you need CCS specifically
A live courier rate requires CCS. If you use a last-mile delivery integration (Stuart, Jitsu, Eva, Uber Direct, etc.) and want the courier’s own real-time price at checkout instead of a flat Bird rate, you need CCS. Showing a live price means Shopify has to ask an outside server for one at the exact moment a customer checks out — Shopify calls Bird’s server, and Bird calls the courier’s server in turn. CCS is the only path Shopify gives an app for that live back-and-forth, so without it, the courier’s rate can never reach checkout, no matter how the integration itself is set up.
Subscription apps require CCS. If you’re running Bird alongside a subscription app (Recharge, Appstle, etc.), turn on Bird Rates with CCS. At checkout, Shopify only accepts the single cheapest rate for a subscription order — without CCS, it sometimes can’t tell which rate that is and shows an error instead of a price. See How to Integrate Subscription Apps.
If a customer’s cart mixes subscription and one-time products, Shopify calculates separate rates for the initial order and each recurring shipment, so any minimum-price conditions on your rates need to be met by both individually. If customers see a “Shipping not available” error with subscription products in the cart, see Rate Errors at Checkout.
Outside of these three cases, either mode works — pick based on plan availability and whether you already rely on Shopify’s carrier-calculated shipping for other parts of your store.
How to switch modes
- In your Shopify admin, go to Bird App > Settings > Rates.
- Click Bird Rates with CCS (or Bird Rates to switch back).
Your existing rates apply immediately in the new mode — there’s no separate setup to redo.
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