Rates
Rates Overview
This article explains how Bird rates work and what each part of the Bird Rates page does.
Rates decide what customers pay at checkout for pickup, local delivery, and shipping. Knowing where rates live, and which system owns them, saves you from checkout errors and prices that don’t match what you set.
What Bird Rates Do
Bird rates let you price each fulfillment method (pickup, delivery, and shipping) using conditions such as order value, weight, the day or time slot the customer picked, or how soon they want the order.
Rates are checked after the customer picks a date and time in the Bird widget. Bird compares that choice and the cart against your rates, and the ones that qualify appear on the Shopify checkout page as priced options. The widget itself only shows the date and time picker. It can’t show rates as buttons or tiers for the customer to choose from.
For example, you might set a $10 standard rate and a $25 rate for delivery today or tomorrow. A customer who picks tomorrow sees the $25 rate at checkout. A customer who picks next week sees the $10 rate.
See Rate Conditions: Price, Weight & Order Rules for every condition you can use, and the setup guides for each method:
Bird Rates vs Shopify Admin Rates
You can manage rates in the Bird app or in Shopify Admin. Bird offers more conditions than Shopify Admin.
| Rates based on | Shopify Admin | Bird app |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Yes | Yes |
| Weight | Yes | Yes |
| Product | Yes | Yes |
| Selected day | No | Yes |
| Order day | No | Yes |
| Time | No | Yes |
| Urgency | No | Yes |
| Date | No | Yes |
| Multiple conditions | No | Yes |
To use Bird rates, complete the 3-step rates setup guide in the Bird app. Until you finish it, Shopify manages your rates. To manage rates in Shopify Admin instead, follow Shopify’s shipping rates guide.
Bird rates go live on your store as soon as you finish the rates setup guide. Unlike the widget, you can’t test rates on a test theme first.
You can also keep Bird for pickup and hand delivery or shipping rates to Shopify. See Shopify Rates for Local Delivery.
Choosing a Rates Engine
In the Bird app, go to Rates > Rates engine and choose one of two modes:
- Bird Rates (Recommended): works for most stores.
- Bird Rates with CCS: runs Bird’s rates through Shopify’s carrier-calculated shipping. You need it for live courier rates and subscription apps.
Both modes use the same rates and conditions. See Bird Rates vs CCS Rates to decide which one you need.
Manage Visibility
When more than one rate qualifies for the same order, the Manage visibility section on the Rates page decides which ones the customer sees at checkout: all qualifying rates, only the lowest, or only the highest. It also sets the date and time format for rate names that use {{selected_date}} or {{selected_time}}.
See Checkout: Rate Display for what customers see at checkout and how each option works.
Don’t Edit Rates in Shopify Admin
Make every rate change in the Bird app. With Bird Rates, each time you save a rate in Bird, Bird rewrites your Shopify delivery profile from your Bird rates and replaces what’s there.
Bird-created rates appear in Shopify Admin > Settings > Shipping and delivery with a number in square brackets after the name, for example “Store Pickup [23445]”. Bird uses that number to match the rate and removes it from the name customers see at checkout. If you edit or delete one of these rates in Shopify Admin, the change isn’t picked up. It is overwritten the next time you save a rate in Bird, so until then the two can show different prices.
This is also why rate names can’t contain square brackets.
With Bird Rates with CCS, Bird sends its rates to Shopify at the moment of checkout, so editing rates in Shopify Admin doesn’t change what customers are charged either.
Weight Format
Weight-based rates use the unit set in the Weight format section of the Rates page. Choose Gram (g), Kilogram (kg), Pound (lb) or Ounce (oz). The default is grams.
Bird converts each product’s Shopify weight into this unit before checking your rates. Changing the unit doesn’t convert the numbers you already entered. A rate set to “Min Weight 5” means 5 g, 5 kg, 5 lb or 5 oz depending on the current setting, so review your weight rates after changing it.
Common Rate Questions
- How can I set up multi-condition rates for delivery and pickup?
- How do I set up different delivery rates based on postal codes, distance, or zones?
- Can I set up rush order fees or Saturday delivery surcharges?
- How can I offer free delivery above a certain order value?
- Can I offer discounts for less popular or off-peak time slots?
- Can I set different schedules or rates for different store locations?
- Does the Bird app integrate with carrier-calculated shipping rates?
- Does the Free plan support weight-based rates, draft orders, and product rules?
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