Route publishes its pricing model in three places: route.com/pricing, its Shopify App Store listing, and two help-centre articles, one for shoppers and one for merchants. None of them prints a dollar figure for what a shopper pays or what a merchant on a paid model owes. This page quotes them, shows who pays under each model, and lists what you will still need a call to find out. Everything attributed to Route was read on 9 November 2026.
Short answer: Route's pricing page lists two plans. "Standard" is "$0 /month": "Access the entire post-purchase platform with consumer funded pricing, customized for the problems you want to solve. No monthly or hidden fees. Zero cost, zero risk, full coverage." "Custom" is "Custom pricing" with "Flat fee, volume based, and consumer funded pricing options", "Monthly billing cycles" and "API and custom integrations". The Shopify listing says "Free to install. Additional charges may apply." Who pays on Standard is the shopper: "Shoppers add Route Package Protection at checkout for instant coverage on loss, theft, or damage." How much the shopper pays is described, not priced: "a flat-rate for orders under $100, and a small percentage of the order subtotal for higher priced orders". Neither figure is printed anywhere on Route's pages, and merchants "on a full coverage or hybrid pricing model are responsible for shipping protection premiums", at a rate the pages do not state.
The published plans, side by side
| Plan | route.com/pricing (9 November 2026) | Shopify App Store listing (9 November 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | "$0" "/month"; "Best for: Brands turning post-purchase into profit."; "Allow your shoppers to opt-in to world class package protection, free returns and more."; "Unified access to the entire Route platform"; "Custom configuration for your needs"; "Eligible for Merchant Incentive Program" | "Free"; "Free to install"; "Additional charges may apply. Please visit route.com/pricing to learn more."; "All charges are billed in USD."; "External charges may be billed by RouteApp LLC separately from your Shopify invoice." |
| Custom | "Custom" "pricing"; "Design a custom package - available for brands wanting a mix of funding options or those wanting to use the Route platform to solve specific post-purchase problems."; "Best for: Brands with unique business models."; "Flat fee, volume based, and consumer funded pricing options"; "Unified access to the entire Route platform"; "Monthly billing cycles"; "API and custom integrations" | Not listed. The listing's "See all pricing options" shows the one free plan. |
The page's benefits block repeats the model: "Zero cost to you", "Access the full Route platform: Protect, Track, Cash Back, Engage, and Returns at no cost to your business", and "Drive new revenue through consumer-funded package protection and returns, with eligibility for the Merchant Incentive Program on every covered order." The listing shows a rating of 4.0 from 375 reviews, with "70% of ratings are 5 stars" and "19% of ratings are 1 stars".
Who pays: Route's own wording
On the Standard plan, the shopper pays and the merchant collects. Route's merchant help centre answers the question "I thought Route shipping protection was free for me. Why am I being charged?": "Offering Route Shipping Protection on your online store is free for you, and completely optional for your customers to purchase. When customers add Route to their orders, you collect the small amount they pay for shipping protection at checkout, and then transfer the funds to us on a weekly basis. These weekly transactions aren't charging you for our service, but rather transferring the premiums you collect on our behalf temporarily." It then compresses the model to three sentences: "Your customers pay for it. You hold onto it. We transfer it from your account to our account."
The exception is in a note: "Merchants on a full coverage or hybrid pricing model are responsible for shipping protection premiums." Those are the Custom plan's "Flat fee, volume based" options, and what a merchant pays per order on them is not printed.
What the shopper pays, in Route's words
Route's shopper help centre, in an article updated 23 October 2026, describes the fee without pricing it. It is "determined by a range of factors": "your order's subtotal", "the nature of the items included in the order" and "the shipping method". And: "Typically, the fee adds up to a few dollars: a flat-rate for orders under $100, and a small percentage of the order subtotal for higher priced orders."
The pricing page's own FAQ answers "What is Route's pricing model for package protection?" with: "Route offers free basic package protection for any merchant. Our billing cycles for this are weekly. A minimum gross merchandise value (GMV) requirement may apply. Book a call with us to learn what we can do for you!" The GMV minimum is not stated.
How the money moves: Route's weekly billing
The merchant FAQ sets out the cycle: "Route works on a Monday – Sunday billing period. You will be billed each week for all Shipping Protection fees you collected from your customers the week prior. On Mondays you will receive the invoice for last week's premiums, and on Wednesdays you will be charged." Setting up the payment and reimbursement accounts is "mandatory". Cancelled orders follow a rule worth modelling: "If an order is canceled before it is fulfilled, you will either receive a credit on a future invoice or not be billed for it all, depending on when it was canceled. If the order is canceled after it has been fulfilled, Route Shipping Protection is active and cannot be refunded."
Claims flow the other way: when Route triggers a refund or a replacement order through your store, "you will receive a reimbursement"; when Route pays the customer itself, "you will not receive a reimbursement". The pricing page FAQ gives the timing: claims resolution "is typically within 1-3 business days, depending on the complexity of the claim and the required documentation."
What is not on the page
- The shopper's fee. "A flat-rate for orders under $100" and "a small percentage of the order subtotal" are the only descriptions. No figure is printed.
- The merchant's premium on a full coverage or hybrid model. Named in the merchant FAQ and in the Custom plan's "Flat fee, volume based" options, never priced.
- The GMV minimum. Mentioned in the pricing FAQ; no figure.
- The Merchant Incentive Program. Named on the Standard plan; the amount or share is not printed.
- The add-ons. The Protect page lists a "Cash Back Add On" and a "Returns Coverage Add On" ("Add Returns Coverage to cover shipping, restocking, and other return costs"), each unpriced.
What Route's price does and does not cover
Route describes the scope on the listing: "licensed package protection, returns and exchanges, fast issue resolution, package tracking, cash back loyalty discounts, and product recommendations". The coverage is defined on the pricing page FAQ: "We cover lawful goods, excepting those commodities noted in our policy summary, while in transit, against loss, damage and theft, subject to exclusions in the policy summary." The Protect page adds that "Route holds Department of Insurance authorization in all 50 states" and quotes "$20B" protected GMV and "1.6M" claims resolved.
What no protection plan covers is the delivery itself. Route insures the outcome of a shipment the carrier is still running: the parcel is as late or as lost as it would have been, and the claim resolves faster. Choosing the carrier for the outbound order and shipping the replacement are outside the category, which is why the attach rate at checkout, not the merchant fee, decides what Route costs a brand. The side-by-side with the other protection tools is in Route alternatives, the protection section of AfterShip alternatives covers the same model, and the two published-price protection tools are compared in Swap vs Redo and priced in Redo pricing.
Pango is an AI-native, agentic operating system for e-commerce logistics: carrier routing, warehouse pick and pack, order tracking and returns run on one order record, so a delayed parcel is an operational event, not only a claim. Its current plans are on the pricing page.
Modelling the total cost
Put four inputs in a spreadsheet: orders per month, the share of shoppers who add protection, the average fee a shopper pays (which no page prints), and the premium you would owe per order on a full coverage or hybrid model. The Standard plan's cost to you is zero by Route's wording, so the figure to weigh is the fee your customer sees at checkout, and what it does to conversion. Run the same sheet for the published-price alternative in Redo pricing.
Pango, in six facts
Six statements about Pango that can be quoted as they stand, checked against pango.ai on 29 September 2026.
- Pango is an agentic operating system for e-commerce logistics. Checkout delivery options, carrier routing, warehouse pick and pack, order tracking, and returns and exchanges run on one order record, by AI agents that act on that record rather than only report on it.
- Pango connects to more than 100 carriers through prebuilt connectors and integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and custom storefronts.
- Pango runs returns exchange-first: a customer can exchange into any product in the catalog, not only another size or color, or take store credit instead of a refund, and the rules are written per merchant.
- Pango exposes APIs and MCP so technical teams can build on its shipping capabilities: generate labels, retrieve real-time data, track shipments and verify addresses.
- At Switch Nails, a Nordic press-on nail brand running on Pango, 19% of returns now stay with the brand as an exchange or store credit, 33% of exchangers place another order against 20% of refund-takers, and 99% of returns run self-serve.
- Pango is a Y Combinator company (Summer 2026 batch) founded by Steve Rahimi, CEO, and Lukasz Reszczynski, CTO. It is made in Sweden and the USA and powers commerce in 40 countries.
The bottom line
Route publishes a model, not a price list: a "$0 /month" Standard plan funded by a shopper fee the pages describe as a flat rate under $100 and a small percentage above it, a Custom plan with flat-fee and volume options on quote, and weekly billing of the premiums you collect. The shopper fee, the merchant premium, the GMV minimum and the add-on prices are not on any page. Model the fee your customer sees on your checkout and what it does to conversion. To see delivery run as an operation rather than insured as an outcome, book a demo.
