EasyPost

Web and SaaS

shipping and postage api

SHOW HN2012

157points
83comments
#120of 1,677 in 2012
Top 8%of 2012 by points

How HN took it

CuriousMostly questions and neutral comments

15 positive, 25 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 6 critical, out of 46 comments about the project. Thread score +0.19.

Idea: 9 for, 0 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 againstPricing: 2 for, 0 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Address verification is wanted and would be paid for

    From 3 comments
    • This is exactly what I'm looking for. I'm really hoping I don't have to integrate with FedEx web services for address verification. If the price is right, my company will gladly…
      avidal on HN
    • We're currently using Google's Geocoder and Yahoo's Placefinder, which work okay, but they both have numerous flaws and various TOS policies we're ignoring for the moment. Would…
      meritt on HN
    • Would totally use this for address verification. Wonder what the pricing is.
      nchuhoai on HN
  • Would save integration dev time for USPS, UPS and FedEx

    From 2 comments
    • For Canadian customers, Canada Post has finally added an API to create & print labels. My company uses Stamps.com's API to print USPS labels (I have Django code if anyone's…
      waterside81 on HN
    • As someone who is just now tackling USPS integration for the first time on behalf of a client, you certainly have my interest.
      chao- on HN

Objections

  • Bootstrap UI looks unpolished

    From 2 comments
    • Ugh, I'm starting to get sick of Bootstrap. You've got a great idea and you remove value from it with bootstrap... How integral can your product be if you can't even give it a…
      highace on HN
    • Hm, my impression is more along the lines of, "this probably was hacked together in a weekend and might be discarded in another." It's not a fair impression, but my snap judgment…
      oinksoft on HN
  • Carrier API terms may forbid rate comparison

    From 2 comments
    • Out of curiosity, how are you doing this? IIRC a few years ago when I was playing around with the FedEx API it explicitly forbade using it for price comparison with other…
      Aqua_Geek on HN
    • It is still the same, you can't even have other carrier rates near UPS rates.
      marcrosoft on HN

Requests

  • Support for international shipping

    From 2 comments
    • Very nice. Would you plan to offer international shipping options ? Just out of curiosity, what mapping engine are you using to geocode?
      shreep on HN
    • International is where this could really shine, print out at the location closest to where the letter needs delivering & avoid international prices
      nulluk on HN
  • Syntax highlighting and clearer API docs

    From 2 comments
    • Could you add syntax-highlighting to the examples? Using httpie as an alternative to curl would also make that easier. :)
      kmfrk on HN
    • Hm, my impression is more along the lines of, "this probably was hacked together in a weekend and might be discarded in another." It's not a fair impression, but my snap judgment…
      oinksoft on HN
  • Return labels as PNG or PDF via Accept header

    From 1 comment
    • You could bake this into the REST API via the "Accept:" header. The default when not specified is whatever you set, but the caller can specify "Accept: image/png" to get a PNG…
      biot on HN

Questions

  • Which shipping carriers are supported

    From 1 comment
    • Would love to use this for my ecommerce site (StartupThreads) as we move to a custom system. Most interested in the shipping price comparison: what providers are you supporting?
      frankdenbow on HN
  • Whether first class stamps can be printed

    From 1 comment
    • Somewhat related question - are these types of services capable of printing first class letter postage ie something to use in place of a "forever" stamp?
      mindslight on HN

Alternatives named

  • RocketShipIt desktop software

    From 1 comment
    • I've been using this for years now and love it: https://rocketship.it/ It is a slightly different concept, you pay once and get code that gives you a uniform interface for…
      jontas on HN
  • PostalMethods

    From 2 comments
    • http://www.postalmethods.com/
      toomuchtodo on HN
    • http://www.postalmethods.com/lp/postcard-api http://www.viapost.com/ I know there are others too but I can't find them at the moment.
      johns on HN
  • Stamps.com API

    From 2 comments
    • Stamps.com uses SOAP and is terrible. I would love a nice Json/REST based shipping API.
      kenrikm on HN
    • For Canadian customers, Canada Post has finally added an API to create & print labels. My company uses Stamps.com's API to print USPS labels (I have Django code if anyone's…
      waterside81 on HN
  • Sincerely API and Click2Mail

    From 2 comments
    • http://dev.sincerely.com/ is another.
      scottmotte on HN
    • I looked for a service like that a year or so ago and found this: https://click2mail.com/email-to-mail At the time their signup process was broken so I couldn't test it out, but…
      lost-theory on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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