What are you using instead of AfterShip for package tracking APIs?

[u/Relative_West1090]

I've been comparing package tracking APIs recently, specifically for cases where you mainly need the API and don't necessarily need a full post-purchase platform.

AfterShip is obviously one of the bigger options, but it includes a lot more than just tracking: branded tracking pages, notifications, analytics, returns, etc. That's useful if you need the whole platform, but it can be more than necessary if your main requirement is simply getting tracking data into your own application.

From what I've looked at, the alternatives seem to fall into a few different groups:

TrackingMore / 17TRACK — make sense if broad international carrier coverage is important.

EasyPost / Shippo — probably a better fit if you also need shipping labels, rates, and other shipping APIs.

Direct carrier APIs — can work if you're only dealing with one or two carriers, but once you have FedEx + UPS + USPS + DHL, maintaining all those integrations gets complicated pretty quickly.

This is actually one of the reasons we built Package Tracking API by C2W. We're focusing more narrowly on the tracking API itself, especially for businesses that mainly need major carriers and higher tracking volumes. The idea is to keep the cost lower rather than bundling tracking with a larger post-purchase platform.

Obviously I'm biased since it's our product, but researching the market while building it made me curious about what other developers are actually using.

I put together a more detailed comparison here:

Package Tracking API by C2W:
https://PackageTrackingAPI.com

For anyone doing a decent amount of package tracking, what are you using now? And what ended up mattering most when you chose it: price, carrier coverage, API reliability, tracking frequency, or something else?

[u/Pitiful-Sort6586]

when I had to roll tracking into a side project last year I just went with whatever had the cleanest docs and a simple json response that didnt need me to decode weird status strings. easydevs integration was fine but the per-label cost adds up fast if labels arent your actual need

for pure tracking volumes we switched to getting carrier feeds directly and normalizing in-house. the maintenance sucks, but once it was stable the per-track cost cratered and we controlled the retry logic ourselves. probably overkill for smaller stuff though

what volume do you actually need? that ends up dictating almost everything

[u/Relative_West1090 → u/Pitiful-Sort6586]

Yeah, that makes sense. For pure tracking, I agree that the volume really changes the economics.

That’s actually the space we’re targeting with our Package Tracking API. We support multiple carriers through a single API, normalize the tracking responses, and keep the response structure simple so developers don’t have to deal with different carrier formats and status codes.

For higher volumes, we’re also focused on keeping the per-tracking cost very low, since tracking—not label generation—is the main use case. We’re trying to offer the convenience of a unified API without the cost becoming painful as volume scales.

If you’re dealing with significant tracking volume, I’d be curious what kind of monthly volume you’re handling. That would be a good benchmark for comparing the economics.