How to avoid subscribing to the Shopify Advanced Plan and still use shipping apps from third party developers.
To use the Small Package Quotes or LTL Freight Quotes app (or any third-party shipping rate app) in Shopify, your Shopify subscription must contain a feature called Third-party calculated shipping rates. This feature is standard on the Advanced Shopify plan.
Before January 1, 2023, Shopify would enable the Third-party calculated shipping rates on the Basic Shopify or Shopify (Standard) plan at the request of merchants. The addition of the feature increased the monthly subscription rate by $20. Merchants could avoid the fee by agreeing to annual billing. If your store was started before January 1, 2023, you may still be grandfathered into this option.
On December 1, 2022, Shopify announced that effective January 1, 2023, it would eliminate the option to add the Third-party calculated shipping rates feature to the Basic plan. This announcement appears to affect only stores that were started on or after January 1, 2023. However, we have reports of merchants successfully adding the feature even though their stores started after January 1, 2023. The circumstances of these successes are unclear.
The Third-party calculated shipping rates feature can still be added to the Shopify plan by agreeing to annual billing or a $20/month increase in the subscription rate. Contact Shopify customer service to have the Third-party calculated shipping rates feature added to the Shopify plan.