If you are using or considering using Australia Post as a shipping option in your WooCommerce store, you should try our free Australia Post WooCommerce shipping plugin. In this article, I’ll show you how to configure WooCommerce Australia Post shipping method with live cost calculations.
Australia Post, formerly known as the Australian Postal Corporation, is the government business enterprise that provides postal services in Australia. It has over 4,342 post offices, with most of them in rural and remote areas. Australia Post has also 15,037 street posting boxes and approximately 80,000 people in the workforce.
It’s an obvious choice when it comes to shipping in Australia. It is the country’s largest courier company that is reputable and trusted by millions of Australians. By choosing this carrier, you can gain an advantage over your competition by offering a consistent and reliable service.
The Australia Post WooCommerce allows you to display automatically calculated Australia Post shipping cost in your store. It will automatically display the available Australia Post services in the cart and checkout based on the customer’s shipping address and cart weight.
You can achieve this all for free. Just download the plugin from the official WordPress repository. You can do it even faster, using the button below.
Get Free Australia Post WooCommerce Plugin →
This free WooCommerce Australia Post shipping plugin lets you offer a full range of shipping options. Integrating the plugin takes only 5 minutes, and I’ll show you how to do it.
This plugin is based on the same foundation as the very popular and well-received free WooCommerce UPS shipping plugin, that have more than 9,000 active installations.
Having the free Australia Post WooCommerce plugin in your store installed and activated, you can reach the plugin settings by choosing the WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping → Australia Post Live Rates from the sidebar.
To use the plugin, you have to connect it with the Australia Post API. This way, the plugin will download the live rates directly from Australia Post. To activate it, you need to enter an API Key for the PAC and Postcode Search in the plugin settings.
Once you enter all the credentials, click on Save changes button. The API Connection Status should change to OK and turn green. If for some reason, the plugin is not able to establish the connection with the Australia Post API, you will see the error message coming from the API with the detailed information on the cause of the problem.
Adding the Australia Post shipping method uses the same mechanism as the WooCommerce default shipping methods. Thanks to that, the Australia Post Live Rates can be easily added the same way.
To create a new Australia Post shipping method, go to WooCommerce → Settings → Shipping:
Then, select the shipping zone you want to use. Probably, it will be a zone containing Australia in it. Remember that it can be a separate zone for Australia or any zone containing it.
Once you are in your Shipping Zone, click on the Add shipping method button. You’ll find it at the bottom of the shipping methods table:
In the window that will appear, choose the Australia Post Live Rates from the dropdown list and confirm with Add shipping method button:
Now, you have your Australia Post Live Rates shipping method. Click on its name to configure it.
Now, it’s time to configure your brand new Australia Post shipping method.
You can set the basic method settings. Enter the Method Title that will be visible for your customers in the checkout page. You can also use the Fallback. It’s the flat rate shipping cost if the Australia Post API, for returns no rates. If you want to increase conversion rate in your store, you should think about adding Free Shipping over the amount for your Australia Post shipping method. When you tick the Enable the free shipping over amount checkbox, you will be able to enter the free shipping threshold.
One of the crucial shipping method settings is the option to select available Australia Post services. By default, all the services are available, but when you want to limit them, just check the Services checkbox.
Please mind that the availability of services in the Services Table is affected by the Zone regions settings in your shipping zone, in which the Australia Post Live Rates shipping method was added. Our Australia Live Rates plugin supports both Domestic and International Services. Code in the Services Table indicates the Australia Post service type:
Additional shipping method settings
You can also configure more advanced shipping methods. In Package Settings you can define the package dimensions and weight. That setting will be used as a default for this shipping method. It’s crucial to fill that information, because without them, the shipping rates won’t be calculated.
Last available shipping option is Goods and Services Tax (GST). You can Remove the GST in order to strip the 10% GST tax value from the shipping rates coming from Australia Post.
If you are all done with the configuration, click on Save changes button. Now, the shipping method should be available for all the customers matching that shipping zone. In the same way, you can add more shipping methods for each shipping zone that you want to use.
If you need more advanced shipping options for Australia Post, you can use the PRO version of the plugin. The plugin is currently in production, but will be available soon. You can sign up now for the plugin and get your 20% discount when it’s released! Just use the form in the plugin page:
Main features of the PRO plugin:
Content Writer at Octolize
Bartosz Gajewski is a content and marketing specialist with a solid background in SEO, WordPress content strategy, and technical documentation for digital products. With years of hands-on experience in both in-house and freelance roles, he supports tech companies – especially in the SaaS and e-commerce space – by creating content that informs, engages, and drives results.
His approach blends storytelling with data-driven SEO, and he’s been involved in projects ranging from rebranding and product marketing to growth experiments and copywriting for complex software tools. On the blog, he shares actionable insights from his work across marketing teams, product documentation, and online store optimization.
