Rate Differences
If the Royal Mail shipping rates displayed in your WooCommerce checkout appear inconsistent with the official Royal Mail prices, follow the steps below to confirm and troubleshoot.
Initial Check
Before concluding that there is a problem with the plugin, first verify whether the rates are actually mismatched. Royal Mail may apply additional charges, service-specific rules, or packaging requirements that can affect the total cost.
The most accurate method is to compare WooCommerce results with the official Royal Mail Price Calculator.
How to verify with the Royal Mail Calculator:
- Open the tool at: https://send.royalmail.com/send/youritem?country=GBR&format&weight=&weightUnit=G
- Log in to your Royal Mail account.
- Recreate the shipment using the same details as in WooCommerce — destination, parcel dimensions, weight, and selected service.
- Ensure that you are logged in and that the shipment details, particularly the dimensions and weight, match exactly what you have entered in WooCommerce.
- Compare the calculated costs with those shown in your store.
Note: All carrier calculators, including Royal Mail, are based on estimation. Small variations (around 10–15%) may occur due to rounding or measurement differences and are usually considered normal.
Troubleshooting
If the differences remain significant, check the following plugin settings that directly impact the returned rates:
Check for Royal Mail rates adjustments settings:
- Insurance – Automatically apply shipment insurance for valuable parcels to ensure coverage and customer confidence.
- Handling Fees – Add extra charges for packaging materials, staff time, or other operational costs. Fees may be defined per order or as a percentage of the shipping cost.
- Tax – You can tick the Remove the tax checkbox to strip the default 20% tax from the shipping rates provided by Royal Mail.
Each of these settings can alter the returned rates, so ensure they are adjusted carefully to reflect your shipping strategy.
For further troubleshooting, enable Debug Mode. Find more details here: Royal Mail – How to enable Debug Mode?
Still Seeing Issues?
If large discrepancies remain after these checks, please contact our support team. Include all shipment details (origin, destination, parcel dimensions, weight, chosen service) so we can reproduce and investigate the problem.