TL;DR

A rule is a condition-and-action pair attached to a shipping option. When a customer reaches checkout, Shipit checks each rule's conditions against the order — if the conditions match, the action runs. Rules run in priority order, highest number first, and only the first matching rule applies (except for pickup point rules, which work differently — see below).

What you can do with rules

Rules let you automate decisions that you would otherwise have to apply manually or handle through separate shipping options. Here are some things you can do:

• Show free shipping automatically when the cart total is over €100
• Hide express delivery after 2pm so you never promise same-day shipping you cannot fulfill
• Add a surcharge for B2B customers who need commercial invoicing
• Show different carriers in different countries without duplicating your whole setup
• Remove parcel lockers from the available list when an order is too heavy to fit
• Give loyalty members a discount on standard delivery
• Block shipping to certain countries entirely
• Show a cheaper option only during a weekend sale
• Filter out outdoor parcel lockers in winter months

How a rule works

Think of a rule as a filter at the door of a shipping option. Every time a customer reaches checkout, the rule checks a few things about their order — where they are, how much they have in their cart, what time it is — and then decides what to do with this shipping option.

Each rule has two parts:

1. Conditions — the criteria that must be true for the rule to fire. You can require that all conditions be met, or that at least one is met.
2. Action — what happens when the conditions match: show the option, hide it, change its price, or filter the pickup points it offers.

If the conditions do not match, the rule does nothing and Shipit moves on to the next rule in priority order. If no rule matches at all, the shipping option falls back to its default behavior — visible at its base price.

Parts of a rule

Condition fields

Conditions are organized into groups. Each condition row picks one field from the list below, an operator that describes how to compare it, and a value to compare against.

Location

Cart

The unit for cart_weight depends on your store's weight unit setting. Confirm which unit your checkout provider sends before writing weight-based rules to avoid setting thresholds in the wrong unit.

Customer

Time

Always pair time_of_day with a timezone condition when your store serves multiple regions. Without a timezone, time comparisons use the server's default clock, which may not match your customers' expectations.

Checkout and experiments

Warehouse and fulfillment

Pickup point

These conditions only apply when your rule action is one of the pickup point filter types (show/hide service point, parcel locker, etc.).

Operators

The in and notIn operators accept a comma-separated list with no spaces. For example, to match three countries write FI,SE,NO — not FI, SE, NO.

Rule actions

Visibility actions

Visibility rules show or hide a shipping option for the entire checkout. Only the first matching visibility rule applies.

enable_method — Show this shipping option

Use this when a shipping option should be hidden by default and only shown for certain orders. For example, show a same-day delivery option only for local postcodes.

disable_method — Hide this shipping option

Use this to hide an option when specific conditions are met. For example, hide express delivery after 2pm, or hide a carrier entirely for international orders.

Visibility rules and pricing rules stop at the first match. Once a rule matches, no further rules of the same type are checked for that option. Plan your priority order carefully.

Pricing actions

modify_method_price — Adjust the price up or down

This action changes the displayed price for the shipping option. You can apply a fixed amount adjustment, a percentage adjustment, or both.

Outcome fields:

To make shipping free, set the percentage to -100. This is cleaner than setting a fixed amount because it works regardless of the base price.

Pickup point filter actions

Pickup point rules filter the list of pickup locations offered to the customer. Unlike visibility and pricing rules, all matching pickup point rules apply — not just the first one. This lets you combine multiple filters (for example, hide parcel lockers AND hide outdoor lockers for heavy orders).

When to use these: Use pickup point filter rules when you need to limit which types of locations a customer can choose. For example, hide outdoor parcel lockers for large or fragile parcels that should not be left outside, or hide letter box delivery for orders too bulky to fit.

Shipment flag actions

Shipment flag actions do not change what the customer sees at checkout. They attach information to the shipment that is used when the shipment is created and handed off to the carrier.

Legacy action types

The following action types are still functional but have been superseded by the actions above. You may see them in older setups.

Tip: If you have existing rules using legacy action types, they will continue to work without changes. When you next edit one of those rules, recreate the action using the current type: visibility → enable_method or disable_method; pricing → modify_method_price. New rules should always use current action types.

How priority works

Every rule has a priority number. Shipit evaluates rules in descending order — the rule with the highest number runs first.

Higher priority number = checked first. This is the opposite of what many people expect. A rule with priority 100 runs before a rule with priority 10.

Best practice: space your priorities in steps of 10 (10, 20, 30, 40...). This leaves room to insert new rules between existing ones without having to renumber everything.

Example priority order for a shipping option with four rules:

In this example, a VIP member placing a B2B order would get free shipping because priority 40 fires first and no further pricing rules apply.

Conditions: all vs any

When you add more than one condition row to a rule, you must choose whether all conditions must be true or any one of them must be true.

"All" means every condition must match — think of it as AND logic.

Example: Hide express delivery if the destination is outside Finland AND the cart weight is over 5 kg. Both must be true to trigger the rule.

Conditions match: all
  - destination_country  notSameAs  FI
  - cart_weight          greaterThan  5000

"Any" means at least one condition must match — think of it as OR logic.

Example: Hide the option if the destination is Russia OR the destination is Belarus. Either country alone is enough to trigger the rule.

Conditions match: any
  - destination_country  sameAs  RU
  - destination_country  sameAs  BY

You cannot mix AND and OR logic within a single rule. If you need complex logic (for example, "B2B customers AND order over €200, OR VIP members"), create two separate rules with the same action and appropriate priorities.

Common patterns

Free shipping over €100

Goal: Automatically remove the shipping charge when the cart total reaches €100 or more.

This removes 100% of the price, making shipping free regardless of what the base price is set to.

No express delivery after 2pm

Goal: Hide same-day or express shipping options after the order cutoff time.

Without the timezone condition, the time is evaluated against the server clock, which may differ from your warehouse location.

B2B surcharge

Goal: Add a €5 handling fee for business customers.

Block shipping to a country

Goal: Hide a shipping option entirely for orders going to a specific country.

To block multiple countries with one rule, use the in operator:

Loyalty member discount

Goal: Give customers with an active loyalty membership a €3 discount on standard delivery.

Using "any" here means either member or vip status qualifies for the discount. Set the priority for this rule higher than any other pricing rule on the same option so loyalty discounts are applied first.

What to do next

See these examples for complete walkthroughs:

• Free shipping over a threshold — step-by-step setup with screenshots
• Time-based cutoffs — handling same-day delivery windows across timezones
• B2B vs B2C options — showing different carriers to different customer types