Frequently asked questions
The questions worth asking before you sign up
Everything below is answered from what the platform actually does today, including the parts that are not finished. If your question is not here, ask it and we will answer it properly.
Read this before the rest: we have not launched yet
ParcelPointPro Ltd is preparing for launch, so some answers below describe what is built rather than what is running commercially. Three things are worth knowing up front. The connections to the four carriers are not yet verified against their live systems, so quoting and buying currently run in sandbox mode and a sandbox label has no value on a parcel. There is no card payment provider connected, so a wallet is funded by bank transfer and credited by us. And we have no customers yet, which is why you will find no case studies, uptime figures or testimonials anywhere on this site.
Everything else — the portal, the account ledger, statements, the label formats, the API and its sandbox — works today and can be tried without spending anything.
Getting started
Opening an account and buying the first label
What you need to sign up, what it costs to look around, and how the account works once several people are using it.
Do I need my own carrier account?
No. The commercial relationship with each carrier is ours to hold, so there is nothing for you to apply for, no separate sets of credentials to store and rotate, and no four sets of carrier terms to read before you can send anything. You open one account with us and buy from any of the four networks through it.
Who is this for?
UK businesses that send parcels: ecommerce sellers, wholesalers, subscription boxes, and the 3PLs and fulfilment agents who ship on their behalf. Accounts are opened in the name of a business rather than a person, which is also why consumer cancellation rights do not apply. For the occasional personal parcel, a post office counter will serve you better than we will.
What do I need to open an account?
An email address, your business name and a password. There is no card to enter, no contract to sign and no setup charge. The account is created with you as its Owner, and you can invite colleagues immediately.
How quickly can I start buying labels?
Registration is approved automatically, so you can sign in and look around within a minute of asking. Buying is a separate step: a new account starts with a zero balance, no credit limit and no API access, so nothing can be spent until funds have been recorded against it. Quoting works from the moment you are in.
Can I try it without spending anything?
Yes. Quotes are free and there is no limit on how many you run, so you can price real parcels before deciding anything. The sandbox goes further and issues realistic labels, tracking events and API responses without touching a carrier or your balance. A sandbox label has no value and must never be attached to a parcel.
Can two people use the same account?
Yes, and they should. Invite each colleague with their own login instead of sharing one, and give each of them the role that matches the job they do. Everything anyone does is recorded against their own name, which is worth having the first time a charge is queried.
Can one person work across more than one account?
Yes. A user can belong to several accounts and switch between them, which is how agents and 3PLs run a number of clients without sharing a login. Each account keeps its own balance, addresses, shipments and API keys, and nothing crosses between them.
Do I have to move all my shipping across?
No. Nothing here is exclusive and there is no minimum volume to hold on to, so you can run us alongside whatever you use today and send us the parcels where the price or the service suits. An account with no activity costs nothing to keep open.
Pricing and payment
What it costs and how the money moves
How labels are priced, how an account is funded today, what VAT looks like, and what happens when a carrier adjusts a charge after the parcel has gone.
Do you charge a monthly fee?
No. There is no subscription, no setup charge, no per-user seat fee and no minimum volume. You pay for labels and nothing else.
How much does a label cost?
It depends on the parcel and the service, which is why there is no price list anywhere on this site. Enter the weight, the dimensions and the destination, and every eligible service comes back priced side by side. The figure on the quote is the figure you are charged.
How do I pay for labels?
A prepaid wallet is the default: you hold a balance and each label draws it down. Credit terms are the alternative, where purchases run against an agreed limit and are settled on invoice. Charging a card at the moment of purchase is built but waiting on a payment provider, so it is not available yet.
How do I top up the wallet?
By bank transfer. We have not connected a card payment provider yet, so a top-up is paid to our bank account and one of our team records it against your wallet once the funds arrive. Card top-ups are on the list, and until they exist we would rather say so than let you discover it at checkout.
Can I pay on invoice instead?
Credit terms are available by arrangement rather than on request. An administrator sets a limit and payment terms for the account, purchases then draw against that limit instead of a wallet, and an invoice covering the period is issued with every charge behind it listed. Approval is at our discretion and we may ask for trade references.
Can I get a VAT invoice?
Credit accounts get a numbered VAT invoice for each period. Wallet accounts get a statement covering the same ground, showing every top-up, purchase, refund and adjustment with a running balance, exportable as PDF or CSV. VAT is itemised in both.
Are the prices shown with VAT included?
Prices are shown excluding VAT, and VAT is then applied where it is due. It is not one rate across everything: universal postal services are exempt while courier services are standard-rated, so what is added depends on which service you buy.
What happens if the carrier charges more after collection?
Carriers routinely reweigh and remeasure parcels, and they surcharge some postcodes and any address they have to correct in the network. Where that happens we pass the adjustment on at the amount the carrier bills us, itemised against the shipment on your statement. An adjustment can take a wallet below zero, because the money is already owed and hiding it would only make the balance wrong.
Can I get unused balance back?
Yes. Money in the wallet is still yours: ask and we return what is left, less anything you owe us. Balances are worked out from the underlying entries rather than kept as a single figure that can drift, so the amount we quote you is the amount the account history adds up to.
Carriers and services
Which networks, and what they will take
Who carries the parcel, what the size and weight limits actually depend on, and where a delivery estimate stops being a promise.
Which carriers can I buy from?
Royal Mail, DPD, Evri and DHL. We are an independent reseller and those names appear only to identify the services we sell; none of them endorses, sponsors or is partnered with us.
Do I have to pick one carrier and stay with it?
No. Every quote prices the same parcel across every eligible service, so the choice is made per shipment rather than per account. Moving a parcel from one network to another is choosing a different row in the list, not an onboarding project.
What sizes and weights can I send?
The limits belong to the carrier, not to us, and they differ by network and by service. You enter the weight and the three dimensions, and the quote returns the services that will genuinely take that parcel. Remember that carriers charge on whichever is greater, the actual weight or the volumetric weight worked out from the box, so a large light parcel costs more than the scales suggest.
Can I send parcels abroad?
International services are part of the catalogue, and where a destination needs customs detail the booking asks for it rather than leaving you to find out at the depot. What is available on the day is whatever the carrier returns for that destination and that parcel.
What can I not send?
Each carrier publishes its own list of prohibited and restricted goods, the lists are not identical, and the carrier's list governs. The usual exclusions are cash and precious metals, controlled drugs, weapons, dangerous goods, live animals, perishables and counterfeit goods. Our terms set out what happens if something prohibited is found in the network.
Do you collect from me, or do I drop off?
Both exist, and which applies depends on the carrier and the service you buy. Some networks are built around a scheduled collection from your premises, others around drop-off at a shop, locker or post office. We sell the label; the collection or drop-off arrangement is the carrier's, and a booked collection is never guaranteed.
Are delivery times guaranteed?
The timescales shown come from the carrier and are estimates. Where a carrier itself sells a service as guaranteed, that guarantee is the carrier's and comes with its own conditions and its own compensation rules. We would rather state that plainly than let a next-day label read as a next-day contract.
Will you add more carriers?
Yes, and the order we add them in follows what customers ask for. Anything we add appears in the same quote list, prints in the same formats and reports into the same statement, with no new contract at your end. If a network you depend on is missing, tell us what you send through it.
Can I use rates I have negotiated myself?
No. You buy at the price we quote, which comes from our own arrangements rather than from an account of yours. Where volume justifies it we can agree pricing specific to your account, and it then applies automatically to every quote you run.
Printing and labels
Getting the label onto the parcel
Formats, printers, reprints, buying in bulk, and what to do about the label you should not have bought.
What do labels come as?
Three formats from the same purchase: a 6 x 4 PDF for a thermal printer, an A4 PDF for an ordinary office printer, and raw ZPL to send straight to a Zebra. Take whichever suits the machine in front of you.
Do I need a thermal printer?
No. The A4 format prints on any office printer, and plenty of senders work that way with a label sheet or a document pouch. A thermal printer pays for itself in ink and handling once you are printing every day, but nothing here requires one.
Can I reprint a label?
Yes, as often as you need, and a reprint never buys anything or charges you again. Each print is counted and recorded against the shipment. Only one copy may go on a parcel: carriers treat a duplicated label as a duplicate consignment and charge for it.
Could someone else download my label if they got the link?
No. Label files sit on a private disk, and the download link is both signed and tied to a signed-in user on the account that owns the shipment. A forwarded link is useless to anyone outside it, which matters because a label is effectively a bearer instrument.
Can I buy a lot of labels at once?
Yes. Upload a CSV and the whole file is checked before anything is bought, so a bad postcode on row 300 is a message rather than 299 wasted labels. What comes back is a single merged PDF and a manifest for the driver.
What happens if my balance runs out halfway through a batch?
The batch stops cleanly at that point. Rows already bought stay bought and their labels are yours; the rest are left untouched and can be run again after a top-up. Failing every remaining row with the same error would tell you nothing useful about where to restart.
What happens if I buy a label by mistake?
Ask to void it. We put the request to the carrier first and only reverse the charge once the carrier confirms the label was not used, so nobody is ever credited for a parcel that is already moving. Each carrier sets its own window for this, and a label already scanned into the network cannot be voided.
Do labels expire?
Each carrier decides how long a label stays valid, so buying now for a parcel going out next month is a good way to find that limit. A label also belongs to one specific shipment: copying, altering or reusing it breaches both our terms and the carrier's, and normally attracts a penalty charge that we pass on.
Problems and claims
When a parcel or a charge goes wrong
What we can do, what only the carrier can do, and how a mistake in the money is put right.
What happens if a parcel is lost?
Raise it with us and we pursue the claim with the carrier, since the carrier account is ours. A parcel cannot be treated as lost until it has been missing for the number of working days that carrier requires, and any compensation is limited to the level the service carries plus the carriage charge. What we recover is credited to your account unless you ask for it back.
And if it arrives damaged?
Tell us quickly. Carriers apply short deadlines to damage claims and a late one is refused with no appeal, so the useful things to do on the day are to photograph the item and the packaging and to keep both. You will normally also need proof of what the contents were worth.
How do I track a parcel?
Tracking events are collected from the carrier on a schedule and normalised into one set of statuses, so a mixed-carrier day reads as a single list rather than four. The same events are available over the API, or can be pushed to you by webhook.
A parcel has been stuck for days. What can you actually do?
We chase it with the carrier as the account holder, which generally gets further than an individual enquiry does, and we tell you what comes back rather than filtering it. What we cannot do is move a van: we resell carriage, we do not operate a network. Where the carrier is at fault, the route to money is a claim.
What if the carrier fails while I am buying a label?
You keep your money. The charge is taken first and, if the carrier then refuses or fails, that charge is reversed, so the outcome is no label and no cost rather than a payment with nothing behind it.
Could a double-click buy two labels?
No. A bulk batch is locked as soon as it starts running, so a second click finds it already claimed and does nothing rather than buying the whole file twice. Over the API, sending an idempotency key with a purchase means a retried request returns the original result rather than buying again.
I think I have been charged wrongly. Can you just correct it?
We correct it by posting a reversal, never by editing or deleting what is already there. Your statement then shows the original charge and the correction against it. That is less tidy than a figure that quietly changes, and far easier to explain to an accountant six months later.
How do I get hold of a person?
Email support@parcelpointpro.com with the shipment reference and what has happened. We are a small pre-launch team, so we are not going to publish a response-time promise we have no track record behind. What we will say is that an enquiry reaches someone who can see the account, not a ticket queue.
API and integrations
Shipping from your own systems
Keys, scopes, the sandbox, idempotent purchases and signed webhooks — and where we have not built something yet.
Is there an API?
Yes, a versioned REST API covering quoting, buying, labels, tracking, the address book and the account balance. The developer reference and the Postman collection are generated from the routes themselves, so neither can describe an endpoint that does not exist or hide one that does.
Is there a sandbox?
Yes, and it costs nothing. A sandbox key returns realistic quotes, shipments, labels and tracking events without touching a carrier or your balance, which makes it safe to point continuous integration at permanently. Nothing bought there is real and its labels must not go on parcels.
How do I get API access?
It is granted by an administrator rather than switched on by yourself, which is deliberate: an API key spends money. Create an account, request access from the portal, and we enable it — sandbox first, live once your integration is doing what you expect.
How does authentication work?
A bearer key made of a readable prefix and a long secret. We store the prefix and a hash of the whole key, never the key itself, so a copy of our database yields nothing usable. The flip side is that we genuinely cannot tell you what a key was: it is shown once, at the moment you create it, and never again.
Can I restrict what a key is allowed to do?
Yes, and it is worth doing. Each key carries only the scopes you grant it, has its own rate limit, can be restricted to a list of IP addresses, can be given an expiry date and can be revoked instantly. A key that only quotes cannot buy anything.
What are the rate limits?
Limits apply per key rather than per account, so a runaway script hits its own ceiling instead of taking the rest of your integration down with it. The standard allowance is 120 requests a minute and can be set per key. Going over it returns a 429 rather than dropping requests quietly.
What stops a timeout buying two labels?
Send an Idempotency-Key header with the purchase. The result is stored against that key, so when your request times out and your retry fires, the second call returns the first response instead of buying a second label. Your own order reference makes a good key.
Do you have webhooks?
Yes, signed with HMAC-SHA256. The timestamp sits inside the signed string rather than merely alongside it, so a captured delivery cannot be replayed with a fresh one. Failed deliveries are retried on a widening schedule across a couple of hours, and endpoints must be public HTTPS addresses — private, loopback and link-local ranges are refused when the URL is saved and again before every delivery.
Are there client libraries for my language?
Not yet. There is a Postman collection you can import and send straight away, and the API is plain JSON over HTTPS with no unusual conventions, so most integrations end up a thin wrapper around your existing HTTP client. If an official library would make the difference, tell us which language.
Account and data
Access, security and what we hold
Who can see what, what protects the account, and an honest account of the certifications we do not have.
Who in my team can see what?
Access is by role: Owner, Manager, Operator, Finance and Read-only. An Operator buys and manages shipments without seeing finance, Finance handles the wallet, statements and invoices without buying labels, and Read-only can look at everything and change nothing. Roles are held per account, so somebody who works across two accounts can hold a different role in each.
Do you support two-factor authentication?
Yes, using time-based one-time codes from any authenticator app. It is optional on customer logins and mandatory for our own staff, on the principle that the people who can see every account should face the higher bar. We would encourage every Owner to turn it on.
Can your staff look at my account?
Yes, and it is deliberately impossible to do quietly. A support session signs a member of our staff into your account with a banner across every page saying who is in it, both the start and the end are written to the audit log, and one support session cannot be opened from inside another.
Is my data separated from other customers' data?
Every customer-owned record carries its account and is filtered by it automatically, rather than relying on each individual query to remember. That separation is enforced in one place and covered by tests, including on the API, where nothing is looked up until the key has been checked and the account established.
Where is my data held?
Our intention is that customer data stays in the UK and we are building on that basis. We are pre-launch, so the honest answer is that the final hosting arrangement will be stated in the privacy policy before the first live label is sold, rather than claimed on a marketing page now.
Are you certified to ISO 27001, SOC 2 or Cyber Essentials?
No. We hold no security certification and will not imply one we have not earned. What we can describe is the controls that exist: two-factor authentication, scoped keys stored only as hashes, carrier credentials encrypted at rest, labels behind signed and authenticated links, and an audit trail on every money movement and administrative action.
How are credentials stored?
Passwords and API secrets are hashed, so there is nothing to reverse. Carrier credentials, which have to remain usable, are encrypted at rest and stripped out of logs and error messages — including the failure messages where a carrier echoes a submitted key straight back at us.
Can I get my data out?
Yes. Statements and invoices export to PDF or CSV, shipment history can be filtered and exported from the portal, and the API reads the same records. Nothing is held hostage: what you can see, you can take with you.
What happens when I close my account?
Tell us and we close it and return any remaining balance, less anything outstanding. Labels already bought stay valid for their normal life. We keep the records we are required to keep for tax and accounting purposes, and the privacy policy sets out for how long.
Still not answered
Ask us the awkward one
Questions about limits, edge cases and things we have not built yet are the ones we would most like to hear before you commit to anything. If you are integrating, the developer reference lists every endpoint, its scopes and its request shape, generated from the routes themselves.