Set Shipping Rates by Weight or Quantity (Tiers)
Updated October 2, 2026
A tiered shipping rule charges by how heavy an order is or how many items it has. Use it when your carrier prices parcels in weight bands, or when larger orders cost more to ship.
- Where
- In the sidebar: Expenses > Shipping, Add rule, step Cost.
- Who
- Stores whose shipping cost grows with the weight or the size of an order.
- Time
- About 5 minutes per rule.
How Tiers Work#
On the Cost step of a rule, pick Tiered and then By quantity or By weight. The order falls into exactly one tier. For Tiered, Cost shape decides what a tier's amount means: Total per tier is one amount for the whole order, Per item in tier is charged for each item. Each tier is defined by its upper limit. An order that is exactly on a limit belongs to the lower tier. Leave the last limit empty for "and above".
Cumulative tiers are a separate cost mode: every item is charged at the rate of the tier it falls into, then all are added up. Example: items 1 to 3 at $4.50 each, every further item $1.50, so 4 items cost 3 × $4.50 + $1.50 = $15.00. Cumulative tiers work by quantity only.
The steps of the rule wizard are in Add a Shipping Rule.
Example: Tiers by Quantity#
A store ships from the United States and has two rules:
| Rule | Scope | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | All orders (Level 1) | $4.80 per order |
| North America | Specific countries (Level 2): CA, MX, US | Tiered, By quantity, Total per tier: 1 to 2 items $6.90, 3 to 5 items $9.90, 6 or more $14.90 |
| Order | Rule used | Calculation | Shipping cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 items to Canada | North America | 2 items are in the tier 1 to 2 | $6.90 |
| 4 items to the United States | North America | 4 items are in the tier 3 to 5 | $9.90 |
| 5 items to the United States | North America | 5 is the upper limit of the tier 3 to 5 | $9.90 |
| 7 items to Mexico | North America | 7 items are in the tier 6 or more | $14.90 |
| 4 items to Germany | Baseline | No country rule matches | $4.80 |
The order to the United States does not cost $9.90 + $4.80. Every item is matched by the country rule, so the baseline is not used.
Example: Tiers by Weight#
Your carrier charges by parcel weight. On the Cost step, pick Tiered and By weight:
With the bands up to 1 kg $6.90, up to 5 kg $9.90 and above 5 kg $14.90:
| Order to the United States | Weight | Band | Shipping cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 item of 0.6 kg | 0.6 kg | Up to 1 kg | $6.90 |
| 2 items of 0.5 kg | 2 × 0.5 = 1.0 kg | Up to 1 kg | $6.90 |
| 2 items of 0.6 kg | 2 × 0.6 = 1.2 kg | Up to 5 kg | $9.90 |
| 4 items of 1.5 kg | 4 × 1.5 = 6.0 kg | Above 5 kg | $14.90 |
With Per item in tier, the third order would cost 2 × $9.90 = $19.80.
The weight is the order weight that Shopify recorded. When a rule covers only some items of an order, or Shopify recorded no order weight, Profitario adds up the weights of the items from your Shopify products.
A weight rule needs weights. If neither the order nor its products have a weight in Shopify, the rule is skipped for that order and the order gets no shipping cost from it. The order list of the Review & Apply step gives the reason "variant has no weight data" for such orders.
Limits#
- Cumulative tiers work by quantity only, not by weight.
- A weight rule is skipped for an order without any weight. No other rule takes its place for the items it matched.
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