Shipday Pricing: The Two AI Tiers Took the Increase

Shipday pricing changed on two plans and only two. Business AI Lite went from $159 to $199 a month, and Business AI went from $349 to $399, while Branded Elite stayed at $99 with the same 300 included orders. That is a $40 and a $50 increase (25.2% and 14.3%) on the tiers where Shipday bundles its AI agents, and nothing on the rungs underneath.

If you sell delivery dispatch software, or you run a restaurant or courier business that buys it, the interesting part is not that a price went up. It is where it went up, what that does to the plan sitting one step below, and what the live page still gets wrong. We checked the live page today, October 21, 2026, and the numbers below match it.

What our directory recorded

Our directory compared two captures of Shipday’s pricing page, and the comparison landed in the October 19 fetch. Here is the Merchant view for the United States, which is the default view on the page:

All three plans are billed monthly. The live page shows no annual toggle, so there is no prepaid rate that would have locked in the old number.

Two limits did not move. Branded Elite still includes 300 orders with $0.20 for each extra order, and Business AI Lite still includes 750 with the same $0.20. Those unchanged allowances matter, because they mean the Lite increase is a pure price rise for an identical order allowance, not a repackaging.

Business AI is murkier, and we want to be plain about it. Our earlier capture listed 1,000 included orders and $0.25 per extra order. The current capture lists “unlimited orders per location.” The live page contradicts itself: one plan card says unlimited, while others say 1,500 included orders and $0.25 per extra. We are not going to pick a reading for you. If the allowance matters to your volume, ask Shipday which one applies before you sign.

One more honesty note. Shipday publishes no changelog or dated notice on the page, so we can tell you when we saw the change, not when Shipday made it. Treat the October 19 fetch as an upper bound on how recent it is.

Why Shipday pricing moved at the top of the ladder

Lay the whole ladder out as the live page shows it today. Basic is $0 with a hard cap of 300 orders, then Professional Lite at $29, Professional at $49, Branded Elite at $99, Business AI Lite at $199, Business AI at $399, and Enterprise from $3,499. Everything from Basic through Branded Elite is untouched. The two plans that moved are the two that carry Shipday’s AI features: an AI Operations Manager on Lite, and an AI receptionist and AI support agent on Business AI.

The step ratios are the useful number. Before the change, the last rungs climbed by 1.6x ($99 to $159) and then 2.2x ($159 to $349). Now they climb by 2.0x ($99 to $199) and 2.0x ($199 to $399). These ratios are derived from the published prices, not stated by Shipday, but the effect is a ladder that doubles at each of the last two steps, which is the easiest kind of ladder to explain on a sales call.

The pattern is worth naming. When a vendor monetizes a new capability, an increase on the tiers that bundle it reaches buyers who are choosing the capability and the plan together, while the entry and mid tiers, which most people memorize and compare, stay put. Our post on competitor pricing strategy explains why a uniform percentage across every tier is usually a measurement error. A move concentrated on two tiers, at two different percentages, is the opposite fingerprint, and which tier moves is the signal.

None of this says Shipday is wrong to do it. A plan that now includes AI agents answering phones and resolving order issues is a different product from a dispatch dashboard, and pricing it as a step up is a coherent position. The question for everyone else is what the move does to the plan next door.

The cheaper neighbor looks different now

Branded Elite is the plan most affected by the increase, even though its own price did not change. Its cost depends on volume: $99 includes 300 orders, and each order past that is $0.20. At 750 orders a month, which is exactly Business AI Lite’s included allowance, Elite costs $99 plus 450 extra orders at $0.20, or $189.

Before the change, Lite at $159 was $30 cheaper than that. Now Lite at $199 is $10 more. The break-even moved too. Elite reaches $199 at 800 orders a month, so a merchant between roughly 600 and 800 orders used to save money by upgrading to Lite and now does not.

That is the math on order volume alone, and the plans are not like for like. Lite adds the AI Operations Manager, 24/7 phone and priority support, and up to 1,500 SMS promotions a month. Elite has branded tracking and built-in access to third-party delivery services. So the honest framing is that the decision changed character. Upgrading from Elite to Lite used to be a cost saving that also gave you AI features. It is now a purchase of those features at a premium, and you should price them as such.

The gap between the two plans also widened, from $60 to $100 a month. For a competitor, that is a larger space for a mid-priced tier. For a customer, it is a bigger cliff.

What to do with this, by reader type

If you buy Shipday on Lite or Business AI. Look at your next invoice against your records, because the page gives you no annual option to hedge with. Then run the Elite math above at your real monthly order count. If you are under about 800 orders and you are not using the AI Operations Manager or the SMS promotions, you are paying a premium for features you may not use.

If you sell a competing delivery or dispatch product. Do not read this as a market-wide signal. One vendor moved two tiers, and the entry and mid tiers did not follow. Compare per-order cost at a few volume bands (300, 750, 1,500 orders) rather than headline plan prices, because Shipday sells a base fee plus an overage, and the overage is where the real price lives for a growing merchant. Our Shipday pricing snapshot lists the tiers and limits we captured.

If you track competitor pricing for a living. Diff per tier, and count how many tiers moved and which ones. A page-level “pricing changed” alert would have told you nothing here, while “the top two AI tiers rose and the rest held” is the whole story. It also helps to remember that our change feed produces false positives, which is why we verified this one against the live page before writing it. A real increase survives that check. The ChartMogul pricing change and the Jobber promo teardown are worked examples of the same discipline from two different angles, and price intelligence versus price monitoring explains why the second step matters.

The one move worth making this week

Pick the competitor plan you lose deals to and write down its price at three volumes: your smallest typical customer, your median, and your largest. Do it for the plan below it as well. If the cheaper neighbor beats the premium plan at your median customer, as Elite now does at 750 orders, that is the comparison your sales team should be using, and it is probably not the one on your battlecard today.

Outmano is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform. It captures competitor pricing pages on a schedule, diffs every tier, limit and billing term, and has its AI flag which changes are real before they reach your dashboard or digest. If you want competitor pricing monitoring that tells you which tier moved, see how it works.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does Shipday pricing cost per month?

As of the live page on October 21, 2026, Shipday lists Basic at $0, Professional Lite at $29, Professional at $49, Branded Elite at $99, Business AI Lite at $199 and Business AI at $399 per month. Enterprise starts at $3,499 per month. Most plans include an order allowance and charge per extra order.

Did Shipday raise its prices in 2026?

Our directory’s October 19 fetch recorded two increases: Business AI Lite from $159 to $199 and Business AI from $349 to $399. The live page matches the new numbers. Branded Elite held at $99, and we saw no change on the lower plans.

Does Shipday have a free plan?

Yes. The pricing page lists a Basic plan at $0 with a hard cap of 300 orders per month and 10 driver accounts. Our directory’s default Merchant view does not show it, because that view starts at Branded Elite, so check the plan selector on the page for your plan type.

Does Shipday charge per order?

Yes, on top of the monthly fee. Branded Elite and Business AI Lite each charge $0.20 for every order past the plan’s allowance (300 and 750 orders respectively). Business AI is listed both as unlimited and as 1,500 orders plus $0.25 per extra, so confirm which applies before you buy.

Does Shipday offer a free trial?

Our directory records no free trial for Shipday. The pricing page’s FAQ states that no trial is offered for Branded Elite. The free Basic plan, capped at 300 orders a month, is the closest thing to a trial.

How much is Shipday Enterprise?

The live pricing page shows Enterprise starting at $3,499 per month, with multi-location billing and AI agents included at every location. Beyond that starting figure, pricing is quoted by sales.