RC:Ship 1.0 is live — Shipping infrastructure for modern commerce →RC:Ship 1.0 is live →
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Authenticate securely.

The RC:Ship API uses Bearer token authentication. Your API keys carry many privileges, so be sure to keep them secure.

Obtaining API Credentials

To get started, you need to generate an API key from your RC:Ship dashboard:

  1. Log in to your RC:Ship account.
  2. Navigate to Settings > Developers.
  3. Click Generate New API Key.

Request Authentication

Authentication to the API is performed via HTTP Bearer Auth. Provide your API key as the bearer token value in the Authorization header of every request.

BASH
curl https://api.ship.retailcoder.com/v1/shipments \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_api_key_here"

All API requests must be made over HTTPS. Calls made over plain HTTP will fail. API requests without authentication will also fail with a 401 Unauthorized error.

Key Security

Security Best Practices
  • Never expose credentials client-side: Do not hardcode your API key in frontend code (like React, Vue, or iOS apps) that runs on the user's device.
  • Store secrets securely: Use environment variables or a secret management service (like AWS Secrets Manager) to store your keys on your backend servers.
  • Rotate compromised keys: If you suspect your key has been leaked, roll it immediately in the RC:Ship dashboard.
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Build with the Shipping Infrastructure API

A robust, RESTful API designed by developers, for developers.

Integrating shipping carriers is notoriously difficult due to archaic SOAP APIs, inconsistent documentation, and varied label formats. RC:Ship abstracts away this complexity, providing a unified developer experience.

Unified Carrier Abstraction

Instead of building and maintaining 10 different carrier integrations, you build one integration to the RC:Ship API. We handle the carrier-specific quirks, API updates, and edge cases, allowing your engineering team to focus on core product features.

Our API normalizes the entire shipping lifecycle—from live rate fetching to label generation and real-time tracking webhooks.

This means that adding a new carrier to your stack is a configuration change in our dashboard, not a three-week sprint for your engineering team.

Reliable Webhooks & Event Streams

Stop polling for tracking updates. Our infrastructure handles millions of carrier pings and distills them into clean, standardized webhook events sent directly to your endpoints. Whether a package is out for delivery or returning to origin, you receive instant, structured JSON payloads.

API Capabilities

RESTful Design
Predictable resource-oriented URLs and HTTP status codes.
Sub-second Responses
Optimized for live checkout rate fetching without latency.
Webhooks
Reliable event delivery with built-in retry mechanisms.
Sandboxed Testing
Generate test labels without incurring real carrier charges.