Articles on: Rates

Understanding Surcharge Tiers

When talking about Weight and Quantity rates, we have some variables to take into account:

Base rate - you can optionally set a price that will be applied regardless of the weight of the order. For example, you may wish to charge all orders at least $5 before any weight/Qty/% calculations are taken into consideration.

Minimum charge - This field allows you to specify a minimum price that should be levied for this rate. If the base rate plus the total weight/qty prices combined are less than the minimum amount you specify, then the minimum charge will be used instead as the rate price.

Surcharge per number of Weight Unit/Item Qty - This field is made up of three inputs:

On Weight Base Rates:

Surcharge amount per (kg): Set a price per weight unit
Per kg of cart weight: Set the number of weight units that price should apply to.
Apply to the first... / Apply to the next...: If wanted, set a weight limit for the tier so that surcharge only applies to the first/next 'X' weight. If you define a weight here, it's important to know that any additional weight from the one defined won't get a surcharge unless you set another tier.

Note: If you leave it empty, the surcharge will continue recalculating and will be applied based on the total order weight.

For example, you may wish to charge customers $2 for every 500 grams that their order weighs.

On Quantity Base Rates:

Surcharge per item: Set a price per qty
Per items in cart: Set the number of items that price should apply to.
Apply to the first... /Apply to the next... : If wanted, set a qty limit for the tier so that surcharge only applies to the first/next 'X' quantity. If you define a quantity here, it's important to know that
any additional quantity from the one defined won't get a surcharge unless you set another tier.

Note: If you leave it empty, the surcharge will continue recalculating and will be applied based on the total order quantity.

For example, you may wish to charge customers $2 for every item that their order has

Surcharge Tiers Scenarios

$5 surcharge per Kg that starts counting once over 20kg.

In order to achieve what you're after you'll need to set up a weight-based rate and a couple of surcharge tiers.

Set up the weight-based rate. Something like this:

Note that you can have a base charge if you wish or a minimum rate charge if you need to.

Create two surcharge tiers:

Tier 1: $0 per 1kg applied to the first 20kg
Tier 2: $5 per 1kg applied to remaining weight (leave the ' Apply to the next... ' field blank)

The first tier states that the first 20kg of the order should be charged $0 per kg. The second states that for all other weight in the cart, the customer should be charged $5 per kg.

You can obviously tweak these figures as required but this is the approach to charge $5 per Kg that starts counting once over 20kg.

$12 for 1 item, $15 for 2 items, $20 for 3 items, and so on ($5 per item)

Set up the weight-based rate with:
Base rate: $12
Minimum charge: $12

Create three surcharge tiers:

Tier 1: $0 per 1 item applied to the next 1
Tier 2: $3 per 1 item applied to the next 1
Tier 2: $5 per 1 item applied to remaining items in cart (leave the ' Apply to the next... ' field blank)

This would charge $12 for 1 item, $15 for two items, $20 for three items, $25 for four items...etc.

⚠️CaveatIf you're using product groups, you must know that when you are using weight surcharges, they are calculated only on the items in the product group that the rate is for. So, products in the cart from other product groups will be calculated separately. If you want this to apply on all product groups, the same configuration must be applied for the other Product Group rates.

Updated on: 14/02/2023

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