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ShipStation vs Shippo vs ShipBob: Shipping Software Reliability in 2026

Shipping is the least reliable category in e-commerce infrastructure, so choosing dependable shipping software matters more than most merchants realize. Over the 180 days ending July 2026: ShipBob ran clean at 100% uptime (A+, zero major incidents), ShipStation posted 99.9% (A) with one 166-minute incident, and Shippo was the laggard at 99.55% (B+) with 5 separate major incidents totaling 756 minutes.

The numbers, side by side

Metric (180 days ending July 2026)ShipStationShippoShipBob
Uptime (major/critical incidents)99.9%99.55%100%
StatusBird reliability gradeAB+A+
Major or critical incidents150
Total downtime166 minutes756 minutes0 minutes

How these numbers are measured: StatusBird checks each service's status every 2 minutes, around the clock. The uptime figures below count major and critical incidents over the 180 days ending July 2026; brief degraded periods are tracked but excluded from the uptime math so that chronically noisy status pages do not distort the comparison. Full details on the methodology page.

How reliable is ShipStation?

One incident in 180 days is a solid record, but ShipStation has had worse stretches: its April 2026 outage stalled label creation for most of a business day and created an order-import backlog that took stores days to clean up (timeline in the ShipStation April 2026 postmortem). Current status is on the ShipStation reliability page, longer history in is ShipStation reliable.

How reliable is Shippo?

Five major incidents in 180 days is the most of the three by a wide margin. None was as long as ShipStation's April event, but frequency has its own cost: five separate afternoons of failed label purchases and stalled fulfillment. Details on the Shippo reliability page and in is Shippo reliable.

How reliable is ShipBob?

Zero major incidents in the window. Worth noting: ShipBob is a fulfillment service, not just software, so its outages affect whether your orders physically ship, and its clean record here covers the software platform's availability. See the ShipBob reliability page and is ShipBob reliable.

What does a shipping software outage actually cost?

Unlike a checkout outage, a shipping outage costs you quietly: orders keep coming in, but same-day ship promises slip, support tickets pile up, and marketplace seller metrics take the hit. The response playbook is in what to do when ShipStation goes down, and it applies to any of the three. The common thread: the sooner you know, the more of the ship day you save.

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