The StartOps Team
TLDR:
Shiplab is a data pipeline platform that helps shippers and shipping platforms get clean parcel invoice data from any North American carrier into their data warehouse — for a flat SaaS fee.
Basic info
Year founded: 2020
Team size: 5
HQ location: San Francisco, CA + Greenville, NC
Regions served: USA
What's the backstory?
Shiplab is Ryan Butcher’s second logistics tech company. His first was the infrastructure behind many of the industry's best-known parcel auditing platforms (and was acquired in 2019).
Ryan loved fixing gnarly parcel data for shippers, but he did NOT love the auditing model.
Shiplab is the result: a parcel data company without the auditing.
Who do they work with?
Shippers — Shiplab works with midmarket and enterprise shippers who need clean, post-shipment parcel cost data for accounting and operations.
Platforms — Shiplab can also help 3PLs, SaaS companies, and others who serve shippers provide data for customers.
Their ICP is anyone who needs to ask questions about parcel data ("How much was parcel spend by State/ZIP?" "How much cost should we allocate to outbound vs. returns?" "Are we shipping any orders unprofitably?" etc.) but who does not want to download invoices from carrier portals.
How does it work?
Shiplab integrates with any North American parcel carrier via their account sign-in.
They ingest, clean, and normalize all of the invoice data.
Then they pipe it back out to the user via API or ETL.
What makes it different?
Experienced team — Most of Ryan's team has been building stable parcel data infra for >10 years.
SaaS model / not an auditor — Most companies offering parcel data monetize through small parcel audit (which itself is often a loss leader for more-lucrative parcel spend management). Shiplab just does data.
Collaborative with carriers — Because they're not an auditor, carriers like working with them to help solve their customers' billing and data issues.
Customer-owned data — Data gets stored in their own customers' data warehouses, so there is continuity even if they stop using Shiplab.
How does pricing work?
Flat SaaS pricing based on volume and complexity
Typical contracts are 4-to-5-figures annually
