Shipping rates missing or wrong at checkout
Updated 23 July 2026
For stores using Flare-managed shipping zones. Work down the list.
Rates don't appear at all
- Full address entered? Shopify only requests live rates once there's enough address. Complete the address (postcode + country at minimum) and give it a beat; if it still looks stuck, refresh the checkout.
- Zones live? In Shipping settings, confirm your zones are live, not draft.
- Address actually in a zone? Check the postcode against your zone patterns/ranges. Addresses outside every zone correctly get no Flare rates — and if nothing else covers them, checkout says no shipping is available. That's your zone coverage, not a bug.
- Any date available? No valid dates for that address+cart (blocked, at capacity, past cutoff with nothing left in window) means no rates either — Flare won't sell a slot it can't deliver. Ask Sparky to run the exact address and cart; it'll name the rule responsible.
- Carrier-calculated shipping on your Shopify plan? Live rates need CCS (requirements). Without it, Flare runs static-rate fallback — if you recently changed Shopify plans, re-save your zones.
Rates appear but look stale after a settings change
Shopify caches carrier rate responses for ~15 minutes per identical cart + destination. After editing prices/zones:
- test with a slightly different cart (add/remove any item) to bypass the cache, or wait 15 minutes;
- allow a few minutes for settings to propagate globally, then hard-refresh checkout.
If a change still isn't live after that, contact support.
The wrong option shows / an option is missing for a date
- Date-first setups only show services valid for the chosen date — an "missing" Express on a Standard-only day is the rules working. Check the profile's delivery days, cutoffs, and conditions.
- If you kept Shopify-managed rates alongside Flare's, remember Flare hides its own non-matching options but fails open when it has no opinion — duplicated-looking rates usually mean the same rate exists in both Shopify and Flare. Bring the Shopify rate into Flare or remove one copy.
Carts with bundles
Shopify native bundles expand into their component items at checkout, so zone/profile conditions that target the bundle parent product won't match. Make product conditions include the component products (or use tags/collections covering both) — see zones and mixed carts. If a bundle behaves oddly, tell support the exact bundle product — this one has bitten stores before and is quick for us to check.
A shopper hit "no shipping options" mid-checkout once
Transient carrier latency can do this; Flare falls back to configured transit and Shopify retries on refresh. If it repeats for one address, capture postcode + cart and send it over — Sparky can replay it exactly.