What is the Sendify API?

The Sendify API is a powerful, production-grade RESTful API for shipping and logistics. It enables developers and integration partners to seamlessly add shipping functionality into their own applications, websites, or back-end systems. With a single integration to Sendify, you can connect to multiple carriers (e.g. DHL, UPS, FedEx, TNT, DSV) and automate tasks like searching for shipping rates, booking shipments, printing labels, tracking parcels, and more. In other words, the Sendify API serves as a multi-carrier shipping platform that handles the heavy lifting of carrier communication, allowing SMEs and other businesses to streamline their logistics without dealing with each carrier’s API individually. It’s built with reliability and scale in mind – similar services boast 99.99% uptime and millions of shipments processed, setting the expectation that Sendify’s API is ready for production use in business-critical workflows.

Key Capabilities#

Some of the core capabilities of the Sendify API include:

• Search Shipping Options (Rate Shopping): Submit shipment details (origin, destination, parcel weight/dimensions, etc.) and retrieve available shipping services and rates across Sendify’s supported carriers. This allows you to compare prices and transit times to choose the best option. The API abstracts the different carriers’ offerings into a single standardized response, so you can easily present or select shipping options in your app.
• Book Shipments & Generate Labels: Confirm the shipment by booking the selected service through the API. Sendify will register the shipment with the carrier and return the shipping label (typically as a PDF or ZPL file) along with a tracking number. You can then download or print the label to attach to the package. The booking process is streamlined into one API call – Sendify handles generating the necessary documents and carrier booking behind the scenes.
• Track Shipments: Once a shipment is in transit, use the API to track its status and progress until delivery. The Sendify API provides endpoints to retrieve tracking updates (location scans, delivery confirmations, etc.) for your shipments, so you can display status to users or trigger notifications. Tracking is unified across carriers, meaning you don’t have to call each carrier’s system separately. Webhook notifications are also available to push updates for your shipments to you as soon as possible.
• Manage Shipping Documents: Beyond labels, the API also helps you handle other shipment documents. For example, you can programmatically fetch shipping labels and commercial invoices or customs documents for international shipments, retrieve proof of delivery files, and more as needed. All documents are provided in standard formats (PDF, image, or raw data) ready for you to download or print. This makes it easy to keep all shipping paperwork in sync with your orders.

Together, these capabilities cover the full shipping cycle – from getting a quote, to booking and dispatch, through to final delivery tracking. The Sendify API empowers your system to handle shipping end-to-end, integrating smoothly into your existing workflows.

Typical API Workflow (Standard Flow)#

To illustrate how Sendify API is used in practice, here’s a typical integration workflow for a basic shipment (the standard flow covered in our Getting Started Guide):

1. Rate Search: Your application collects the shipment requirements (addresses, package weight/dimensions, etc.) from the user or system. It then calls the Sendify API to search for shipping options. The API responds with a list of available carrier services and their rates, delivery estimates, and other details. (For example, you might get rates for DHL Express, UPS Standard, FedEx Economy, etc., all in one response.)

2. Shipment Booking: Your application chooses one of the returned shipping options (e.g. the cheapest or fastest service) and books the shipment via the API. This involves creating a shipment order in Sendify with all necessary details (addresses, chosen carrier service, parcel info). The Sendify API confirms the booking by registering it with the carrier and returns the shipping label (as a file URL or encoded data) along with the tracking number and any other shipment details. Now the shipment is ready to be shipped – you can download the label file to print it and stick it on the package.

3. Pickup/Dispatch: (Often handled outside the API scope) You hand over the package to the carrier. Depending on the carrier and your setup, this could mean scheduling a pickup, or dropping the package at a carrier drop-off point or having a daily pickup arrangement. This step is usually arranged by the shipper, but the API’s role is already done by providing the label and shipment info.

4. Tracking & Delivery: After dispatch, you use the Sendify API’s tracking endpoints to monitor the shipment’s status. Your system can pull tracking updates (in-transit scans, out-for-delivery notices, delivered confirmation, etc.) at intervals or when prompted by the user, or get them pushed using a webhook. Because Sendify standardizes the tracking data, you get a consistent status format across all carriers. You can display these updates to your user or trigger events (like sending an email when a package is delivered). The shipment’s lifecycle is complete when a delivery confirmation is received via tracking.

This standard flow is the foundation for most integrations and is covered in our Getting Started Guide. It handles the common case of shipping a package from point A to B with a single carrier service. Next, we’ll look at additional scenarios that the Sendify API can handle beyond this basic flow.

Advanced Use Cases#

In addition to the standard flows, the Sendify API is flexible and supports various advanced shipping scenarios to accommodate different business needs and edge cases. Some examples include:

• International Shipments with Customs Handling: If you’re shipping across country borders, you’ll need to provide customs information and documents. The Sendify API allows you to include all necessary customs details (e.g. item descriptions, HS codes, values, country of origin) when booking an international shipment. It uses this information to generate the required customs documentation (like commercial invoices or CN22 forms) automatically. This means you can book international shipments with duties/taxes and customs clearance in mind, all through the API, ensuring compliance with regulations. (See the International Shipping & Customs guide for how to include customs data in your API requests.)
• Shipping to Service Points (Pick-up/Access Points): Sendify also supports delivering shipments to carrier service points (such as parcel lockers, pickup shops or drop-off locations). Instead of a street address, the delivery location is a specific service point chosen by the receiver. The API lets you search for available service point locations (by postal code or GPS coordinates) and use a service point token as the delivery address for the shipment. This is useful for carriers like DHL, PostNord, UPS Access Point, etc., where the customer prefers to collect their parcel from a nearby location. (Refer to the Service Point Delivery section for details on finding and using pickup points via the API.)
• Automated Label Printing with PrintNode: To streamline operations in a warehouse or office, you might want shipping labels to print automatically as soon as they are generated. Sendify’s API can be integrated with PrintNode – a cloud printing service – to achieve this. For example, when you book a shipment and receive the label PDF/ZPL, you can send it to a PrintNode API which will instruct a local printer to print the label instantly. PrintNode effectively bridges the cloud to your printer hardware, so you don’t need to manually download and open label files. This setup enables hands-free printing of labels (and even packing slips or invoices) directly from Sendify’s API output. (We provide an Advanced Guide: PrintNode Integration with sample code for setting this up.)
• Receiver or Third-Party Pays Shipments: In some shipping scenarios, the shipping cost is not paid by the sender but by the receiver or a third party (for instance, the receiver has a carrier account that should be billed, or you’re drop-shipping and billing the supplier). The Sendify API supports receiver-pays or third-party billing by allowing you to specify alternate payers and account information when creating the shipment. This means you can create shipments where the receiver (or another party) is marked as the payer, and the charges will go to their carrier account rather than yours. The API will include the appropriate billing code to inform the carrier who should be billed. (See Advanced Billing Options in the documentation for how to set up receiver/third-party paid shipments.)

Each of the above use cases is covered in more detail in advanced guides or reference sections of the documentation. By leveraging these features, Sendify’s API can support complex logistics workflows on top of the basic shipping process. This makes it suitable for a wide range of integrations – from simple e-commerce stores automating parcel shipments, to ERP systems handling freight with custom requirements.

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In summary, the Sendify API is a modern multi-carrier shipping API designed to simplify and power your logistics processes. It offers an easy-to-use yet comprehensive interface for everything from rate discovery and booking to tracking and document management. Whether you just need the standard shipping flow or have specialized shipping needs, Sendify provides the building blocks to integrate shipping into your software on your terms. With clear documentation, conceptual diagrams, and robust endpoints, you can confidently build shipping automation that scales with your business – all backed by Sendify’s platform and carrier network.

For a hands-on walkthrough, see our Getting Started Guide.