# Weekly shipping spend and carrier performance review in Slack

> Every Monday morning, get a short Slack rundown of what you spent on shipping last week, which carriers got pricier, and your three most expensive labels.

- Workflow type: agent
- Services: Shippo, Slack, Google Sheets
- Categories: Operations, Finance
- Published: 2026-08-09

## What it does

- Adds up last week's shipping labels and breaks the spend down by carrier and by service level, with total spend, label count, and average cost per label.
- Compares the week against the one before it, so you see what moved instead of a wall of numbers.
- Posts a short Slack summary that calls out the real changes: a carrier creeping up in price, a shift toward expensive express services, or a one off label that skewed the average.
- Always lists the three priciest labels of the week with their tracking numbers, and logs one row per carrier per week to a spreadsheet so a spend trend builds up over time.

## What you'll need

- A Shippo account that you buy your shipping labels through
- A Slack workspace, plus the channel where the Monday summary should land
- A Google Sheets spreadsheet with a tab set aside for the running spend history

## Prompt

Every Monday at 8am, review my shipping spend and carrier performance for the last seven days and have the summary waiting for me in Slack.

Pull my labels from Shippo using List Transactions (Labels). I need the last seven days and also the seven days before that, so you can compare week over week. Page through the results and keep following the next link until it comes back null instead of stopping at the first page, because a busy week runs well past one page and the page size caps at 100. Only count labels that were purchased successfully, and leave out test labels.

The list response does not always carry everything needed. Where the carrier, service level, or amount charged is missing or ambiguous for a label, call Retrieve Transaction (Label) on that specific label to fill in the gaps rather than guessing.

Group the spend by carrier and by service level. For the week overall and for each group, work out total spend, label count, and average cost per label. Do the same for the prior seven days and calculate the change between the two weeks, both as an absolute amount and as a percentage.

Then write a short narrative that says what actually changed, rather than dumping the numbers back at me. The things worth calling out are a carrier that got more expensive week over week, a service mix drifting toward pricier express options, and unusual one off high cost labels that dragged the average up. If nothing meaningful moved, say so plainly in a single line instead of padding the summary.

Post the result to Slack with Send a Message. Keep it to a handful of bullets. Lead with total spend, label count, and average cost per label alongside the change against the prior week, then the narrative points. Always finish with the three most expensive labels of the week, each with its tracking number and carrier.

Also append one row per carrier per week to a Google Sheets tab using Append Values, so a spend trend builds up over time. Each row should carry the week start date, the carrier, total spend, label count, and average cost per label. Only ever append, never overwrite earlier weeks, because the accumulated history is the whole point of the sheet.

## How to customize

- Change the timing. Monday at 8am is the default, but any day and hour works, and you can switch it to a fortnightly or monthly review.
- Point it at a different Slack channel, or send it as a direct message to whoever owns shipping costs.
- Tune what counts as notable: how many top labels to list, and how big a week over week swing has to be before it gets called out.
- Narrow the report to specific carriers or service levels if you only care about part of your shipping mix.

## FAQ

### How far back does each report look?

It covers the last seven days, and it also reads the seven days before that so it can tell you what changed. You get the comparison automatically without keeping any of it in your head.

### What if I ship with more than one carrier?

That is the point of the report. Spend is grouped by carrier and by service level, so you can see whether one carrier is quietly getting more expensive than the others.

### Can I run it on a different day or time?

Yes. Monday at 8am is just the starting point. You can move it to any day and time that suits your week, or run it less often.

### Does this change anything in my Shippo account?

No. It only reads the labels you have already bought. It does not buy, refund, or edit anything.

### Is it useful if I only ship a few packages a week?

Yes, and arguably more so. At low volume a single expensive express label can move your average cost noticeably, and the summary flags exactly that kind of one off.

Use this prompt in General Input: https://www.generalinput.com/prompts/weekly-shipping-spend-and-carrier-performance-review-in-slack