ePAL Global
Landed cost pricing: ePAL Global fees for cross-border orders
Landed cost pricing is how a provider charges for calculating duty, VAT, and import charges at checkout. ePAL Global keeps it simple: 1.5% of basket value on each completed cross-border order, capped at €1 for a limited promotional period, with that cap subject to removal. The fee is calculated on basket value. Abandoned carts, quotes, and test transactions cost nothing when waived or refunded in advance. This page covers what the fee applies to and what you get at that rate. It also explains how taxes and duties sit alongside it across plugins, APIs, and higher-volume setups.
What to know about landed cost pricing
This page covers how ePAL Global charges for landed cost calculation on cross-border orders. The 1.5% model applies the same way across every channel.
of basket value
- The standard fee is 1.5% of basket value per completed cross-border order processed through checkout, capped at €1 for a limited promotional period.
- The fee is calculated on basket value.
- New clients receive free credit worth €5,000 of cross-border sales, increased to €10,000 for a time-limited promotional period.
- Abandoned carts, quotes, estimators, and test transactions do not incur transaction fees when waived or refunded in advance.
- Customs duty and import VAT may apply, both may apply, or neither may apply, depending on the basket, seller, and recipient.
- Standard plugins, checkout extensions, and API access are covered by the same per-order model, and all cross-border sales from every channel can be reviewed in one ePAL portal at no extra cost.
- Extra advisory work, registration help, and enhanced SLAs are contracted and billed outside the 1.5% fee.
- High-volume merchants use negotiated commercial terms that follow the same basic per-order logic.
What is landed cost pricing and how does ePAL Global charge for it?
Landed cost pricing is the commercial model a provider uses to charge for automated duty and tax calculation at checkout. With ePAL Global, that model is a fee of 1.5% of basket value on each completed cross-border transaction processed through its checkout logic, capped at €1 for a limited promotional period.
Landed cost itself is a different thing. It is the full delivered cost of an order. That total can include the product price, international transport, insurance, customs duties, import VAT, and any clearance or handling fees from carriers or brokers. Depending on the basket, seller, and recipient, Customs Duty or Import VAT may apply, both may apply, or neither may apply. ePAL figures it all out based on basket content.
A landed cost calculator estimates that full delivered amount. Landed cost calculator pricing is what you pay the provider to make that calculation work in real time.
The practical difference in one line each:
- Landed cost: the full delivered cost of the order, including duty, taxes, and handling.
- Landed cost pricing: the provider fee for calculating and displaying that figure at checkout.
The ePAL fee is tied to completed orders. Cost therefore scales with revenue rather than with traffic or quote activity.
All the fees in one place
Standard merchants work with a short list of charges.
What the 1.5% is charged on:
- Completed cross-border orders that pass through checkout.
- Orders where cross-border duty and VAT logic was applied to the basket.
- Basket value, as defined in the Terms of Service.
What carries no separate charge in a standard setup:
- Abandoned carts and incomplete checkouts.
- Quote-only or estimator calls that never convert.
- Test transactions carried out on the production setup when waived or refunded in advance.
- Installation and use of a standard plugin or cart connector.
- Access to the ePAL portal for reviewing cross-border orders, liabilities, and sales across all channels.
What sits outside the service fee entirely:
- Customs duties charged by the destination authority.
- Import VAT or equivalent consumption taxes.
- Carrier or broker handling and clearance fees.
Those amounts are not ePAL Global revenue. They are government or third-party charges that flow through your checkout as part of the buyer's total. They pass through your books separately from the calculation fee.
When each cross-border checkout fee applies
Knowing when a fee triggers matters as much as knowing its rate. Each eCommerce cross-border checkout fee has a clear condition attached, so you can forecast monthly spend.
| Fee type | Trigger |
|---|---|
| 1.5% calculation fee | A cross-border order completes at checkout; the fee is calculated on basket value |
| Duty and import VAT | Goods are assessed by the destination customs authority based on basket content, seller, and recipient |
| Broker or handling charges | A broker or carrier adds a clearance or handling fee |
| Custom or enterprise terms | Agreed in advance for specific volume or service needs |
Most merchants only ever meet the first two rows. Pass-through taxes and duties apply per shipment under local rules.
Anything beyond that belongs in optional or negotiated categories. Those extras only apply when you sign for them, and they are never added retroactively to past orders.
Why the trigger is the completed order
Tying the fee to conversion aligns cost with value. You show accurate import charges at checkout. The buyer accepts those charges and confirms the order. If the basket is abandoned, you carry no calculation cost for the attempt. You can give shoppers full landed cost visibility without paying for browsing or quote-heavy traffic.
Service fee versus customs duty and VAT
The 1.5% fee pays for automated calculation, classification logic, and checkout display. Customs duties, VAT, and other import taxes are statutory amounts set by destination authorities.
In many markets, import taxes are calculated on a layered base. That base can include goods and insurance. It may also include freight where local rules require it, while the ePAL fee is calculated on basket value. VAT or a similar tax can therefore land on top of duty. It can also apply to the goods value and other taxable components. The exact rules vary by destination and product category.
A single cross-border order can therefore include:
- The product price.
- Insurance on the shipment, where relevant.
- Customs duties at the applicable tariff rates.
- Import VAT or equivalent consumption taxes.
- Broker or carrier handling and clearance fees.
- The 1.5% calculation fee for landed cost services.
Only the final line is the provider's commercial charge.
Where DDP changes who carries the tax burden
Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) terms shift responsibility to the seller. The seller takes on the cost and risk of bringing goods to the named destination. That includes export and import clearance and payment of duties and taxes. So the merchant needs accurate duty and tax figures before the buyer clicks pay.
Underquote duty and taxes on a DDP flow and you absorb the difference when the shipment clears. Overquote them and conversion suffers. Seen that way, DDP landed cost solution pricing at 1.5% is small next to the tax exposure it covers.
What the standard fee includes
The 1.5% rate covers the working parts of international duty and VAT calculation pricing, not just access to an endpoint.
Core inclusions in a standard arrangement:
- The duty and tax calculation engine for supported trade lanes.
- Ongoing maintenance of rates, thresholds, and rules as they change.
- Checkout display of duty, VAT, and other expected import charges.
- Access to standard plugins, checkout extensions, and production API endpoints.
- Access to the ePAL portal so merchants can review cross-border orders, liabilities, and sales from all channels at no extra cost.
- Test transactions on the production setup, with fees waived or refunded if agreed in advance.
- Baseline support during onboarding and normal operation.
That maintenance work matters because customs and tax environments keep moving. Rules, thresholds, and reporting expectations change. Your checkout has to keep pace. What you buy is predictable landed cost for shoppers and fewer surprises at the border.
When buyers see accurate totals, they are less likely to refuse parcels or return them over unexpected charges at delivery. Internally, your teams spend less time patching spreadsheets or chasing rule changes for each destination.
Optional services priced outside the core fee
Some work is genuinely project-based and does not fit a per-transaction fee. Charging every merchant for it would raise costs for merchants who never need it.
Categories that are handled as separate projects or add-ons:
- Advisory work on cross-border tax treatment for specific markets.
- Support with VAT or indirect tax registration in particular jurisdictions.
- Custom reporting, reconciliation, or data feed development.
- High-touch onboarding or complex migration projects.
- Enhanced service-level agreements above the standard support level.
Support around VAT registration schemes or one-stop-shop style portals is a good example. It involves tailored regulatory and process work. The scope varies by business model, catalogue, and footprint. Scoping it as a defined project lets ePAL cross-border compliance services pricing match the real effort involved.
Custom terms for advanced or high-volume merchants
Standard pricing covers the majority of use cases. Some merchants need commercial terms that reflect larger scale or specialised requirements.
Situations that usually lead to custom commercial terms:
- Very high monthly cross-border order volumes.
- Specific uptime or API response-time commitments.
- Bespoke compliance, audit, or reporting workflows.
- Unusual catalogue complexity across many destinations.
Volume pricing for cross-border transactions is agreed case by case rather than published as fixed public tiers. Thresholds, rates, and any minimums sit in your contract rather than on this page.
In all of these scenarios, customs duties, VAT, and other taxes still represent the largest money on each order. The provider fee is a thin layer on top of that regulatory cost base.
The ePAL fee is charged at 1.5% of basket value. It is capped at €1 per order for a promotional, time-limited period, and that cap may be removed.
New clients also receive free credit worth €5,000 of cross-border sales so they can test and prove the value of ePAL. For a time-limited promotional period, that introductory credit is increased to €10,000.
ePAL Basic for Shopify
ePAL Basic for Shopify is available to merchants on every Shopify tier. It provides a way to use ePAL’s landed cost pricing where Shopify’s checkout features differ by plan.
Monthly subscription
per store, per month
Includes 100 eligible ePAL-priced orders each month.
What happens after 100 orders?
Additional eligible orders are charged at the rate for the applicable volume tier. The applicable volume tier and rate are set out in the current pricing terms.
An order is counted when an eligible cross-border sale using ePAL is confirmed. Quotes and abandoned baskets do not trigger an order charge. The monthly subscription can be cancelled at any time through Shopify; there is no minimum term.
This subscription is for ePAL Basic for Shopify. It is separate from the standard transaction-based pricing for WooCommerce and direct API integrations.
How plugin and checkout extension pricing works
Installing a plugin or checkout extension does not change the commercial model. In a standard setup, landed cost plugin pricing adds no per-seat or per-plugin licence.
Carts and connectors
Standard connectors for major eCommerce platforms follow the same per-order structure. A platform or marketplace partner may have its own commercial terms. We confirm those with you during onboarding rather than assuming them here.
Monthly spend therefore tracks your international order count. A merchant shipping a handful of cross-border orders pays a modest total. One shipping thousands pays proportionally more, in line with revenue.
Estimators and checkout widgets
Duty estimators and checkout widgets can be used freely before conversion. Showing shoppers their likely import charges creates no fee by itself. That applies while browsing, in pre-checkout estimators, or at the cart stage.
You can show full cost transparency to as many visitors as you like. Non-converting traffic has no effect on your invoice.
Landed cost calculator pricing in practice
Plenty of merchants think about pricing in terms of calculators or estimators on product and cart pages. You can expose real-time duty and tax estimates across your site with no metered charge per quote.
So treat landed cost calculators as a conversion and trust device, not a billed feature. A visitor might browse, pull twenty estimates, and never order. In that case no transaction fee applies.
Cross-border charges can include Customs Duty, Import VAT, both, or neither. It depends on the basket, seller, and recipient. ePAL figures it all out based on basket content.
Worked example of a cross-border order cost breakdown
A worked example shows where the 1.5% fee sits against the other cost components on a cross-border order. The figures are illustrative and show the buyer's landed cost separately from the ePAL fee charged to the merchant.
Example order (illustrative only):
| Product subtotal | €100.00 |
|---|---|
| International shipping | €20.00 |
| Customs duty | €10.00 |
| Import VAT or similar tax | €18.00 |
| Carrier or broker handling fee | €5.00 |
| Buyer’s total landed cost | €153.00 |
ePAL fee to the merchant
1.5% × €100.00 basket value = €1.50 before the promotional cap.
The €1 promotional cap reduces the ePAL fee to €1.00. This is a merchant expense and is shown separately from the buyer’s €153.00 total.
The cap applies for a limited promotional period and may be removed.
The buyer's total landed cost here is €153.00. The ePAL fee to the merchant is €1.00 after the promotional cap. Government taxes and duties account for a significant portion of that total. The tax and duty calculation per-transaction fee is a small line. It funds the infrastructure behind accurate figures and smooth clearance.
The same structure holds at larger or smaller basket values. The fee is calculated at 1.5% of basket value, subject to the €1 promotional cap while it remains available.
FAQ: Common landed cost pricing questions for merchants
Is the 1.5% calculated on the goods value or the full landed cost?
The 1.5% fee is calculated on basket value. The Terms of Service set out the detailed calculation basis.
What happens to the fee if an order is refunded or cancelled after checkout?
Refund and cancellation handling is governed by your contract rather than by a blanket policy in this overview. ePAL’s costs are incurred at the time of checkout, including costs for downstream partners, so refunds and cancellations do not change the fee. In fact, refunds on customer orders can make taxes and duties reclaimable, which means the original ePAL transaction record remains valuable as easy-to-parse auditable evidence of a right to reclaim tax and duties. That way, finance teams can predict the net impact of returns on cross-border margins.
Does using IOSS or similar VAT schemes change what ePAL Global charges?
Using particular VAT schemes does not alter the basic 1.5% service fee structure. These schemes affect how VAT is declared, paid, and remitted. They do not affect what you pay for calculation. What does change is how you handle registration, reporting, and documentation obligations for eligible low-value consignments. Discuss your current or planned VAT setup during onboarding so the integration supports the right flows.
Will future tax or customs reforms affect how the fee model works?
Regulatory reforms tend to focus on who is responsible for collecting and remitting VAT or duty. They rarely focus on third-party pricing models. Changes in law can, however, influence which flows you want to support and how you present charges at checkout. When material changes arise in key markets, ePAL Global updates its calculation logic. It then works with affected merchants on any contractual or operational impacts.
Where this leaves your pricing decision
A clear landed cost model should be easy to explain inside your business and easy to forecast. Cross-border tax calculation fees here come down to one rate on completed orders, with a limited promotional cap and new-client credit available to help you test the value of ePAL. Optional services and high-volume arrangements are scoped and agreed in advance. You will know exactly what you are paying for before you scale cross-border sales.