TrackMy.Shop vs ShipBob — Fulfillment Comparison

Overview: Outsourced Fulfillment vs. In-House Production Tools

ShipBob and TrackMy.Shop represent two completely different approaches to getting orders out the door. ShipBob is a third-party logistics provider (3PL) that physically handles your products. You send them your inventory, and they store it, pick it, pack it, and ship it when orders come in. TrackMy.Shop is software that helps you manage your own production and fulfillment in-house.

This isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison. ShipBob is a service you outsource to. TrackMy.Shop is a tool you use to run your own operation. But if you're evaluating how to handle fulfillment and both names come up in your research, it helps to understand what each one actually does and where each approach makes sense.

Who Should Use What

ShipBob makes sense if you:

• Sell standard, ready-made products that don't require customization
• Want to completely hand off warehousing, picking, packing, and shipping
• Ship high volumes and want distributed fulfillment centers for faster delivery
• Don't have (or want) your own production space or warehouse
• Prioritize two-day shipping capabilities to compete with Amazon

TrackMy.Shop makes sense if you:

• Make, customize, or assemble products yourself before they ship
• Want full control and visibility over every step of your process
• Need your team to track orders through production stages on a Kanban board
• Want branded tracking pages showing customers real production progress
• Run a workshop, studio, or small factory where products are made to order

Feature-by-Feature Deep Dive

Fulfillment Model

ShipBob operates fulfillment centers across the country. You ship your finished products to their warehouses. When an order comes in through Shopify, WooCommerce, or another channel, ShipBob's team picks the items, packs the box, and hands it to a carrier. You never touch the product after sending it to them.

TrackMy.Shop doesn't touch your products at all. It's software that sits on top of your existing operation and makes it visible and organized. Your team does the work. TrackMy.Shop helps them know what to work on, track progress, and keep customers informed.

Production Tracking

ShipBob has no production tracking because there's no production happening. Products arrive at their warehouse ready to ship. The concept of a "production stage" doesn't exist in their model.

TrackMy.Shop is built entirely around production tracking. Every order moves through your custom workflow stages on a visual Kanban board. Your team scans barcodes to update status. If you run a print shop with stages like "Artwork Prep," "Plate Making," "Printing," "Cutting," and "Binding," each of those stages shows up as a column on your board, and every order card flows left to right as work progresses.

Customer Tracking

ShipBob provides tracking information once a package ships, showing standard carrier tracking data. Their tracking experience uses ShipBob's branding and directs customers through their ecosystem.

TrackMy.Shop gives you fully branded tracking pages under your business identity. More importantly, those pages show pre-shipment stages. A customer who ordered a custom phone case doesn't just see "Label Created" and then silence for four days. They see "Designing," "Printing," "Applying Coating," and "Shipping" as the order progresses through your workflow. That transparency builds trust, especially for products with longer lead times.

Control and Flexibility

With ShipBob, you give up direct control. Their team packs your products following your instructions, but you're not on the floor watching it happen. If there's a quality issue, you find out from a customer complaint, not from a QC station on your floor. Custom packaging requests, special handling, and last-minute changes are harder to manage through a third party.

With TrackMy.Shop, you retain full control. Your team handles every step, and the software gives you visibility into where things stand. Changes to an order? Update it on the board. Rush order? Move it up the queue. Quality issue? Catch it at your QC stage before it ships.

Integrations

Both connect to major ecommerce platforms. ShipBob integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, and others to pull in orders automatically. TrackMy.Shop connects to Shopify, WooCommerce, and Invoice Ninja, plus offers a REST API for custom integrations. ShipBob's integrations focus on order import and inventory sync. TrackMy.Shop's integrations focus on pulling orders into your production workflow and pushing status updates back to customers.

Real-World Scenarios

Scenario 1: DTC Skincare Brand Scaling Fast

You sell a line of skincare products. They're manufactured in bulk, packaged, and ready to ship. You started fulfilling from your garage, but you're doing 500 orders a month now and it's overwhelming.

ShipBob is a strong fit here. Send your finished products to their warehouse. They handle the daily pick-and-pack grind. You focus on marketing and product development. TrackMy.Shop doesn't help much because there's no per-order production process to track.

Scenario 2: Custom Woodworking Shop

You build custom cutting boards, shelves, and small furniture pieces. Every order is different. Some need engraving, some need specific wood species, some need custom dimensions.

ShipBob can't help you here. They can't build your products. You need your own workshop and your own team. What you need is a way to keep track of 30 custom orders at various stages of completion without losing your mind. That's TrackMy.Shop. Your Kanban board shows every order, what stage it's in, and what needs attention. Your team scans barcodes at each station. Your customers see progress on their tracking page instead of emailing you every few days.

Scenario 3: Gift Box Company with Both Standard and Custom Options

You sell pre-made gift boxes (standard inventory) and also offer custom-curated boxes where customers pick items, add personalization, and include a handwritten note.

This is interesting because your standard boxes could go through ShipBob, while your custom boxes need hands-on production tracking. You could theoretically use ShipBob for the standard line and TrackMy.Shop for the custom line. But if your custom orders are a significant part of the business, many shops find it simpler to keep everything in-house and use TrackMy.Shop for the whole operation, handling both standard and custom orders through the same workflow.

Pricing Breakdown

ShipBob uses custom pricing based on your volume, storage needs, and shipping destinations. There's no public pricing page with simple tiers. You'll typically pay for receiving, storage (per bin/shelf/pallet), pick and pack (per order, plus per additional item), shipping (carrier rates, often negotiated), and sometimes monthly minimums. For a small business, ShipBob can cost several dollars per order in fulfillment fees alone, on top of the actual shipping cost. It starts to make financial sense at higher volumes where the time savings outweigh the per-order fees.

TrackMy.Shop has transparent, flat pricing. The free plan gives you 30 orders/month. Paid plans start at $19.99/month. There are no per-order fulfillment fees because you're doing the fulfillment yourself. For a custom product business doing 50 orders a month, the cost difference between running TrackMy.Shop ($19.99/month) and outsourcing to a 3PL (potentially hundreds per month in fulfillment fees) is substantial.

Of course, you're comparing a software subscription to a full-service logistics operation, so the cost comparison isn't quite fair. ShipBob's fees include labor, warehouse space, and materials. TrackMy.Shop's fee is just for the software. You're providing your own labor and space. For many maker businesses, that's exactly the point since they already have the space and the team.

Can They Work Together?

In theory, yes, but it's an unusual combination. If you have some products that are warehoused and shipped through ShipBob and other products that you produce in-house, you could use TrackMy.Shop for the in-house production side. Both connect to Shopify and WooCommerce, so orders would route to the right system.

In practice, most businesses fall clearly into one camp or the other. Either you're outsourcing fulfillment or you're not. The rare exception is businesses that are transitioning from in-house to outsourced (or vice versa) and need both for a period.

The Bottom Line

ShipBob is for businesses that want someone else to handle fulfillment. It's a logistics partner, not software. If you sell standard products at volume and don't want to deal with warehousing and shipping, ShipBob takes that off your plate.

TrackMy.Shop is for businesses that handle their own production and fulfillment. It's a tool that makes your existing operation more organized, more visible, and more customer-friendly. If you make custom products, you can't outsource the making. What you can do is give yourself better tools to manage the process.

The fundamental question is: do you make things, or do you sell things that are already made? If you make things, you need production tools, not a 3PL. If you sell things that are already made and just need them shipped, a 3PL might save you time and headaches. Different businesses, different answers.