ePAL Cross Border Calculator

Show international customers what their order will cost.

A customer finds the right product, reaches checkout and sees a price they are happy to pay. Then the parcel arrives with an unexpected customs bill.

ePAL Cross Border Calculator prevents that shock. It helps WooCommerce merchants calculate cross-border charges before the customer places an order. It brings product classification, VAT, customs duty and shipping-related taxes into the checkout calculation, so you can show a clearer landed cost and choose how those charges will be handled.

Most checkouts calculate. ePAL optimises. For eligible baskets, ePAL can compare available IOSS and customs duty treatments to help you avoid charging more than the applicable Tax and Duty regulations require. Why would anyone want to charge – or pay – more tax or duties than they have to?

What ePAL helps you do

• Calculate landed costs at checkout. Show international buyers the product price alongside applicable VAT, customs duty and shipping-related charges. Works with your existing Shipper or we can provide options to fill in the gaps.
• Calculate the correct Tax & Duties for discounted products, even where dynamic discounts are added in the checkout.
• Handle complex baskets. Calculate charges at product-line level, including baskets containing products with different tax or duty treatments. It also accounts for customs duty attributable to shipping where applicable.
• Prepare products for cross-border sales. Add and manage HS6 customs classifications, including product-by-product or bulk “Make ePAL Ready” actions to identify and populate classifications and tax rates in one click. Bulk-edit Country of Origin for multiple products from the WooCommerce Products list.
• Support EU IOSS workflows. Check IOSS eligibility and apply the appropriate treatment for eligible B2C consignments.
• Optimise customs duty. Where applicable, compare flat-rate duty optimisation options and automatically apply the eligible treatment configured for your store and your products.
• Support B2B transactions. Validate a customer’s Tax/VAT ID and apply configured reverse-charge treatment where appropriate.
• Keep checkout and fulfilment connected. Pass calculation and order information through to the ePAL platform for relevant shipping and customs workflows.
• Check every order before shipping. See whether ePAL priced an order successfully, review warnings or errors to see if you need additional paperwork for the destination country and inspect the tax and duty breakdown for each order line.
• Leverage ePAL calculations for Tax & Duty reporting and reclaims. When a customer returns a product, especially one from a basket of products, ePAL can tell you how much tax and duty you can reclaim for that one product being returned.

ePAL supports DDP and DAP workflows. The charges you collect at checkout, and whether a recipient may have to pay charges later, depend on your chosen workflow and shipping arrangements. However, ePAL also facilitates 3PLs, Shippers and Logistics partners to convert DAP shipments to DDP, so tax and duties can be collected before the border, reducing delays, returns and delivery refusals.

How it works

1. Install the plugin and connect it to your ePAL Global account.
2. Configure your tax, customs, IOSS and checkout settings.
3. Prepare your products with the customs information needed for calculation.
4. When a customer enters or changes their destination, ePAL calculates the applicable charges through its API.
5. The checkout presents the calculated amounts according to your display settings. The calculation is linked to the resulting WooCommerce order.

The plugin works with your WooCommerce store and existing shipping setup. Optional ePAL shipping-provider features are available for merchants who need them.

Who is it for?

ePAL is for WooCommerce merchants selling across borders (or who want to) and allows merchants to give customers a clearer price before payment. It also allows merchants to reduce manual work around tax and customs reporting and reclaims. It is particularly useful for stores shipping to EU and US customers, handling mixed-product baskets, using IOSS, or offering DDP and DAP approaches.

Pricing and support

The plugin is free to install. Its calculations require an active ePAL Global account and connection to the ePAL Global API. See https://epalglobal.com/ for the current service terms.

Each cross-border transaction is charged at 1.5%, capped at €1 (limited promo) but only when the customer clicks Buy. There are no extra charges for abandoned baskets, no charges for accessing the ePAL portal and no minimum spend or minimum contract commitment.

Every new signup is given €10,000 worth of cross-border transactions fee-free (also a limited promo).

For setup guidance, visit https://docs.epalglobal.com/documents/index.html. For help, email [email protected].

External services

This plugin relies on the ePAL Global API, a third-party service operated by ePAL Global, to calculate cross-border landed costs. This service is required for the plugin’s core functionality: without it, duties, VAT and customs charges cannot be calculated. An active ePAL Global account is required.

ePAL Global API

What it is used for: calculating customs duties, VAT/taxes and landed costs; checking IOSS eligibility; screening for sanctions and restrictions; validating shipping addresses and Tax/VAT IDs; and generating customs-related documentation for international orders.

What data is sent and when: data is sent to the ePAL Global API (https://api.epalglobal.com) each time landed costs are calculated — for example when a customer sets or changes their shipping destination in the cart or at checkout, and when an order is processed. The data sent may include product details (price, quantity, HS/customs classification, weight), order totals, the customer’s shipping address (country and postal code), any Tax/VAT ID provided at checkout, and the store configuration relevant to the calculation. All communication is performed over secure HTTPS connections.

Shippo (optional): when you enable the label and shipping-provider features, shipment data is passed to Shippo through the ePAL Global API in order to test the shipping-provider connection and generate shipping labels and documents. Shippo is a trademark of Shippo, Inc.; this plugin is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Shippo.

This service is provided by ePAL Global:

• Terms of Service: https://epalglobal.com/terms.html
• Privacy Policy: https://epalglobal.com/privacy_policy.html

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• WooCommerce 4.0 or higher
• PHP 7.4 or higher
• HTTPS recommended
• Outbound API access enabled

Compatibility

• WooCommerce HPOS (High-Performance Order Storage)
• Most WooCommerce shipping plugins
• Most WooCommerce payment gateways
• WordPress multisite
• Popular multi-currency plugins

License

This plugin is licensed under GPL v2 or later.

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html