The wallet, the fees, and what a shipment really costs
Forto's money model is deliberately boring: a prepaid wallet you approve once, a published fee schedule, and one statement line per shipment. This page is the whole thing — there is no fine print elsewhere.
The wallet
During onboarding you add a card and approve payments once. That single authorization covers your subscription, wallet top-ups, and duty settlement — you won’t be asked to re-approve routine charges. The wallet pre-funds shipping and duties; costs draw down from it as parcels ship, and it tops up automatically.
- ·A small reserve is held per label against estimate variance and later carrier corrections, and released when the shipment settles.
- ·VAT collected from your customers (IOSS) is held in a segregated account until it’s remitted — never mixed with operating cash.
- ·The money layer is built so the same charge can’t land twice, even across retries and webhook replays.
Plans
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly (save 20%) |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Free | Free |
| Growth | $39/mo | $31/mo · billed yearly ($374.40) |
| Pro | $99/mo | $79/mo · billed yearly ($950.40) |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom |
Plan changes take effect immediately — Stripe prorates the difference on your next invoice, in both directions. Cancel any time; you keep access until the period ends.
The complete fee schedule
| Fee | Starter | Growth | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Label fee — Forto pool | 8% of carrier rate | 7% + $0.07 | 6% + $0.07 | 5% + $0.07 |
| Your own carrier account wins | — | €0.50 / label | €0.25 / label | €0 |
| DDP fee (on duty + tax) | — | 10% | 9% | 7% |
| VAT filing service fee | — | 5% | 4% | 3% |
| Overage past label cap | hard stop | $1.00 / label | $0.75 / label | — |
A worked example
Growth plan, a DDP parcel to the US: carrier rate €24.90 on Forto’s pool, duty €32.75, no US VAT. Your Forto fees: label 7% (€1.74) + $0.07, DDP fee 10% of €32.75 (€3.28). Total Forto lines ≈ €5.09 — itemized on the shipment’s statement line next to the carrier and duty pass-throughs.
The statement
Every shipment closes as one line: carrier, duty, tax, fees, and any refund or later correction, with receipts attached. Corrections settle against the order they belong to — not as a separate mystery invoice. Export as CSV whenever finance asks.