Docs · Getting started

Install, connect, go live

From first click to your first international label: connecting your Shopify store takes a minute, and the guided onboarding is seven short steps — typically about five minutes. Everything you set can be changed later in Settings.

Before you start

·A Shopify store (any plan — see the note on checkout rates below).
·A card for the wallet — you approve payments once, during onboarding.
·Nothing else. Carrier accounts, tax registrations, and customs setup are Forto’s side of the deal. One exception for now: until Forto’s UK registration arrives, UK orders of £135 or less need your own UK VAT number. If you already have carrier contracts you love, you can plug them in later.

Live checkout rates and your Shopify plan

Live carrier-calculated rates in Shopify checkout use Shopify’s CCS (carrier-calculated shipping) feature. Shopify includes it on Advanced and Plus, offers it on Grow (free with annual billing, otherwise a Shopify add-on fee), and doesn’t offer it on Basic/Starter. No CCS? Forto still works — Manual Rate Mode uses your Shopify shipping zones at checkout, and Forto’s routing engine still picks the carrier at fulfillment. It’s a first-class flow, not a degraded one.

Connecting your store

Every path starts at forto.app/signup (all the “Start free” buttons lead there). Enter your work email and the 6-digit code we send you: there is no password. Then connect your store: approve Forto in Shopify’s permission screen, and you land in onboarding. If you already have an account, “Sign in” uses the same emailed code and takes you straight to your dashboard.

If you arrived from the pricing page, the plan you clicked is already chosen when onboarding opens; if you didn’t pick one, the first screen asks. Nothing is charged before the billing step. Enterprise is different: it is booked through a demo, and your account team sets it up before you install — the setup then opens as Enterprise.

The seven onboarding steps

01SetupForto registers its infrastructure with your store: the carrier service for checkout rates, webhooks for orders and returns, and a sync of your markets. Automatic — you watch it complete.
02Go LiveEnable global shipping. From here Forto begins quoting and routing international orders. Domestic orders are untouched.
03ReachConfirm where you ship to and where you ship from. Forto reads your Shopify markets and shipping zones, and your origin location decides which carriers and customs regimes apply.
04TaxesWho carries the tax on your plan. On Pro and up, Forto is your taxpayer of record wherever it holds the registration, and the step lists every jurisdiction it covers. On other plans with duties at checkout, any registration a country requires is yours and Forto tells you where and when you need one; without duties at checkout, your customers pay at the door.
05DutiesChoose your DDP approach — where customers see duties in their journey: at Checkout only; across PDP + Cart + Checkout (early visibility, Growth and up); or Baked-in, where duty-inclusive prices are published into your catalog (Enterprise). You can change this later.
06BillingAdd a card and approve payments once. That single authorization covers the subscription, wallet top-ups, and duty settlement — no surprise re-approvals. Add your VAT number here too, for your invoices.
07DoneYou're live. The dashboard shows your first quotes as they happen.

Your first international order

Nothing to do — that’s the point. The customer sees one total with duties in (on DDP plans), pays it, and the order appears in Fulfillment with a carrier already picked. You print the label (single or batch), pack the box, and the pickup is booked. Tracking flows to the customer automatically.

Without duties at checkout, orders ship DAP: the checkout shows goods + shipping, and the destination country collects duties from your customer on delivery. Duties at checkout (DDP) comes with Growth and up.