A carrier adjustment is an additional shipping charge applied by the carrier when a package doesn’t match the information on its shipping label.
This guide explains how carrier adjustments work, how to review your adjustments and charges, how to avoid them, and how to appeal an adjustment if you believe it’s incorrect.
Note: Currently, only US sellers may be charged for certain carrier adjustment types and have access to the Carrier Adjustments dashboard.
On this page
- What is a carrier adjustment?
- Review your carrier adjustments
- Appeal a carrier adjustment
- Tips to avoid carrier adjustments
- FAQs
What is a carrier adjustment?
A carrier adjustment happens when a shipping carrier finds that a package’s actual weight, dimensions, or other characteristics don’t match what was set on the label. When this happens, the carrier may charge the difference between what was stated and the actual shipping cost and, in some cases, an additional fee.
Whatnot has historically covered carrier adjustment costs, so sellers haven’t always had visibility into these charges or what caused them. We’re now beginning to charge US Sellers for some carrier adjustments on Whatnot-generated USPS labels.
Use the Carrier Adjustments dashboard in Seller Hub to review your adjustments, see how much Whatnot covered and how much you were charged, and understand what caused the adjustment.
Review your carrier adjustments
In Seller Hub on whatnot.com, open the Carrier Adjustments dashboard to review adjustments, see shipment-level details, and appeal eligible adjustments.
Carrier Adjustments dashboard
The At a Glance section summarizes your carrier adjustments over a 30-day window, including:
- Adjustment rate: The percentage of your shipments during the specified period that received a carrier adjustment, along with a comparison to other Sellers in your category.
- Adjustment total: The total value of adjustments received during the period and the average cost per adjusted shipment.
Carrier adjustments can take a few weeks to arrive after a shipment is sent, so the dashboard shows an earlier period to provide a more complete summary.
The Recent Charges table shows a history of individual adjustments as we receive them from USPS. Select View Details to learn more about an adjustment.
Adjustment Details page
The Adjustment Details page includes information to help you understand why USPS applied an adjustment:
- Adjustment info: Compare the information on the shipping label with what the carrier measured.
- Shipment contents: Review the orders in the shipment, shipping profiles used, and listed item weights.
- Cost breakdown: Review the original label cost, changes made before the label was generated, additional services, and carrier adjustment costs.
- Appeal status: If you’ve submitted an appeal, view its current status and any relevant details.
Tip: Use the Shipment contents section to check for listed item weights that don’t match what you shipped. A mismatch may mean the wrong shipping profile was used during listing. For similar items, choose a profile that more accurately reflects the item’s weight.
Appeal a carrier adjustment
If you believe a carrier adjustment is incorrect, you can appeal it directly from Seller Hub on whatnot.com.
Before you appeal:
- You have 45 days from the date you're charged to appeal.
- You can only appeal each shipment once.
- Your appeal goes directly to USPS for review. Clearly explain why you believe the adjustment is incorrect, and don’t include Whatnot-specific information that USPS can’t access.
Note: If you can’t appeal or your status is Ineligible, Whatnot may have covered the adjustment. Check your dashboard to confirm. If we covered it, you weren’t charged, so no refund is needed.
To appeal an adjustment:
- Open the Carrier Adjustments dashboard.
- Under Recent Charges, find the adjustment and click to view its details.
- Select Start Appeal.
- Explain why you believe the USPS adjustment is incorrect.
- Submit your appeal.
After you appeal:
- USPS reviews your appeal and determines the outcome. Appeals can take up to 90 days to resolve and may be approved or rejected.
- Once USPS provides an outcome, we’ll email you. You can also track your appeal status from the Carrier Adjustments dashboard.
- If your appeal is approved, the adjustment amount will be refunded to your ledger.
Tips to avoid carrier adjustments
Most carrier adjustments are avoidable. The best ways to prevent them are to use accurate shipping profiles and check your shipment details before generating a label.
Use the Carrier Adjustments dashboard to spot issues
Review your carrier adjustment history to identify listings or shipping profiles that frequently result in adjustments. Prioritize those for review and update inaccurate shipping profiles as needed.
You’ll also receive a weekly digest email summarizing your adjustments, how they’re trending, and tips for improvement.
Set accurate shipping profiles
Weigh your items before listing and choose a shipping profile that closely matches the actual weight. If none of the default profiles fit, create a custom one.
- For individual listings: Choose a shipping profile that matches each item’s weight. Avoid using the same profile for items with significantly different weights.
- For multi-quantity listings: Consider creating separate listings by weight, such as “Small Bundle,” “Medium Bundle,” and “Large Bundle,” with an appropriate shipping profile for each. During your show, select the listing that most closely matches the item you’re selling. This helps keep weights accurate without slowing down your show.
Learn more about choosing or creating shipping profiles for your listings.
Avoid overestimating shipping profile weights or overusing “max bundle size”
The goal is accuracy. Avoid setting shipping profile weights significantly higher than the item’s actual weight or overusing max bundle size. Both can lead to higher shipping costs for Shoppers, which may impact your sales.
Check shipments before generating a label
After a sale and before generating a label, compare the shipment weight and dimensions in Seller Hub with the package you’re actually shipping.
If something doesn’t match, go to Shipments, find the order, and select Edit Shipping Details to update the weight or dimensions before generating the label.
Learn more about making shipping adjustments.
FAQs
I use my own shipping labels (BYOL). Does this apply to me?
No. If you use your own shipping labels (BYOL), you’ll continue to be charged directly by carriers and manage adjustments through the service you use to generate your labels.
When will I see an adjustment charge on my ledger?
Whatnot still covers the cost of most carrier adjustments. If an adjustment is charged to you, you’ll see the charge in your ledger. You can review details about the adjustment in the Carrier Adjustments dashboard.
What about dimensional adjustments?
USPS may issue dimensional adjustments when it applies dimensional weight pricing based on package size. Whatnot won’t charge sellers for dimensional adjustments until later in 2026.
We’ll roll out additional tools to help you manage package dimensions accurately before this change takes effect and share more details in advance.
Need more help?
If you have questions about a carrier adjustment that aren’t covered in this article, contact Whatnot Support.
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