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On 15 June 2026, Gartner published its Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions and for the first time, ShippyPro is in it. We are one of 19 vendors identified as relevant in this global market, the only Italian company on the list, and one of only five European vendors in a report where 12 of the remaining 14 are headquartered in North America. This post tells the story of how we got here, what it took to build a platform that operates at this level and what the recognition reflects about where ShippyPro is going.
🗝 Key Takeaways
- First-ever inclusion: ShippyPro appears in the Gartner® Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions 2026 for the first time, the only Italian vendor and one of five European vendors among 19 total.
- A more selective report: The 2026 edition shrank from 20 vendors to 19. Two were removed; ShippyPro was the single addition. This was not joining a growing list, it was replacing established players in a tighter one.
- Built over several years: The recognition reflects a deliberate product arc: from Italian SMB roots to a platform now serving nearly 1,800 customers across more than 50 countries, with over 100 enterprise customers.
- What Gartner highlighted: The report specifically called out the Optimizer module, AI-enabled capabilities, 190+ pre-integrated carriers and enterprise omnichannel fulfillment support.
- The market backdrop: Gartner forecasts global parcel delivery volumes will rise by over one-third from 2026 through 2031 — the decision about which multi-carrier shipping software platform to use carries more long-term weight than ever.
📋 In this article
From Italian SMBs to the global stage
ShippyPro started as a platform for Italian e-commerce merchants, businesses that needed to ship with BRT, GLS and Poste Italiane without the operational drag of managing carrier contracts and label generation by hand. The product was built around a simple conviction: shipping logistics should not be the thing that slows a growing business down.
That original customer base shaped everything about how the platform was designed. Keep complexity invisible. Make setup fast. Give operations teams the information they need without making them dig for it. Those instincts still run through the product today but the problems the platform is now asked to solve are a different order of magnitude.
As ShippyPro's customers grew, so did their requirements. Multi-warehouse operations. Cross-border shipping into new markets. Enterprise ERP integrations. Carrier performance analytics across dozens of carriers at once. The platform had to scale with them and the team made a deliberate choice to build toward enterprise complexity rather than stay comfortable in the SMB space where ShippyPro had its roots.
"Being recognized by Gartner in this research is an important validation of the path ShippyPro has taken. We started by serving Italian SMBs and are now building a globally competitive enterprise platform. This recognition strengthens the credibility we bring to conversations with our enterprise customers, prospects, and partners worldwide."
Today, the platform supports nearly 1,800 customers across more than 50 countries, with over 100 enterprise customers. The industries where ShippyPro has its deepest presence, retail, fashion and apparel, health and beauty, consumer electronics, and home and garden, are also among the most demanding from a shipping operations perspective: high volumes, complex carrier mixes, tight delivery SLAs, and customers who notice when something goes wrong.
The Gartner Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions, published by Gartner, identifies vendors it considers relevant in the global multi-carrier shipping software market based on criteria including revenue, number of clients, end-user interest and feedback, market presence, and growth. It is used by enterprise logistics and supply chain leaders as a reference when evaluating platforms in this category. Being named signals that the platform has crossed a threshold of scale and maturity that Gartner's analysts consider significant.
What it took to get here: the product arc
Recognition in a report like this is not the result of one product release. It reflects a series of decisions made over several years about what kind of platform ShippyPro was going to become. Over the past 12 months in particular, the pace of that enterprise build has accelerated significantly.
The pre-integrated carrier network expanded to 190+ carriers covering parcel, LTL, and same-day delivery across domestic and international markets. New contract management capabilities were released to handle the operational reality of managing rate files and carrier agreements at enterprise scale including carrier price list upload in Excel or PDF, automated rate ingestion from carrier APIs, standardized rate file uploads, and continuous synchronization with carrier price lists.
New AI capabilities were released for data normalization, address correction, and billing analysis. The platform now delivers prescriptive insights on carrier performance, shipping costs, delivery reliability, and exception patterns — giving operations teams the analytical layer needed to make better decisions at scale, not just execute shipments faster.
A new ROI dashboard and dedicated workflow logs were released, giving enterprise teams step-by-step visibility into how their automation rules are executing — and where to adjust them. The Optimizer module, which compares carrier costs, performance, and service quality to support data-driven tender decisions, was enhanced with deeper multicarrier rate comparison tools.
SMS and WhatsApp delivery notifications in multiple languages were released to reduce WISMO queries and improve delivery success rates. Easy Return and Shipping Notifications round out the post-purchase capabilities — areas where the Gartner report confirms buyer priorities are sharpening across the market.
The platform now supports omnichannel fulfillment across warehouse, store, and drop ship locations, integrating with e-commerce platforms, WMS, OMS, and ERP systems via APIs and native connectors. For enterprise operations running across multiple geographies and channels, this infrastructure is the foundation everything else sits on.
"This recognition reflects the work of our entire team. It confirms that the direction we have chosen — an enterprise-grade, AI-enabled platform with a truly global carrier network — is the right one. We will continue to invest in this direction to support increasingly complex organizations."
What Gartner wrote about ShippyPro
The Gartner Market Guide includes an individual vendor profile for each of the 19 companies named. ShippyPro's profile describes the platform as a fast-growing logistics technology vendor based in Florence, Italy, providing multicarrier parcel management solutions through a microservices-based, multitenant cloud SaaS platform with a strong SMB foundation and growing enterprise customer base.
Four areas received specific attention in the report:
Carrier intelligence: the Optimizer
Gartner highlighted ShippyPro's Optimizer as a business intelligence tool that compares carrier costs, performance, and service quality to support data-driven tender decisions. An important distinction for buyers evaluating this capability: the Optimizer is a carrier analytics dashboard, not a live rate-shopping engine at label generation time. It gives logistics and procurement teams the geo-localised performance visibility needed to make carrier allocation decisions with data rather than instinct — particularly useful at contract renewal and tender.
AI-enabled capabilities
The report noted ShippyPro's recently released AI capabilities for data normalization, address correction, billing analysis, and prescriptive insights on carrier performance, shipping costs, delivery reliability, and exception patterns. The platform's AI Shipping Automation engine operates on a trigger, condition, and action model — configurable rules that execute shipping logic consistently at scale.
Carrier network and contract management
Gartner recorded ShippyPro's pre-integrated carrier network at over 195 carriers spanning parcel, LTL, and same-day providers. The report also called out the recently released contract management capabilities: Excel and PDF price list upload, automated rate ingestion from carrier APIs, standardized rate file uploads, and continuous synchronization with carrier price lists. For enterprise teams managing contracts across large carrier rosters, this infrastructure materially reduces the operational effort of keeping rates accurate and current.
Omnichannel fulfillment and post-purchase
The vendor profile confirmed ShippyPro supports omnichannel fulfillment across warehouse, store, and drop ship locations, integrating natively with e-commerce platforms, WMS, OMS, and ERP systems via APIs and native connectors. The report also noted the rollout of SMS and WhatsApp notifications in multiple languages — designed to reduce WISMO queries and improve delivery success rates — alongside robust returns management and branded customer communication tools.
| Capability area | What Gartner noted | ShippyPro feature |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier intelligence | BI platform comparing carrier costs, performance, and service quality for data-driven tender decisions | Optimizer |
| AI capabilities | Data normalization, address correction, billing analysis, prescriptive carrier performance insights | AI Shipping Automation |
| Carrier network | 190+ pre-integrated carriers, contract management, rate ingestion, price list sync | Shipping Platform |
| Post-purchase | SMS/WhatsApp notifications, WISMO reduction, returns management, branded communication | Shipping Notifications / Easy Return |
| Visibility | Real-time tracking, new ROI dashboard, step-by-step workflow logs | Track & Trace |
| Systems integration | Native connectors for ERP, WMS, OMS, e-commerce; omnichannel fulfillment | Integrations |
See the platform Gartner recognized.
Book a demo and walk through how ShippyPro handles multi-carrier shipping at enterprise scale — from carrier selection and contract management to post-purchase notifications.
Context: a more selective report
The 2026 Gartner Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions did not expand — it contracted. Compared to the 2024 edition, Gartner removed two vendors and added only one: ShippyPro. The total count fell from 20 to 19. ShippyPro did not join an expanding field. It replaced established players in a more curated list.
20 vendors listed. ShippyPro not included. A broader view of the market with a slightly wider vendor set.
19 vendors listed. 2 removed, 1 added: ShippyPro. A more selective edition and ShippyPro's first appearance in Gartner research.
ShippyPro is also the only Italian vendor in the report and one of only five European companies among the 19 named. The rest are North American or India-based. For European e-commerce and retail operations, that matters in practice: ShippyPro brings native coverage of European carrier networks, compliance requirements, and operational workflows that platforms built for the North American market typically treat as secondary.
The Gartner Market Guide is a useful reference for building a longlist, but it is a starting point, not a shortlist. Vendor selection at this level should account for carrier coverage in your specific markets, depth of integration with your ERP or WMS, and how a vendor handles the volume and complexity you actually ship at. ShippyPro's team can walk through all of these in a demo.
The market forces behind the category
The Gartner Market Guide does not just list vendors — it also documents why the category is growing and what is driving enterprise investment in multi-carrier shipping software. Some of those findings are worth sharing directly, because they frame what ShippyPro is being asked to solve for its customers.
According to the same Gartner research, global parcel delivery volumes are forecast to rise by over one-third from 2026 through 2031. That growth is being driven by multichannel retail and B2B e-commerce — and it is compressing the margin for operational inefficiency at every point in the shipping workflow.
Gartner identifies four buyer priorities that are sharpening across the market as a result: cost control, delivery experience, returns management, and sustainability. Each maps to a specific capability gap that a modern multi-carrier shipping platform needs to close.
| Buyer priority (per Gartner) | What it means operationally | ShippyPro capability |
|---|---|---|
| Cost control | Rate comparison across carriers, contract optimization, parcel consolidation | Optimizer, carrier contract management |
| Delivery experience | Accurate delivery promises, real-time tracking, proactive customer communication | Track & Trace, Shipping Notifications |
| Returns management | Returns portals, automated return labels, integrated forward and reverse flow visibility | Easy Return |
| Analytics and visibility | Carrier performance dashboards, exception scoring, billing audit and operational reporting | Optimizer, Invoice Analysis |
The report also flags a competitive dynamic worth noting: stand-alone MCPMS platforms continue to hold their ground against parcel modules embedded in TMS, WMS, OMS, and ERP suites, because most core systems lack the depth required for modern parcel management. There is some pressure at the low end of the market from AI tools that simplify basic carrier integrations — but Gartner is clear that advanced MCPMS capabilities (rate and service shopping, contract management, analytics, returns) are not yet challenged by those simpler approaches. For operations shipping at any meaningful scale, the case for a dedicated multi-carrier shipping software platform remains solid.
The full report — Gartner, Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions, Simon Tunstall, Brock Johns, Oscar Sanchez Duran, 15 June 2026 — is available to Gartner clients. To see why Gartner selected us, download the ShippyPro Logistics Report.
ShippyPro Shipping Platform
Connect 190+ carriers, automate label generation, and manage omnichannel fulfillment from one platform.
Explore the platform →Optimizer
Carrier performance analytics with geo-localised insights to support data-driven carrier allocation and tender decisions.
See Optimizer →AI Shipping Automation
Trigger, condition, and action workflows that execute carrier selection and shipping rules at scale, automatically.
See AI Automation →ShippyPro Logistics Report
Download the full ShippyPro Logistics Report to see the product innovations behind the selection.
Download the report →ShippyPro Integrations
Connect your ERP, WMS, OMS, and e-commerce platforms to ShippyPro via native connectors and open APIs.
View integrations →ShippyPro Resources
Case studies, guides, and logistics content for e-commerce and enterprise shipping teams.
Browse resources →What is the Gartner® Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions?
It is a research publication by Gartner, Inc. that maps the multicarrier parcel management software market and identifies vendors Gartner considers relevant based on criteria including revenue, number of clients, end-user interest and feedback, market presence, and growth. It does not rank vendors — it identifies them as relevant market participants — and is commonly used by enterprise logistics and supply chain teams as a reference when evaluating multi-carrier shipping software.
Does Gartner endorse ShippyPro by including it in the Market Guide?
No. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Inclusion reflects Gartner's assessment that a vendor is relevant in the market based on defined selection criteria — it is not a recommendation or endorsement.
What makes ShippyPro different from other vendors in the Gartner Market Guide?
ShippyPro is the only Italian vendor and one of five European companies among the 19 listed. It also bridges the SMB-to-enterprise gap more explicitly than most: the platform started as a self-service shipping tool for smaller merchants and has scaled to full enterprise MCPMS capability. Gartner specifically highlighted the Optimizer module, AI capabilities, 190+ carrier integrations, and omnichannel fulfillment support.
How does ShippyPro's multi-carrier shipping software handle carrier selection?
ShippyPro uses configurable automation rules (via AI Shipping Automation) and performance analytics (via Optimizer) to support carrier selection at different stages. Automation rules execute at shipment level based on conditions you configure — weight, destination, service level, cost thresholds. The Optimizer provides carrier performance data over time to inform higher-level allocation decisions and carrier tender strategy.
How can I access the full 2026 Gartner Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions?
The full report — Gartner, Market Guide for Multicarrier Parcel Management Solutions, Simon Tunstall, Brock Johns, Oscar Sanchez Duran, 15 June 2026 — is available to Gartner clients. To see why Gartner selected us, download the ShippyPro Logistics Report..
Ready to evaluate ShippyPro for your operation?
Talk to the team and see how ShippyPro handles multi-carrier shipping at your scale, across your carriers, and in your markets.
As Growth Manager at ShippyPro, I help ecommerce businesses optimize fulfillment, automate logistics workflows, and scale more efficiently. My work centers on the intersection of ecommerce operations, customer experience, and technology. I write about shipping innovation, automation, and the future of ecommerce logistics.
