How to check prices

Introduction

The Cloudprinter.com network is by design a dynamic network and prices of the products will differ from region to region. The only safe way to know the actual price is by making a price check. The price check can easily be automated, and the process is explained in detail below.

Manual price check

You can make a manual price check via the Cloudprinter.com Admin dashboard. Under "CloudCore Admin" you find "Price check" in the menu at the left. It is a good starting point to get familiar with the product build-up that Cloudprinter.com operates with

Automated price check

A price check request can be made to the CloudCore API to get the specific product and shipping price for a single country or country-state/region combination.

Countries and states/regions

As part of a price check request, the country is specified as a 2-letter abbreviation following ISO 3166-1 alpha-2. The supported country references can be fetched from the CloudCore API shipping/countries endpoint. Read more here.

Shipping countries with the parameter require_state set to the value 1 requires a state/region definition. In these cases, the state references can be fetched from the CloudCore API shipping/states endpoint by providing the parameter country_reference in the post request. Read more here.

Currency

The price check supports multi-currency. In cases where no currency is specified the price check will return EUR pricing. Currency is specified with 3-letter abbreviations following the ISO 4217

Endpoint

https://api.cloudprinter.com/cloudcore/1.0/prices/lookup

Request structure

The structure of a price check request is 100% compatible with an order quote request. Processing the price check is just faster than making a full quote.

Example JSON Request

{
    "apikey": "13b37bb1ed6d3403e158abe719b4f6d0",
    "country": "NL",
    "items": [
        {
            "reference": "ref_id_1234567",
            "product": "textbook_pb_a4_p_bw",
            "count": "1",
            "options": [
                {
                    "type": "pageblock_80off",
                    "count": "120"
                },
                {
                    "type": "total_pages",
                    "count": "120"
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Example JSON Response

{
  "price": "4.5412",
  "vat": "0.00",
  "currency": "EUR",
  "expire_date": "2021-04-18T15:32:58+00:00",
  "subtotals": {
    "items": "1.7912",
    "fee": "2.7500",
    "app_fee": "0.0000"
  },
  "shipments": [
    {
      "total_weight": "712",
      "items": [
        {
          "reference": "ref_id_1234567"
        }
      ],
      "quotes": [
        {
          "quote": "a1e771f2e375bc33b5385fcc8091a328481bc45f3bff13de96ba0e7585ff936f",
          "service": "Postal - Untracked",
          "shipping_level": "cp_postal",
          "shipping_option": "National Post - Int. Postal Untracked",
          "price": "4.2000",
          "vat": "0.0000",
          "currency": "EUR"
        },
        {
          "quote": "90aa928c65b6115e2fd76f5c3238381e42630fbe6cd137422db469fb070b5f7f",
          "service": "Express ground - Tracked",
          "shipping_level": "cp_ground",
          "shipping_option": "National Post - Int. Postal Tracked",
          "price": "6.2300",
          "vat": "0.0000",
          "currency": "EUR"
        },
        {
          "quote": "c6159e6c0a1b3e2d4ad7be940a327fb139351149e9f7ad7a1295a534cc37a4c3",
          "service": "Express fast - Tracked",
          "shipping_level": "cp_fast",
          "shipping_option": "DHL - International Express",
          "price": "14.5000",
          "vat": "0.0000",
          "currency": "EUR"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "invoice_currency": "EUR",
  "invoice_exchange_rate": "1.0000"
}

Parameters

Name	Type	Description	Required
apikey	string	Api access key	required
currency	string	The currency of the price check - ISO 4217 - default value is EUR	optional
country	string	The country the order will ship to	required
state	string	End customers state name - ANSI INCITS 38:2009 alpha-2 - required for US	optional
items	array	Array of item objects in the order	required
items : reference	string	Client item reference	required
items : product	string	The product id	required
items : count	string	The product quantity	required
items : options	array	Array of option objects on a item	optional
items : options : type	string	The option type	required
items : options : count	string	The option count	required

Return values

Name	Type	Description	Required
price	string	The total product sum for the order, ex shipping and incl VAT	required
vat	string	The vat part of the total product sum	required
currency	string	The currency of the price check	required
invoice_currency	string	The currency of the invoice for the order	required
invoice_exchange_rate	string	The currency exchange rate between the check currency and invoice currency	required
subtotals	array	Array of objects - subtotals	required
subtotals : items	string	The sum of the item cost for the order	required
subtotals : fee	string	The sum of the fees for the order	required
subtotals : app_fee	string	The sum of the app fees for the order	required
shipments	array	Array of objects - shipments (item bundles)	required
shipments : total_weight	string	The calculated total weight of the shipment	required
shipments : items	array	Array of objects - the items contained in this shipment	required
shipments : items : reference	string	The item reference	required
shipments : quotes	array	Array of objects - available shipping options	required
shipments : quotes : quote	string	The unique quote id	required
shipments : quotes : service	string	The shipping service level name	required
shipments : quotes : shipping_level	string	The shipping service level reference	required
shipments : quotes : shipping_option	string	Text description of the specific shipping option	required
shipments : quotes : price	string	The price of the shipment incl VAT	required
shipments : quotes : vat	string	The vat part of the shipment	required
shipments : quotes : currency	string	The currency of the price check	required

HTTP status codes

Code	Status	Description
200	OK	The request has succeeded
400	Bad request	The request was invalid or parameters are missing