Fastway rates in WooCommerce (South Africa)

Fastway Couriers works through local franchises, and the price of a parcel depends on which franchise collects it, where it goes and how much it weighs. A Johannesburg parcel to Randburg is a cheap Local delivery. The same parcel to Cape Town goes by Road and costs more than twice as much.

The problem for WooCommerce stores: when we searched the WordPress.org plugin directory for "fastway" in October 2026, it listed only general tracking plugins. None of them quotes Fastway South Africa prices at checkout. So most stores guess a flat rate and either lose money on far deliveries or overcharge local customers.

Option 1: one flat rate per shipping zone (no plugin)

1. Go to WooCommerce > Settings > Shipping and make zones for the areas you ship to, for example "Gauteng" (by province) and "Rest of South Africa".
2. Add a Flat rate method to each zone called "Fastway courier" and set the price from your Fastway rate card for a typical parcel.

This is free and quick. It gets inaccurate when your parcels vary a lot in weight, or when one zone covers both cheap and expensive Fastway areas.

Option 2: a table rate plugin

A table rate shipping plugin lets you set prices by weight and postal code range. You copy prices from your Fastway rate card into the table. It is more accurate than a flat rate, but you have to keep the table up to date by hand when Fastway changes its prices, and getting the postal code ranges right for every Fastway area is slow work.

Option 3: live rates from the Fastway API

Fastway South Africa has a public price API at sa.api.fastway.org. Anyone can get a free API key there (open Get API Key, choose South Africa and register; the key appears on screen and by email). The default limit is 100 calls a day per key.

Our free plugin, Skillmerc Shipping for The Courier Guy, Pudo and PAXI, has a "Fastway (door to door)" shipping method that uses that API:

• You pick the Fastway franchise that collects your parcels (the 43 South African franchises are in a list) and paste your free API key.
• At checkout the customer sees each Fastway parcel service for their town or suburb and postal code, for example Local or Road, with the price including VAT. Satchel prices are an option you can switch on.
• Quotes are cached to save API calls.
• You can add a markup in rand or percent, set a free shipping threshold, and set a fallback flat rate. If Fastway does not know the address, fails or times out, the fallback shows, so customers never see "no shipping method".
• It works on the Checkout block and the classic checkout, next to The Courier Guy, Pudo locker and PAXI methods in the same plugin.

For example, on 28 October 2026 the API quoted a 1 kg parcel from the Johannesburg franchise at R65.55 to Randburg (Local) and R178.25 to Cape Town (Road).

It does not book Fastway collections or print Fastway labels. You still send parcels through your Fastway account as usual. It is an independent plugin, not made by Fastway Couriers.

Which one to pick

• Most of your parcels go to one area at a similar weight: option 1 is fine.
• You ship all over South Africa and want customers to pay what Fastway charges you: live rates save you from undercharging far deliveries.

Shipping with more than one courier? See The Courier Guy not showing at checkout and Pudo lockers in WooCommerce.

More South African shipping guides for WooCommerce

• PAXI on WooCommerce: how to let customers pick a PAXI point at checkout
• Pudo locker shipping in WooCommerce: live rates and a locker picker
• The Courier Guy not showing at WooCommerce checkout: causes and fixes
• The Courier Guy rates wrong in WooCommerce: why the price is too high or too low
• Print a The Courier Guy waybill from WooCommerce: three ways and the common problems
• Pudo locker option not showing at WooCommerce checkout: causes and fixes
• Add The Courier Guy tracking number to WooCommerce order emails