> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Cost by Zone, EasyPost

> Cost by Zone for EasyPost stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

**Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained)  •  **Category:** [Cost & Efficiency](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type)

## At a glance

> Average EasyPost label cost broken out by shipping zone (the distance band between your despatch origin and the destination) over the trailing 30 days. Carrier pricing is zone-based, so this horizontal bar chart shows where your parcels are expensive: a heavy tail in the far zones points at distant customers, a missing warehouse, or a rate-shop rule that is not picking the cheapest carrier for that lane.

## What it tracks

Grounded in the card's `detail` ("Cost by Zone."): the card reads the bought rate on every EasyPost shipment (`GET /v2/shipments`, the `selected_rate` plus surcharges and the per-label fee) and groups it by the zone derived from origin and destination postcodes. For US carriers this is the USPS / UPS / FedEx zone (Zone 1 nearby through Zone 8 furthest); for international it groups by destination region. Each bar is the average cost per parcel in that zone over the 30-day window, so a longer bar means a more expensive lane, not necessarily more volume. Read it next to [Shipments by Destination](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/easypost/shipments-by-destination) to weight cost by where your parcels actually go, and next to [Avg Shipping Cost](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/easypost/avg-shipping-cost) for the blended headline. A persistent far-zone cost bulge is the classic signal to evaluate a second despatch location or a regional carrier for that band. This card carries no alert; it is a diagnostic surface, not a pager.

## Reconciling against the source

Cross-check against the EasyPost dashboard billing view (filter shipments by date and group by zone) and against each underlying carrier's own zone-rate chart in the carrier portal. Small differences come from surcharge timing and the EasyPost per-label fee; large gaps usually mean a rate-shop rule is overriding the cheapest carrier for that zone. For a like-for-like comparison against direct carrier contracts see [Cost per Parcel by Zone vs Direct-Carrier Pricing](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/easypost/cost-per-parcel-by-zone-vs-direct-carrier-pricing).

***

### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

*Cost by Zone* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across EasyPost and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English.

[Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.