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October 21, 2026
Two cloud WMS platforms for 3PLs, compared on picking and packing, wholesale fulfillment, labor costs, and client billing.
Extensiv
ShipHero and Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager are cloud WMS platforms for 3PLs, and both handle DTC and wholesale orders. ShipHero is built around picking and packing workflows, labor cost by client, and billing for each service performed, with optional light-directed hardware. Extensiv's distinguishing offers are its Retailer Compliance service and Network Manager for 4PL routing.
Consider
Extensiv
when you want
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Leader in G2's Fall 2026 Grid® Report for 3PL. See the category on G2
| Capability | ShipHero | Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Picking and packing | ||
| Receiving, putaway, lot and serial tracking | Barcode receiving, putaway, and replenishment on the native mobile app. Lot, expiration, and serial tracking, with serial capture during packing | Barcode receiving, putaway, and replenishment via the SmartScan add-on. Lot, serial, and expiration tracking |
| Batching and pick sequencing | Multi-item batch, single-item batch, and wave picking, with pick priority per location. Location-Aware Picking is an add-on with usage-based pricing for proximity batching and mapped routes. Wave Picking requires Location-Aware Picking and Pick-to-Light hardware. Route optimization requires a mapped warehouse | Single-order, multi-order, and pick-to-bin picking in SmartScan. Numeric Pick Path value per location |
| Light-directed and pack-station hardware | Pick-to-Light, Pack-to-Light, Receive-to-Light, and Tap-to-Pack, supplied by ShipHero and native to the WMS | Extensiv's own product pages don't list light-directed hardware |
| DTC and wholesale fulfillment | ||
| Wholesale workflow | Picking plan, pick, pack, label, and outbound schedule, for pallets or boxes. Courier labels quoted in ShipHero | SmartScan Load Out records door, trailer, seal number, and percent loaded for LTL and freight orders |
| Retail compliance labels | Native GS1 and UCC-128 label library for 400+ retailers. Setup fee and monthly fee per retailer connection | UCC-128 labels through the Retailer Compliance service, priced as its own item |
| EDI connectivity | EDI-agnostic. Connects through SPS Commerce for purchase orders, ship notices, and inventory updates | Retailer Compliance service with pre-wired retailer EDI connections, with setup and monthly connection charges |
| Client billing and labor visibility | ||
| Labor cost visibility | Labor Cost Dashboard: cost per shipment, line item, or unit, by client and warehouse, with CSV export | Labor Analytics |
| Client billing and carrier reconciliation | Billing profiles by client and warehouse for receiving, storage, picking, shipping, returns and ad hoc work. WorkforceHero hours can feed work-order charges for the next invoice once the work order is marked Done. Carrier Reconciliation compares quoted shipping costs with uploaded carrier invoices | Billing Manager with QuickBooks sync |
| Client portal | Client self-service for creating, bulk uploading and merging orders; managing inbound shipping plans and returns; and viewing inventory and reports. Warehouse access is configured by the 3PL. Includes company branding, with a custom login subdomain available on request | Customer portal with 3PL branding, included with 3PL Warehouse Manager |
| Multi-warehouse inventory and routing | Configurable order-routing and split-order rules across warehouses for DTC orders. Wholesale orders ship complete from a single warehouse and staging location | Not compared |
| 4PL and cross-3PL networks | Share a client across multiple ShipHero 3PLs and allocate orders between them. Requires consent from both 3PLs and the client, plus ShipHero Support setup | Network Manager routes orders across partner warehouses |
| Data access and integrations | ||
| Integrations and API | Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, BigCommerce, NetSuite, and more. GraphQL API | Integration Manager (formerly CartRover). REST API |
| Scheduled data exports | Included: weekly full and 6-hour delta exports. Paid: daily full and 30-minute delta | Not compared. REST API with webhooks |
| AI access | Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Codex to live ShipHero data through the official MCP. Ask operational questions in plain language. With API access enabled and optional write access, create orders, adjust inventory, process returns, resolve holds and add 3PL charges through supported API operations. Read-only access is also available | Extensiv AI, a built-in chat assistant. No official MCP server found |
| Implementation and commercial | ||
| Implementation and G2 reviews | Typical onboarding planning ranges: 6 to 8 weeks for Standard and 8 to 12 weeks for Advanced. Timing depends on operational complexity, integrations, warehouse readiness and team availability | G2 overall: 4.0 from 40 reviews. Reviewer-reported: 3 months to implement, 19 months to ROI |
| G2 Grid® for 3PL (Fall 2026) | Leader. Highest G2 Score of the 17 products in the report | Contender |
| Pricing and ownership | Quote-based. Location-Aware Picking and GS1 labels priced separately | Quote-based WMS pricing, some service fees published separately. Owned by Descartes since Sept 1, 2026 |
Sources for every cell are listed at the end of the page.
ShipHero supports multi-item batch, single-item batch, and wave picking, with pick priority set on each location. Location-Aware Picking, an add-on with usage-based pricing, uses your warehouse layout to group orders into batches and shows each picker a highlighted route. Pickers walk up to 30% less. Wave Picking requires both Location-Aware Picking and Pick-to-Light hardware, and route optimization depends on a mapped warehouse.
For higher volume, ShipHero offers light-directed hardware that connects straight to the WMS. Pick-to-Light guides pickers to the right tote and quantity, Pack-to-Light and Receive-to-Light run on the same system at packing and receiving, and Tap-to-Pack replaces the keyboard and mouse at the pack station. ShipHero reports 20% higher picking efficiency with Pick-to-Light and 8 seconds saved per order with Tap-to-Pack.
Extensiv's SmartScan supports single-order, multi-order, and pick-to-bin picking, sequenced by a Pick Path value on each location.
A mapped picking route guides workers between locations across the warehouse floor.
25%
Frost Buddy: 25% lower labor costs with Location-Aware Picking
Frost Buddy, a drinkware brand that runs its own warehouse, reports that Location-Aware Picking cut its labor costs by 25%, and that Direct Pack-to-Light stations save $80,000 a year in labor. It scaled from 4,000 to 20,000 units a day during peak season.
ShipHero video case study, April 28, 2026. One customer's reported result.
ShipHero’s packing layout view, tracking wholesale orders across staged pallets by LPN.
In ShipHero, orders flagged as wholesale follow one path: picking plan, pick, pack, label, and outbound schedule. They ship as pallets or boxes, and each order gets its own staging location. A native GS1 label library covers 100+ retailers, and ShipHero's team sets up each retailer connection, with a setup fee and a monthly fee per retailer.
ShipHero is EDI-agnostic. Most customers connect through SPS Commerce, where ShipHero is the prime WMS partner. Retailer purchase orders flow into ShipHero, ship notices and inventory updates flow back, and ShipHero Support sets up and tests your trading partners before go-live.
Extensiv delivers EDI and UCC-128 labels through its Retailer Compliance service, priced as its own item.
$20,000
Brandfox: $20,000 in monthly labor savings from removing manual wholesale tracking
Brandfox is a U.S. fulfillment provider handling eCommerce, B2B, and retail orders for clients such as Target and Sephora. Before ShipHero, it tracked wholesale cases in Google Sheets. ShipHero's Wholesale Feature App replaced that manual tracking, and Brandfox reports $20,000 in monthly labor savings.
ShipHero case study, November 15, 2024. One customer's reported result.
Two clients can ship similar volumes and require different amounts of warehouse work. ShipHero's Labor Cost Dashboard shows labor cost per shipment, line item or unit, broken down by client and warehouse. Compare picking, packing and inventory-movement costs to identify workflows and service pricing worth reviewing. Calculations use tracked activity and the labor information you enter. Not every warehouse task is automatically timed, and this is labor-cost analysis, not a full client profitability calculation.
3PL Billing runs on billing profiles: a set of fees you configure once and assign to each client per warehouse. Profiles cover recurring, receiving, storage, shipment, picking, return, and ad hoc fees, and storage can be charged by product or by location type. Carrier Reconciliation adds any difference between quoted shipping and the carrier invoice to the client's next bill.
Extensiv offers Labor Analytics and Billing Manager with QuickBooks sync.
The Labor Cost Dashboard details cost, handling time, and shipment volume broken down by client.
100,000+
Tidalwave: 100,000+ monthly orders, with clients managing their own order changes
Tidalwave Print & Fulfillment is a Chattanooga 3PL that moved from ShipStation to ShipHero. ShipHero's client portal lets its brand clients edit orders and place holds without contacting the warehouse, and onboarding a new 3PL client now takes one to two days instead of weeks.
ShipHero case study, September 9, 2025. One customer's reported result.
Every ShipHero account includes scheduled data exports for Business Intelligence (BI) and data warehouse tools, plus webhooks and a GraphQL API for event-driven needs. The ShipHero AI Toolkit includes an MCP server, so you can connect Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, or another MCP-compatible assistant to live ShipHero data. Ask what shipped yesterday. With write access turned on, the assistant can create orders, adjust inventory, process returns, and resolve holds.
Extensiv AI is a chat assistant inside the Extensiv Hub that answers questions about orders, inventory, and shipments.
A demo walks through picking, wholesale, and client billing with your order mix.
Where
Extensiv
may be the better fit
Descartes bought Extensiv for approximately $120 million in cash on September 1, 2026. Descartes says Extensiv adds participants and operational data to its Global Logistics Network, and that combining Extensiv with its other logistics solutions lets service providers work with a single technology provider.
Switching from
Extensiv
to ShipHero
ShipHero's standard onboarding runs 6 to 8 weeks, and advanced implementations run 8 to 12 weeks.
01
Map receiving, putaway, picking, packing, and shipping, and collect carrier and store data.
02
ShipHero's team helps you plan the move of products, locations, inventory, and client accounts.
03
Label locations and run a physical inventory count.
04
Validate carriers, rates, workflows, and integrations, train staff, and set the go-live date.
Retailer programs. ShipHero's team sets up each GS1 label connection and each EDI connection, and testing follows.
Location names. Location-Aware Picking works best with consistent, logical location names.
Billing profiles. Configure fees and assign a profile to each client and warehouse before the first bill.
Labor rates. The Labor Cost Dashboard multiplies tracked time by your labor rates, so have them ready.
ShipHero is the stronger fit for 3PLs and brands looking for DTC and wholesale fulfillment in one WMS, with workflows suited to each order type. Its offering includes light-directed hardware, labor cost reporting by client and configurable client billing.
Yes. 3PL Central rebranded as Extensiv after merging with Skubana, Scout Software, and CartRover. Its 3PL WMS is now called Extensiv 3PL Warehouse Manager.
Descartes Systems Group (Nasdaq: DSGX), which acquired Extensiv for $120 million on September 1, 2026.
Extensiv prices 3PL Warehouse Manager by quote. It publishes prices for some other products and services, including Integration Manager and Retailer Compliance/EDI, which are separate from the WMS subscription.
We price ShipHero by quote, based on your order volume and the modules you need. Location-Aware Picking and GS1 retailer labels are priced separately.
Typical planning ranges are 6 to 8 weeks for Standard onboarding and 8 to 12 weeks for Advanced onboarding. Your timeline depends on operational complexity, integrations, warehouse readiness and team availability.
ShipHero connects natively to Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, TikTok Shop, eBay, BigCommerce, and NetSuite, plus UPS, FedEx, USPS, and DHL. Extensiv connects channels through Integration Manager, formerly CartRover. See ShipHero's full integrations list.
Yes. ShipHero is EDI-agnostic and connects through SPS Commerce, where it is the prime WMS partner, or through other EDI providers. It also generates GS1 retailer compliance labels for 100+ retailers.
We found no official Extensiv MCP server as of October 2026. Extensiv offers Extensiv AI, a chat assistant built into its platform. ShipHero offers an official MCP server that works with Claude, ChatGPT, Codex, and other MCP clients.
Checked October 19 and 20, 2026 unless noted.
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