Alexander Lam
If you’re not offering shipping protection, you’re basically playing customer service roulette. With porch pirates, carrier delays, and customer patience at an all-time low, merchants need to offer some kind of coverage or risk getting roasted in their reviews.
Naturally, this opened the floodgates to a wave of Shopify apps all promising “peace of mind.”
But let’s be real — a lot of them are just fancy checkout barnacles, slowing things down and injecting friction where none is welcome. You install one hoping for fewer support tickets, and suddenly your customers are rage-clicking through a clunky widget and abandoning their carts.
In our test, we analyzed four of the most talked-about Shopify shipping protection apps: Route, Redo, Corso, and SHIPAID.
The goal of this test?
Simple: find out which app offers the best balance of speed, user experience, and merchant control.
Shipping Protection Provider Criteria: How We Evaluated Performance
Before diving into the results, let’s talk about how we judged each shipping protection app — because this isn’t just about what looks good on paper. These apps operate across two critical stages: the checkout experience (where shoppers opt in) and the post-purchase experience (where claims, tracking, and communication happen).
So, we focused on three performance metrics that reflect how these apps behave in real-world usage.
Speed Index
Speed Index measures how quickly visible content appears during page load. In the context of shipping protection apps, this matters most at the cart and checkout stages — exactly where these apps usually appear.
A lower Speed Index makes the page feel fast and fluid, which helps prevent drop-off. But if your app delays how quickly the page looks loaded, customers can hesitate or lose trust before they’ve even entered their payment info.
Cumulative Layout Shift
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) measures how much content jumps around on the page while it’s loading.
This is especially relevant for shipping protection apps that inject late-loading elements — like toggles or upsell boxes — into the checkout flow. If the layout shifts just as a customer is trying to click something, it can cause misclicks, confusion, or just general distrust.
If your “Add Protection” toggle makes the form shift, you’re risking more than just a poor UX — you’re risking the sale.
Total Blocking Time (TBT)
Total Blocking Time (TBT) looks at how long the browser’s main thread is blocked by scripts or other tasks — basically, how long your store is frozen and unresponsive.
This isn’t just a checkout issue.
TBT is also important for post-purchase features like tracking dashboards or claims portals. If the protection app is heavy on JavaScript and hogs the main thread, customers might see the UI — but find it completely unresponsive.
It creates frustration, more support tickets, and a terrible impression of your brand when it matters most.
Highlighting the Top Performers: Fastest Shopify Shipping Protection Apps
Speed Index: Load Time Champions
When it comes to Speed Index — which measures how quickly visible content loads on a page — the differences between these shipping protection apps are noticeable.
SHIPAID leads the pack with the smallest impact on Speed Index, coming in just under a -5% change. This means it has a minimal effect on how fast users see your site render, making it the least disruptive option for maintaining a smooth visual experience at checkout.
On the other end of the spectrum, Route and Redo delivered the heaviest performance hits, clocking in at around -44% and -41% respectively.
That’s a significant slowdown in visual load time — the kind that can make impatient shoppers bounce before they even make it to the shipping method screen.
Corso landed in the middle, with a moderate -17% drop — better than the worst offenders, but still a noticeable dip in performance.
In short: if fast visuals matter to your UX (hint: they do), SHIPAID is your safest bet. Route and Redo, meanwhile, may be better at protecting packages than they are at protecting conversion rates.
CLS: Which Apps Keep Your Layout Stable (and Which Ones Break It)
In this category, Route and SHIPAID delivered flawless results, each recording a 0.0% change in CLS. That means their presence didn’t trigger any unexpected shifts in the layout — a big win for maintaining a stable, trustworthy checkout experience.
Corso showed a moderate impact with around a -18% change, suggesting some minor layout disruption, but nothing catastrophic.
The clear underperformer here was Redo, with a significant -85% drop in CLS stability. That kind of layout shift can confuse customers, cause misclicks, and break the flow of the checkout process — especially when a widget loads late or pushes content downward.
If you care about keeping your layout locked in and your customers focused, Route and SHIPAID are the most reliable options in this test. Redo, on the other hand, could use a stability check.
TBT: Measuring Responsiveness and Script Bloat
Total Blocking Time (TBT) is crucial for understanding how app scripts affect your store’s interactivity. The higher the TBT, the longer your customers are left staring at a page that looks ready—but doesn’t do anything.
In this test, SHIPAID once again showed strong performance, with the lowest TBT impact of the group—hovering just around a -6% change. This suggests it adds almost no delay to page interactivity, keeping the buying experience snappy and responsive.
Corso followed with a -17% change — not ideal, but still within tolerable limits for most users.
The real offenders here? Route and Redo, which both hit extreme TBT penalties of around -63% and -56% respectively. That’s the kind of performance drop that makes your site feel broken, even when it’s not. Customers tap, scroll, and click — and nothing responds right away.
If interactivity matters to your brand experience (and let’s be honest, it does), then SHIPAID stands out as the most user-friendly option.
Overall Best Performer: The Shipping Protection App That Didn’t Break Anything
After testing four of the most popular Shopify shipping protection apps across Speed Index, Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Total Blocking Time (TBT), one thing became clear: most apps come with trade-offs — and not the good kind.
SHIPAID was the only app that consistently delivered low impact across every metric. It had the smallest drop in Speed Index, nearly invisible effect on FCP, no layout shifting (CLS), and minimal TBT disruption.
In other words, it did what a shipping protection app should do: protect the customer experience, not just the shipment.
By contrast, Route and Redo had strong feature sets but introduced major performance hits — including significant layout shifts and script delays. Corso performed better than those two but still introduced moderate impact across multiple areas.
If you’re looking for a shipping protection solution that adds value without hijacking your checkout flow or slowing down your store, SHIPAID came out on top — both in the data and in actual usability.
Practical Recommendations: Choosing the Right Shopify Shipping Protection App for Your Store
With performance metrics in hand, you now know which apps are light, stable, and don’t set your checkout on fire. But choosing a shipping protection app is about more than just Speed Index scores and JavaScript bloat.
It’s also about customer experience, operational fit, and how much control you actually have over the post-purchase journey.
Here’s what we recommend when choosing the right app for your Shopify store:
Match the app to your store’s model and volume
If you’re a high-volume store, predictable cost structure and claims automation matter more than bells and whistles.
In this case, apps like SHIPAID, which let you control pricing and keep 100% of the fees, may offer better scalability than revenue-share models like Route or Corso.
Smaller stores may prefer plug-and-play options with done-for-you claims processing, even if they give up a slice of revenue.
Look Beyond Checkout: Consider Post-Purchase UX
Shipping protection doesn’t stop at the opt-in button. The real customer experience happens after the order is placed — when something gets lost, delayed, or damaged.
- Is the claims portal branded and easy to use?
- Do customers get real-time tracking?
- Can you customize messages or policies?
SHIPAID and Corso stood out for offering a cleaner post-purchase journey, while Redo’s layout shift and responsiveness issues raised concerns.
Speed Is Critical, but So Is Trust
Your protection app shouldn’t sabotage your UX in the name of security. If it slows the page, shifts the layout, or blocks the main thread, it’s creating more problems than it solves.
SHIPAID was the most stable across every performance metric — offering protection without harming trust at checkout. That makes it a strong default for stores where performance and polish are non-negotiable.
Don’t “Set It and Forget It” — Monitor It
Once you’ve installed a shipping protection app, track its real impact. Use tools like:
- Google PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse to monitor load and interactivity
- Heatmaps or session recordings to detect customer frustration
- Customer support ticket trends to see if claims are smooth or just creating more noise
Apps can push updates, change behavior, or suddenly inject new scripts — keep an eye on them.
Choose Smart, Not Just Safe
TL;DR: Based on our findings, each shipping protection app brings its own strengths and trade-offs. Some prioritize performance and speed, while others focus more on features like sustainability, branded post-purchase experiences, or automated claims handling.
Apps also vary in how much control merchants have over pricing, claims, and customer communication — which can make a big difference depending on your business model and support setup.
Ultimately, the best shipping protection app for your store will depend on your specific needs, including your checkout design, customer expectations, order volume, and post-purchase strategy.
The goal is to find a solution that supports both customer trust and site performance — without compromising one for the other.
