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NewTry every call in the quickstart, no setup

Ship freight from your own code.

Live rates from Mothership and its partner carriers, a booking in one call, and every status change sent to your server. 17 endpoints, all documented from the API's own OpenAPI document.

Start the quickstartAPI reference
Sandbox
https://sandbox.api.mothership.com/beta
Production
https://api.mothership.com/beta

How it fits together

One shipment, four calls

Pick a stop to see its request and the part of the response the next call needs. Every example is the one on the reference page, checked against the spec.

Quote

Send the freight, both locations and when it will be ready. Rates come back from Mothership and each partner carrier that can move it.

Keep data.id and the id of the rate you want.

POST/quotes

Request

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://sandbox.api.mothership.com/beta/quotes' \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $MOTHERSHIP_API_TOKEN" \
  --header 'Accept: application/json' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "freight": [
    {
      "quantity": 2,
      "type": "Pallet",
      "weight": 50,
      "length": 48,
      "width": 42,
      "height": 46,
      "description": "T-shirts"
    }
  ],
  "pickup": {
    "name": "Griffith Observatory",
    "address": {
      "street": "2800 E Observatory Rd",
      "city": "Los Angeles",
      "state": "CA",
      "zip": "90027"
    },
    "accessorials": [
      "liftgate"
    ],
    "phoneNumber": "+15555555555",
    "emails": [
      "logistics@mothership.com"
    ],
    "openTime": "1000",
    "closeTime": "2200"
  },
  "delivery": {
    "name": "LACMA",
    "address": {
      "street": "5905 Wilshire Blvd",
      "city": "Los Angeles",
      "state": "CA",
      "zip": "90036"
    },
    "accessorials": [
      "liftgate",
      "residential"
    ],
    "phoneNumber": "+15555555555",
    "emails": [
      "logistics@mothership.com"
    ],
    "openTime": "1100",
    "closeTime": "1700"
  },
  "pickupReadyDate": {
    "date": "2024-10-15",
    "time": "1000"
  }
}'

201The fields the next call needs

{
  "data": {
    "id": "-LawNN52lCcvj6T5qiEp",
    "expiresAt": "2019-03-26T23:51:40.485Z",
    "rates": [
      {
        "id": "VDWLA0",
        "creditsApplied": 0,
        "estimatedPickupDate": "2019-03-26T23:45:40.000Z",
        "estimatedDeliveryDate": "2019-03-28T05:00:40.000Z",
        "price": 79,
        "provider": "mothership",
        "providerScac": "mhpg",
        "services": [],
        "transitDays": {
          "minimum": 1,
          "maximum": 1
        },
        "warnings": [],
        "coveragePrice": 0,
        "coveredValue": 0
      }
    ]
  }
}

Built into the docs

Tools you would otherwise build yourself

The docs run on a server, so they can check your requests, send them for you and explain what comes back.

Quickstart playground

Quote, choose a rate, book and track, with each ID carried to the next call. Sample data or your sandbox.

Quote builder

Fill in a form and the code samples in six languages follow, checked against the spec as you type.

Responses that explain themselves

Hover any key in an example or a live response to read its description. Click to jump to the field.

Signature checker

Paste a webhook body and secret to see the X-Mothership-Signature you should expect. Runs in your browser.

Status diagram

Watch a shipment move through its statuses and see the webhook each change sends.

Ready for AI agents

llms.txt indexes every page, each page has a .md version, and Copy page hands one to your assistant.

A changelog from the contract

Every customer-visible change to the OpenAPI document, dated, with an RSS feed.

Guides

Walk through a real integration

Each guide runs against the sandbox, so you can follow along without booking anything.

4 steps

Booking a shipment

Two pallets from Griffith Observatory to LACMA: describe the freight, get rates, book the same-day rate.

Start the guide
3 steps

Tracking a shipment

Read status, estimated delivery and tracking events, and how often to check.

Start the guide
4 steps

Configuring webhooks

Subscribe an endpoint to shipment and document events and verify each signature.

Start the guide

API reference

Every endpoint, generated from the spec

Parameters, request bodies, response fields and code samples in six languages come straight from the public OpenAPI document, so they change when the API does.

Quotes1
Shipments4
Tracking1
Documents1
Files1
Invoices3
Webhooks5
Account1

Get a sandbox token and make your first request.

Organization owners create tokens in the dashboard. The sandbox validates every request like production and never purchases a shipment.

Get API keys
OpenAPI documentGenerate a client or import the API into Postman.API keysCreate sandbox and production tokens in the dashboard.Supportdevelopers@mothership.com