Prerequisites

To create an application, you must first have the following:

UPS Profile / UPS.com ID

The UPS Profile, also known as a UPS.com ID, refers to the username that is used when signing into any of our ups.com domains. This profile represents your identity with UPS and contains many attributes that are used when integrating with our APIs.

The profile is what all UPS systems will use to identify users. It contains references to all your UPS account numbers in a one-to-many fashion (i.e. one UPS username can have access to many UPS account numbers).

When an API request is evaluated, a couple of steps involving the user identity are performed:

UPS will check if the user identity is current and valid.
In cases where a UPS account number is required by the API, UPS will check that the account number is associated to the UPS profile in the request.

If you do not already have an account, sign up here: Login | UPS - United States

UPS Account Number / Shipper Number

A UPS Account number, also known as a Shipper Number, is an alphanumeric billing attribute that is up to 10 digits. When included within an API request it has a few common uses:

Rating: Used to evaluate any shipper-level incentives (negotiated rates) that could change rates.
Shipping: Used to evaluate shipper-level incentives that could change rates associated to the package, and if used within the PaymentDetails container it is used to bill the charges of the shipment.

Account numbers must be associated to a UPS profile. You can view the UPS account numbers associated to your profile by visiting your UPS profile dashboard under the “Accounts and Payments” section.

If you do not have any UPS account numbers in the above Dashboard, you can either associate an existing account number using these steps: Add existing account or Create a New Account