Four ways to ship to Hawaii. One that respects your time and your money.
An honest look at your options — including when Shippy is not the right choice.
The four real options.
Hawaii residents shipping single-box orders from the mainland have four real options: pay retail direct, use Ship To Hawaii, use an ocean forwarder like HouseMart, or use Shippy. Each one wins on different axes. Here's what each one costs, how long it takes, and when to pick it.
Option 1 — Retail, direct.
Fastest, most reliable, wildly overpriced. A 40 lb box of car parts to Honolulu costs about $420 at retail shipping rates. Some retailers quote a 'ground' rate to Hawaii, but 'ground' to Hawaii is still an air move under the hood. Use this if you need the package in 2 days and you're spending someone else's money.
Option 2 — Ship To Hawaii.
The 20-year incumbent. Offers both air and ocean forwarding. The problem: they don't publish rates, they charge a membership fee (free, $20/yr, or $75/yr depending on tier), and their ships-out cadence is 'at least twice a week.' That means you don't know what you'll pay, you don't know when your box will leave the warehouse, and you're paying to be a member before you even see a price. Use this if you want the brand-name incumbent and you don't mind opacity.
Option 3 — HouseMart / Aloha Freight / DHX (ocean).
The cheapest option on paper. HouseMart's Ben Franklin / Ace network charges about $60 per tote on ocean containers. The catches: 14–28 day transit, pickup at a retail location on your island (not door-to-door), and a flat tote structure that doesn't accommodate oversize or heavy items well. Use this if you have 3 weeks, you own a truck, and you're shipping furniture or bulk dry goods.
Option 4 — Shippy.
A mainland warehouse running a single dedicated 2-day air lane to Hawaii. We publish per-lb rates up front, scan and photograph every box and post it to your dashboard the same day it arrives, then forward door-to-door in 2 business days once you authorize the outbound. Package Protection included. No membership fee. Use this for anything that won't fit on the back of a flatbed — car parts, home gym plates, cameras, power tools, audio gear, parts the retailer refuses to ship direct.
Shippy versus everyone else, on the five things that matter.
Pricing transparency, intake visibility, door-to-door delivery, membership fees, and transit time. Here's how the four options stack up across the five dimensions that drive the actual customer experience.
| Retail direct | Ship To Hawaii | HouseMart | Shippy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Published per-lb rates? | Yes | No | Partial | Yes |
| Intake visibility | N/A | Opaque — no photo, no timeline | Weeks | Scan + photo + dashboard, same day |
| Door-to-door? | Yes | Yes (air only) | No (pickup) | Yes |
| Membership fee? | No | $0 / $20 / $75 per year | No | No |
| Transit to Honolulu | 2 days | 3–5 days | 14–28 days | 2 days |
When you should not use Shippy.
Shippy is built for single-box air shipments in the 5–100 lb range. If your box is over 150 lb or moves on a pallet, ocean freight is almost always cheaper and we'll tell you that on the estimate page. If you're shipping furniture, a car, or a bulk grocery order, use Matson, Pasha, or HouseMart. If you can wait 3 weeks and you're okay driving to a Ben Franklin in Kapolei to pick up your order, HouseMart ocean will save you money versus Shippy for non-urgent bulky goods.
We're not trying to be the cheapest option for every box. We're trying to be the best option for the boxes where speed, door-to-door delivery, and transparent pricing matter more than saving another $40 on a 3-week pickup ticket.