• Extending WC_Shipping_Method
  • Properties
  • Methods
  • Example
• Registering your shipping method
  • woocommerce_shipping_methods filter
  • woocommerce_load_shipping_methods filter

This guide covers how to create shipping methods with WooCommerce 2.6.

In versions prior to 2.6, each shipping method could only be used 'once'. 2.6 introduces 'instances' as well as shipping zones, which can contain many instances of each shipping method if supported.

Shipping methods can also now have 2 levels of settings; global, and instance settings. Instances inherit the global settings, but can then have their own settings which take priority.

WC_Shipping_Method extends the WC_Settings class, but also has some of it's own settings functions to support instances.

Here is a basic example demonstrating an instance based shipping method class.

https://gist.github.com/mikejolley/3b37b9cc19a774665f31

To register your shipping method for use there are filters which you can use to tell WooCommerce about your shipping class.

This filter lets you tell WooCommerce your method's ID and its classname. Use this to register a method for us, like this:

add_filter( 'woocommerce_shipping_methods', 'register_test_method' );

function register_test_method( $methods ) {
	$methods[ 'test_method' ] = 'WC_Shipping_Test_Method';
	return $methods;
}

If the method supports instances and zones, users will be able to add an instance of this Shipping Method to their Shipping Zones via the admin UI.

Whilst this supports an ID and classname, you can also pass an already initialised method to the filter e.g.

$methods[ 'test_method' ] = new WC_Shipping_Test_Method();

In most cases, woocommerce_shipping_methods filter is enough so using this filter is not recommended unless you have an advanced use case.

If you need access to a shipping $package first for any reason, woocommerce_load_shipping_methods gives you the package and you can manually add a method class to WC_Shipping::shipping_methods.