Trust · how a pick is read
How We Rate Shipping Gear
Sold Sealed Sent exists to answer one question the maker blogs skip and the forums argue about: will this printer, label or scale work with my shop? Our whole method is built to answer it honestly.
We read maker and platform pages and date them. We do not run a test bench, and we never claim to. We are not a hardware reviewer, and we do not pretend to be. What we do is normalize what each maker and platform documents into one sheet, say where the sources disagree, and mark every claim with how firmly we confirmed it.
Five questions, one sheet
Every printer is read against the same five questions, so a budget Bluetooth model and a premium Wi-Fi model are judged on one sheet.
- Does it connect the way you print?
- USB, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth from a phone, on a Mac, Windows PC, Chromebook or phone. Read from the maker's page for the exact model; Google's Chromebook page decides what a Chromebook can do.
- What labels does it take?
- Any direct thermal label of the right width, DYMO-compatible rolls only, or the maker's own rolls. That label lock-in is what decides what a roll really costs you.
- Which platforms document it?
- Shopify, Pirate Ship, ShipStation, Etsy and eBay each say something different. We quote each platform's own page, and say when we found none.
- What does it need to set up?
- A driver on some systems, an app on a phone, a paper-size setting everywhere. Only claims from the maker's page, each with the month it was read.
- What does it cost to run?
- Your own roll price through the Label Cost Calculator. We quote no per-label prices because the published ones disagree.
How sure are we? The source ladder
The compatibility ledger on the homepage tags every line with one of these, and so does any page that leans on a driver, system or platform claim.
- Page read
- We read the maker's or platform's own page. The claim names the page and the month.
- Summary only
- We saw the claim in a search-result summary and have not re-read the page itself. It is marked unconfirmed until we have.
- Seller posts
- Community threads. Seller experience, not documentation, and never the basis for a driver or system claim.
- Not found
- We looked and found no official page. We say so instead of guessing.
What we will not print
Prices. We print no prices. Every buy link opens the product’s Amazon page, where the current price is shown; the Label Cost Calculator works from the roll price you type.
Carrier numbers. Rates, surcharges and dimensional-weight divisors change, so we print none. We explain dimensional weight as a formula and link out to the platforms and carriers for current figures.
Ratings and review counts. We print no star ratings and no review counts. A pick earns its place on what the maker and the platform document.
Tax or legal advice. Where a page touches business accounts or supply records, it describes what the vendor’s pages say and points you to a professional for the rest.
Where the claims come from
Printer lists, label rules and connection claims are drawn from maker publications and the platforms’ own help pages. Model names and support pages churn, so we re-check current models before recommending them and say when a page was last read.
Independence and disclosure are covered separately on our editorial standards page. Questions about a claim? Send a correction.