UPS
NOMINEE OVERVIEW
The UPS Developer Portal provides a secure, unified experience for discovering and integrating UPS’s extensive portfolio of REST and Webhook APIs. Serving direct customers, third-party integrators, and UPS partners across more than 150 countries and 24 languages, the portal combines enterprise-grade security and API governance with a consistent global experience. APIs are organized around intuitive customer journeys - Prepare Shipments, Create Shipments, and Manage Shipments, helping technical and business users quickly identify the right free core or premium capabilities for their needs.
The portal supports the complete journey from discovery to first successful API call through product pages, Get Started guidance, best-practice guides, detailed documentation, sample requests, sandbox testing, and GitHub and Postman resources. FAQs and global email and phone support provide additional assistance when needed. AI-powered capabilities further reduce integration friction: Ask AI serves as a developer assistant from signup through testing, the API Request Generator creates tailored requests and guides users along personalized integration paths, and the UPS MCP Server enables AI agents to interact securely with UPS capabilities such as package tracking and address validation. Together, these features demonstrate UPS’s commitment to an accessible, efficient, and AI-ready developer experience.
NOMINATION RATIONALE
1) BEST REIMAGINED ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE IN A DEVELOPER PORTAL
Why is this category a strong match?
The UPS Developer Portal is designed around one critical outcome: helping users move from “I need a UPS capability” to a successful API call as quickly and confidently as possible.
Instead of asking customers to understand UPS’s internal systems, the portal begins with recognizable business outcomes such as preparing, creating, or managing shipments. It then guides them through API selection, application creation, OAuth credentials, and testing in a clear, connected journey. This reduces the decisions, setup effort, and uncertainty that traditionally slow enterprise API onboarding. UPS recently launched Ask AI capability through a UPS Developer assistant that is an agent custom built to further reduce friction by helping users find relevant guidance about UPS APIs, integration, testing through a conversational experience.
In what ways does your portal shine in this category?
The portal provides clear guidance at each point where a developer might otherwise hesitate. Business-focused product information helps users choose the right APIs, while the Get Started journey breaks onboarding into practical steps:
- Sign in or create a UPS profile.
- Define the intended integration and associate a UPS account where required.
- Create an application and select the necessary API products.
- Receive a Client ID and Client Secret for secure OAuth authentication.
- Test requests in the Customer Integration Environment.
- Validate the integration and transition to production.
Developers can use embedded testing customer integration environments, sample requests and responses, SDKs, GitHub resources, and Postman collections rather than starting from an empty environment. Ask AI UPS Developer Assistant supports API selection, documentation discovery, getting customized API requests, and any integration assistance, while the UPS MCP Server introduces an onboarding path for agentic integration. Global support through FAQs, email, and phone complements this self-service experience.
This creates a continuous onboarding experience and guides users to assemble their own journey across various tools and instructions.
2) BEST UNIFIED OR FEDERATED ENTERPRISE DEVELOPER PORTAL
Why is this category a strong match?
The UPS Developer Portal is a strong match because it turns the scale and complexity of a global logistics enterprise into one cohesive digital experience. Serving developers, partners, and businesses across more than 150 countries and 24 languages, the portal unifies a broad portfolio of REST and Webhook APIs from shipping, tracking, rating, pickups, and international trade to premium capabilities such as Delivery Defense.
Rather than requiring users to understand UPS’s internal systems, the portal presents these capabilities through a clear, customer-focused structure. It supports technical and business users throughout the integration journey, while Ask AI and the UPS MCP Server extend that experience to AI-assisted and agentic development.
In what ways does your portal shine in this category?
The portal organizes UPS APIs around familiar customer journeys - Prepare Shipments, Create Shipments, and Manage Shipments, making a large enterprise portfolio easier to understand and navigate. Users can move from identifying a business need to exploring an API, creating OAuth credentials, testing in a sandbox, and deploying to production within one connected experience.
Detailed documentation, embedded testing, SDKs, API-status visibility, GitHub resources, Postman collections, and global support help developers integrate faster and with greater confidence. Ask AI adds conversational guidance, while the open-source UPS MCP Server enables authenticated AI agents to capabilities such as tracking packages, retrieving delivery information, and validating addresses.
