Frenet
Cheap, long-established Brazilian carrier aggregator that quotes rates and prints labels fine for one-box orders, but support is email-only when your checkout breaks and no negative review has had a reply since May 2025.
Should you install it?
Frenet is the cheap, widely-used option for Brazilian stores that want Correios plus multiple transportadoras quoted at checkout and labels generated, and roughly 18 reviewers say its freight prices beat what they found elsewhere. It suits simple fulfilment: one box per order, few product dimensions, modest volume. It breaks down on catalogue scale and packing complexity - dimensions can only come from variant metafields with no CSV import and bulk editing 35 rows at a time [3635], and a multi-item order cannot be split into several labels [8275]. The consistent complaint across four years is support access: praise is common for pre-sales and questions, but when checkout rates actually stop working there is no phone or chat, only email [5284], [2538], [0071]. Weigh heavily that the developer answered negative reviews reliably until March 2025 and has answered none of the five since May 2025, and that a third of all reviews come from one five-week solicitation window in late 2025 whose only aftermath is three negative reviews.
Fair evidence. 63 reviews with 59 carrying text is a reasonable base, and the failure themes are specific and verifiable. But a third of the corpus arrives in one five-week solicited burst that distorts both the average and the recent counts, and the only unsolicited window since - Dec 2025 to Sep 2026 - contains just 3 reviews, too few to tell whether the app got worse or the reviews merely got more honest. Several current failures rest on a single report each.
Right for
- Brazilian stores wanting Correios plus several transportadoras quoted at checkout without holding their own carrier contracts
- Stores shipping one box per order with few, stable product dimensions
- Stores needing regional control: blocking delivery-restricted areas and region-based freight promotions
- Stores leaving a far pricier competitor - [4032] reports a rival charging over R$1500/month, up to 15x more
- Small stores wanting cheaper freight than over-the-counter Correios rates
Wrong for
- Large catalogues: dimensions are read only from variant metafields, no CSV import, bulk editor does 35 at a time [3635]
- Multi-item orders needing more than one box or label - one width/length/depth field per order [8275]
- Operations above roughly 50 items/day needing bulk label automation and tracking sync back into Shopify [5576], [7731]
- Warehouses printing on Zebra thermal printers - label quality has been rejected by Correios [2174]
- Stores needing phone or live-chat escalation when checkout rates stop calculating [5284], [2538], [0071]
- Free-plan users wanting to plug in their own Correios contract - gated to the paid plan [7980]
- Anyone shipping outside Brazil - all 63 reviews are Brazilian stores
What will annoy you
Support is email-only with no phone or chat escalation once the store is actually broken: 7 reviews, steady, last seen 2026-04.
How the developer behaves when it breaks
Replies are polite Portuguese templates that apologise and promise to pass feedback to the team; they almost never describe a fix. [9076] was closed as not Frenet's problem (ticket 104828) although the merchant said they used an unmodified Shopify theme on a plan that cannot edit checkout. [7542] blamed instability on Black Friday server preparation and said it would hardly happen again; [9524], [6753] and [4801] show it kept happening. The behaviour then changed: negatives through March 2025 got replies ([0431], [2538], [5284], [3116], [1041], [4801], [6409], [9076]), but every negative since May 2025 is unanswered ([8275], [6143], [3635], [0071], [5293]). No reviewer edited their review to say a problem was fixed.
What goes wrong 7 recurring themes
- Support is email-only with no phone or chat escalation once the store is actually broken 7 reviews steady, last seen 2026-04
“para assinar fazem até reunião de vídeo , para suporte tecnico depois que vc paga o plano , tem que ficar enviando e-mail.” review 5284
- Service outages that stop checkout rate calculation, with no status notification to merchants 6 reviews fading, last seen 2024-12
“O aplicativo da frenet esse ano já saiu do ar várias vezes, deixando o nosso site sem cálculo de frete. O pior é que a empresa não avisa os clientes.” review 9524
- Product dimensions only readable from variant metafields, with no CSV or practical bulk path 2 reviews steady, last seen 2025-12
“somente se for metacampo de variante, que não tem como informar via CSV, apenas manualmente ou com o editor em massa (mas mesmo assim, é só de 35 em 35)” review 3635
- Cannot split a multi-item order into several boxes/labels - one set of dimensions per order 1 review steady, last seen 2025-05
“não permite geração de etiquetas em uma multicompra” review 8275
Also 8275 - Manual label issuance and no automatic tracking sync into Shopify orders 2 reviews fading, last seen 2023-08
“Processo de emissão de etiquetas manualmente, o que atrasa e muito a nossa operação. Infelizmente ficaria inviável para lojas que vendem acima de 50 itens/dia” review 5576
- Zebra thermal label output quality rejected by Correios 1 review steady, last seen 2025-11
“ocorre da etiqueta ficar com baixa qualidade o que pode ocasionar dos correios não aceitar (já ocorreu conosco)” review 2174
Also 2174 - Billing higher than quoted, including overages after uninstall 1 review steady, last seen 2025-03
“não confie na cobrança informada antes da integração com o Shopify. Após integrar, surgem cobranças inesperadas e fora do que foi divulgado.” review 0431
Also 0431
What it does well 5 themes
- Cheap freight and many carrier quotes in one call 18 reviews
“Sem dúvida é o melhor app de transporte, me traz mais de 6 cotações, muito ágil e sempre os melhores preços!” review 3102
- Easy install and day-to-day Shopify integration 15 reviews
“instalação fácil, e uso no dia a dia bem fácil também” review 1302
- Shipping rules: regional promotions and blocking delivery-restricted areas 5 reviews
“A Frenet nos ajudou a mapear áreas com restrição de entrega e bloquear automaticamente opções que não se aplicam.” review 1182
- Label generation is convenient for simple orders 5 reviews
“Além da praticidade na geração das etiquetas.” review 0284
- Fast, human support on questions and setup 12 reviews
“a melhor parte é o suporte que é rápido e humanizado.” review 5189
Red flags
- No negative review has received a developer reply since May 2025, though negatives were reliably answered before that. The five most recent low ratings all sit unanswered. 5293 0071 3635 6143 8275
- Single but specific billing report: $19 plan plus $40 charged after uninstalling, then $39 + $89 overages, then $40 overages again after downgrading. One report only, from March 2025. 0431
- Refund refused for a label the carrier could not process - merchant told the loss was theirs. 0071
- Checkout breaking silently: CORS errors and missing rates blocking orders, and delivery estimates not shown at checkout. [9076] was closed as not Frenet's fault while the merchant said they ran a stock theme on a plan that cannot edit checkout code. 1041 9076 2538
- Outages not announced - merchants learned the rate calculator was down from customer complaints. [9524] says a fix was promised in person at Fórum E-commerce Brasil 2022, then it went down 3+ more times with no notice. 9524 6753 7542 4801
Trend
Note the listing is not in date order; sorted properly, the last 12 months (from Sep 2025) hold 24 reviews versus 14 the year before, but 21 of those 24 are the Oct-Nov 2025 burst. The genuinely new signal is what came after it: the only three reviews since 1 December 2025 are 1 star [3635], 1 star [0071] and 2 star [5293], so the headline 12.5% recent negative share is an artefact of the burst, not evidence of improvement. Real improvement did happen on one theme: the 2022-2023 outage complaints ([7542], [9524], [6753], [4801]) stop after December 2024 and nobody in the last 12 months reports the app going down. The complaints have shifted from reliability to product limits - dimensions only via variant metafields [3635], one box per order [8275], Zebra print quality [2174] - plus support access, which is the one theme running unbroken from Feb 2022 [6409] to Apr 2026 [0071].
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