How Manifest.eco and OpenBorder built the borderless layer for direct-to-consumer brands

At a glance

Manifest.eco is a 3PL, but not the kind most brands are used to. Founded in 2021 in Austin, Texas by four co-founders who had worked together in the industry for over a decade, Manifest is one of only two B Corp fulfillment companies on the planet. It operates a deliberately small client roster of around 50 brands, runs plastic-free packaging, offsets the carbon impact of every shipment through its European partner Climate, and treats retention as the number it's proudest of.

For a company built on the promise that its clients' end customers will "get it exactly right, every time," international shipping was the one piece Manifest couldn't fully solve on its own. Customs codes, VAT, duties, and country-by-country regulations sit outside the four walls of a warehouse.

That's where OpenBorder came in. After trying three to five different cross-border providers in its first four years, Manifest partnered with OpenBorder in 2024. The result is an invisible operational backbone: Manifest owns the brand relationship and the fulfillment floor, OpenBorder handles the cross-border complexity, and the brand merchant sees one dashboard, one team, and orders arriving from everywhere.

"We picked OpenBorder for the same reason brands pick us. They do the hard, unglamorous work so well it looks easy. We hand them a merchant, that merchant is handled. That's the entire bar, and almost nobody clears it."

The problem: international was where growth lived, and complexity was the toll booth

Every Manifest brand hits the same wall at some point in their growth. Domestic ads plateau. The obvious next chapter is international. But international is where operational complexity multiplies fastest.

Every country has its own customs regime. Codes, duties, taxes, labeling. A brand that isn't set up for it either ships internationally badly (surprise charges at the customer's door, poor experience, returns, and support tickets) or doesn't ship internationally at all.

Most 3PLs stop at the US border. Warehousing, picking, packing, and shipping domestically is the standard 3PL job. Cross-border is a specialty most fulfillment companies aren't structured to own end-to-end.

Manifest had tried the alternatives. In its first four years, the team cycled through three to five different cross-border providers. None of them made international meaningfully easier for the brand merchants Manifest was building around.

"A brand shouldn't have to be an expert in customs law to sell a candle to someone in London. That's the trap. International is where growth lives, and complexity is the toll booth."

Why OpenBorder

Manifest's decision came down to fit, not just capability.

A shared operating philosophy. Manifest built its business on treating a small client roster with deep, dedicated care. OpenBorder took the same posture with brand merchants: understand what the brand actually needs before proposing a solution. The two companies matched on the way they show up for a customer, not just on what they deliver.

"The moment that Manifest realized OpenBorder was the right partner was when we realized they could be a true extension of our team. Manifest is built off of being the full logistics extension of our brands, and OpenBorder really solved the international piece of that for us."

Technology plus practical implementation. After cycling through cross-border providers that either had the tech but not the operations, or the operations but not the tech, OpenBorder was the first that fused both.

"OpenBorder is a relatively young company. When we began looking at them after going through about three, four, five different cross-border providers over our first three or four years, it almost seemed a little bit like it was too good to be true. Here we have not only great technology, but a wonderful solution and people that we're excited to partner with, that are transparent, communicative, and true partners to Manifest."

Two companies both trying to do things differently. Manifest is a B Corp fulfillment company challenging a 30-year-old industry playbook. OpenBorder is rebuilding the cross-border commerce stack. Neither is a legacy provider. That mutual "we do it differently" made the partnership easier to build.

Proactive communication as a core value. With international shipping, hiccups are inevitable. What Manifest looked for, and got, was a partner who surfaces issues before they reach the brand.

"Their team is incredibly responsive for our team. Our core values are communication and transparency, and with international shipping does come hiccups. They're always proactive. They're always on top of it. They're always communicating with us before a problem ever has to reach a brand."

How the partnership actually works

1. Manifest stays the single point of contact for the brand

Merchants don't have to onboard, negotiate, or manage OpenBorder directly. Manifest owns the relationship, and OpenBorder plugs in behind the scenes.

"Manifest works with OpenBorder. Our merchants don't work with OpenBorder. They trust us to find the best solutions to help them achieve their goals of expanding their business and reaching new markets."

2. OpenBorder handles the cross-border machinery end-to-end

For every international order flowing through a Manifest warehouse, OpenBorder handles VAT, import duties, country-specific labeling, and DDP compliance. The brand's dashboard, team, and standards don't change. The orders just start coming from new places.

"The day a brand turns on international with us, nothing about their life changes, and everything about their business does. Same dashboard, same team, same standards. The orders just start coming from everywhere. Growth without a single new headache is the rarest product in commerce."

3. Checkout gets solved for the end customer

The single biggest experience improvement is at checkout. International customers now see duties and taxes upfront and can pay them at the point of purchase, rather than being surprised at the door. That one change moves the entire international customer experience from friction to retention.

"What OpenBorder immediately opened up for our brands was that seamless checkout experience where upfront customers could see exactly what they should expect to pay for duties and taxes, even pay it upfront. We've seen customers see huge retention from international that they weren't seeing before. Repeat purchases instead of customer service emails."

4. The partnership shows up in person

The partnership isn't a contract and a Slack channel. It's an active working relationship, including in-person warehouse visits to go deeper on the brands both companies serve.

"OpenBorder's team visited our warehouse a few weeks ago. We'd been building the relationship for a while, but to see them come in person and further understand the brands we're working together on was super valuable. Those are the exact kind of partners that we look to bring on, the ones that want to understand our brands as deeply as we understand them."

The results, felt at the brand level

The outcomes of the partnership show up on Manifest's merchant roster, not on Manifest's own P&L. That's the point.

International share of sales climbed from single digits to 20 to 30% for brands on the joint stack, after they had spent years unable to make international work with prior providers.

"We've had brands that previously had no international orders, or single-digit international orders as part of their sales, see that number climb into the double digits, close to 20, 30% and up to 30%. Every business wants more sales. Everybody wants to expand their marketplace. But a lot of times you kind of max out on your domestic audience. Being able to go into other countries, other continents, other economic zones around the world, and sell your product without having to do anything differently, that's what this partnership delivers."

Brand-level volume doubled and tripled in the international channel post-launch.

"We've seen brands double, triple the volume that they were doing just based on having certain markets open that weren't possible before OpenBorder was in the picture."

Retention improved on international orders. With upfront duty and tax clarity at checkout, brands see repeat purchases instead of support tickets.

Referrals into the partnership continue. Hannah actively brings new Manifest brand merchants to OpenBorder because the discovery and solutioning style matches Manifest's own.

"The reason I love referring brands to OpenBorder is that they take a very similar approach to ours, which is to really understand what it is that the brand needs to scale. When I bring them in, I'm always impressed by the questions they ask and the solutions they're able to create based on what a brand actually needs. If our customers can scale, we can scale."

Looking ahead: commerce is going borderless

Both companies are building on a shared bet that international commerce is on its way to becoming the default, not the upside.

"Commerce is going borderless whether anyone's ready or not. The brands that win the next decade will be the ones whose operations were never the limit. That's why we're building with OpenBorder, infrastructure where a founder's ambition is the only constraint left. We started this company believing operational excellence becomes a moat. Watching our brands ship to customers on other continents flawlessly while their founders sleep, that's the proof."