We analyze the effects of different coupling anisotropies in a spin-1/2 ladder on the electron spin resonance (ESR) shift. Combining a perturbative expression in the anisotropies with density matrix renormalization group computation of the short range correlations at finite temperature, we provide the full temperature and magnetic field evolution of the ESR paramagnetic shift. We show that for well chosen parameters the ESR shift can be in principle used to extract quantitatively the anisotropies and, as an example, discuss the material BPCB.