What each platform is
Freightools
Freightools is a modular commercial layer that sits above the forwarder’s existing TMS. Eight connected products share one rate library: Tari extracts carrier tariffs, contracts, PDFs, and spreadsheets into structured, source-linked data; Miles turns that library into margin-governed quotes across ocean, air, road, and rail; Instant Quote and the Digital Customer Portal put self-service quoting under the forwarder’s own brand. Commercial logic such as customer-specific margins, floors, tiers, and validity rules is configured and owned by the forwarder, and every AI output is designed for human review. Forwarders can adopt one module without replacing their operational software.
cargo.one + CargoFive
cargo.one is a carrier-connected multimodal platform. Following its 2026 acquisition of CargoFive, it combines a substantial air-freight pricing and booking network with CargoFive’s ocean contract digitization, rate management, and quotation capabilities. The combined company cites direct connections to 75 airlines and the top ten ocean carriers, ocean pricing across millions of trade lanes, rate ingestion, multimodal quoting, TMS synchronization, and AI agents that parse inbound requests from email, WhatsApp, or sales portals and turn them into margin-validated quotations.
Capability comparison
Statuses reflect each vendor's current public documentation, not a feature verdict: Publicly documented means the vendor describes the capability on its official site, Partially documented means the exact scope is unclear, and Confirm during evaluation means no reliable public documentation was found or implementation varies.
| Category | Freightools | cargo.one + CargoFive |
|---|---|---|
| Tariff ingestion | Publicly documented Tari extracts native PDFs, scanned PDFs, Excel and CSV rate sheets, and emailed attachments. Every extracted field links back to its source clause, and a human reviewer approves the record in a side-by-side view. | Publicly documented CargoFive built its product on digitizing ocean contracts from spreadsheets, PDFs, and emails. Public materials do not describe source-clause traceability or a formal human-verification step. |
| Rate management | Publicly documented A system of record for contracts, surcharges, validity windows, free time, and customer-specific markups. Every change is versioned, logged, and reversible, and any past quote can be reconstructed. | Partially documented Centralized rates and schedules with margin addition are documented from CargoFive. Versioning depth, surcharge governance, and how these features carry into the combined platform are not publicly detailed. |
| Rate procurement | Partially documented Spot Rate Search aggregates ocean, air, and road benchmarks, with carrier-fed spot APIs where available. Freightools does not publish a direct-carrier connectivity count; source coverage is reviewed per trade lane during evaluation. | Publicly documented The combined company cites direct connections to 75 airlines and the top ten ocean carriers, ocean pricing across millions of trade lanes, and real-time rate inventory. |
| Modes | Publicly documented Ocean FCL and LCL, air, road, and rail quoting from one tariff library and one margin rulebook in Miles. | Partially documented Air and ocean are documented in depth, and the combined company cites multimodal quoting. Road, rail, and door-to-door coverage are not itemized in the public materials reviewed. |
| Quotation workflow | Publicly documented Miles builds all-in quotes in seconds from email, portal, or sales-floor inquiries. Below-floor prices require manager approval. Quotes go out as branded PDFs, email replies, or portal responses, and each one stores the inputs used to build it. | Publicly documented AI agents parse requests from email, WhatsApp, or sales portals, retrieve rates, apply pricing rules, validate margins, and produce quotations. Multimodal quoting is documented. |
| Commercial governance | Publicly documented Margin floors by lane, customer, and trade. Manager overrides are logged with a reason. Rules have owners and expiry dates, and conflicting rules are surfaced for explicit resolution rather than silently resolved. | Partially documented Pricing rules and margin validation are described within the AI quoting workflow. Margin floors, override approvals, and audit history are not publicly detailed. |
| Customer experience | Publicly documented A white-label portal on the forwarder’s own domain with self-service quoting, booking status, and document access. Per-customer entitlements control which lanes, modes, and tiers can self-quote. | Confirm during evaluation Sales portals appear as an inbound request channel in the documented AI workflow. White-label branding, customer document access, and self-service depth were not found in public documentation; confirm during evaluation. |
| Execution | Publicly documented Accepted quotes create pre-filled booking requests in the forwarder’s operations queue and can be pushed to the existing TMS. Freightools does not publish a direct carrier eBooking network; execution hands off to your own operations workflow. | Publicly documented Air and ocean eBooking against live carrier capacity is a core, publicly documented strength of the platform. |
| Integration | Publicly documented Quotes export, email, or push into the existing TMS. Spot rates ingest via carrier or aggregator APIs. The platform is built to feed the forwarder’s current systems, not replace them. | Partially documented TMS synchronization is documented, alongside direct carrier connections. The full API surface and file-based integration options are not itemized publicly. |
| Security | Publicly documented Workspace data is private to each organization, and carrier data is never shared across customers. Freightools states plainly that it does not currently claim third-party security certifications; request its security documentation during procurement. | Confirm during evaluation Certifications, SSO, audit logs, and access controls were not covered in the public materials reviewed for this comparison. Request security documentation from the vendor during procurement. |
| Deployment | Publicly documented A modular overlay above the existing TMS. Forwarders can adopt a single module, such as Tari or Miles, without a platform migration, and add others later. | Publicly documented A carrier-connected air and ocean platform. Its value concentrates in adopting the network and booking infrastructure. CargoFive’s ocean capabilities are being integrated following the 2026 acquisition. |
| Best-fit customer | Publicly documented Forwarders that want to turn private tariffs and commercial rules into a governed AI quoting layer and a branded customer experience while keeping their current TMS. | Publicly documented Forwarders whose primary requirement is extensive direct airline and ocean-carrier connectivity, live capacity, and eBooking. Large-enterprise adoption is publicly documented. |
Where each is strong
Where Freightools is strong
- Source-clause traceability: every value Tari extracts links back to the clause it came from, so operations reviews a side-by-side instead of re-keying, and finance can trace any number to the page it came from.
- Commercial governance the forwarder owns: margin floors by lane, customer, and trade, logged manager overrides, rule owners and expiry dates, and explicit conflict resolution.
- Quote reconstruction: every Miles quote stores the inputs and carrier records used, so any price can be defended months later.
- White-label customer ownership: Instant Quote and the Digital Customer Portal run on the forwarder’s domain and brand, with no marketplace between forwarder and shipper.
- Modular deployment: adopt one module at a time above the existing TMS, with no operational migration required.
- One engine across ocean FCL and LCL, air, road, and rail, applying the same tariff library and margin rules to every mode.
Where cargo.one and CargoFive are strong
- Direct carrier connectivity: the combined company cites direct connections to 75 airlines and the top ten ocean carriers.
- Real-time rate inventory, with ocean pricing across millions of trade lanes.
- Air and ocean eBooking against live capacity, so users can move from rate search to booking on one platform.
- An AI workflow that parses requests from email, WhatsApp, or sales portals, retrieves rates, applies pricing rules, validates margins, and produces quotations.
- CargoFive’s ocean heritage: contract digitization from spreadsheets, PDFs, and emails, shipping-line connections, centralized rates and schedules, and automated quotation generation.
- Procurement infrastructure and publicly documented large-enterprise adoption.
Which one fits your operation?
Choose Freightools when
- Your central requirement is turning your private tariffs and commercial rules into a governed AI quotation layer under your own brand.
- Auditability matters: you need source-linked extraction, versioned pricing rules, logged overrides, and the ability to reconstruct any quote.
- You want to keep your existing TMS and modernize pricing, quoting, and customer experience module by module.
- You do not want a carrier marketplace or booking network sitting between your brand and your shippers.
cargo.one + CargoFive may be stronger when
- Your primary requirement is extensive direct airline and ocean-carrier connectivity with live capacity.
- You want rate search, quotation, and eBooking on a single carrier-connected platform.
- Real-time spot inventory across air and ocean at network scale matters more to you than governance over private contract rates.
- Your inbound demand arrives over channels like email and WhatsApp, and you want AI agents quoting from live network rates.
Frequently asked questions
- Are cargo.one and CargoFive still separate companies?
- No. cargo.one agreed to acquire CargoFive on February 25, 2026 and announced the transaction on March 2, 2026. CargoFive’s ocean contract and rate-management capabilities are being integrated into cargo.one’s air and ocean platform. If you are evaluating CargoFive specifically, ask how its ocean features carry into the combined product.
- Does either platform require replacing our TMS?
- Freightools is explicitly built to coexist with your TMS. It is a modular pricing and quotation layer, and quotes export or push into your current system. cargo.one documents TMS synchronization as part of its platform. In both cases, confirm the depth of the integration with your specific TMS during evaluation.
- Which platform has broader direct carrier connectivity?
- Based on public documentation, cargo.one. The combined company cites direct connections to 75 airlines and the top ten ocean carriers, with real-time rate inventory. Freightools describes spot-data ingestion more generally: it benchmarks market rates alongside your own contract rates and does not publish a comparable connectivity count.
- Does Freightools hold third-party security certifications?
- Not currently, and Freightools says so on its own security page rather than implying otherwise. Workspace data is private to each organization, and carrier data is never shared across customers. The public materials reviewed for this comparison did not cover cargo.one’s security certifications either. Ask both vendors for current security documentation during procurement.
Research date: August 4, 2026. Public product documentation and announced integrations from both companies, reviewed on August 4, 2026. Statuses describe evidence quality, not capability verdicts: documented means the vendor publicly describes the capability, partial means some functionality is described but the scope is unclear, and confirm means no reliable public documentation was found. Absence of documentation is never presented as absence of the capability.
- March 2, 2026: cargo.one announced its acquisition of CargoFive, agreed on February 25, 2026. CargoFive’s ocean-rate capabilities are being integrated into cargo.one’s air and ocean platform. This page treats the two brands as one company.
Judge the workflow on your own tariffs
Book a demo and bring one carrier tariff PDF. We will extract it live, apply your margin rules, and produce a governed quote, so you can evaluate Freightools against your real agreements instead of a canned dataset.