Buyer's guide

How to choose freight quoting software.

Four kinds of tool, eight criteria and a six-step test for any demo.

Go to the six-step test See how Freightools quotes

Written by the Freightools team. We sell one of the tools discussed here, so no vendor is ranked or scored.

Shipper tools and forwarder tools are different products.

Many lists of quoting software put the two side by side. This guide is for forwarders and NVOCCs.

A shipper's quoting tool

It belongs to the company paying for the freight. It sends one request to several carriers or forwarders and compares the answers.

A forwarder's quoting tool

It belongs to the company selling the freight. It holds the buying rates and sends the customer one priced quote.

Check the vendor's screenshots.

If the user can see a buying rate, a selling rate and a margin, the tool is built for you.

Four kinds of quoting tool for forwarders.

Four kinds of freight quoting tool for forwarders
Kind of tool	What it is	Ask
A quote module in an operations system	The quote screen of your operations system. Its strength shows after yes.	How carrier rates get into it, and how much of that is typing.
A dedicated rate and quote tool	Built around the rate library: contract rates, surcharges and validity first.	What happens to a won quote, and whether anyone retypes it.
A rate marketplace with a quote screen	It brings carrier rates with it.	Which carriers, and where your own contract rates go.
An email or AI quoting assistant	It reads the request in the inbox and drafts the answer. Some send it.	Which rates it prices from, and who approves what goes out.

Eight criteria, in the order of the job.

The six-step test after them checks all eight on your files.

Where the rates come fromA quote is only as current as the rate library behind it.
Validity and surchargesA rate without its dates, its BAF and its THC is the wrong price.
Contract and spot in one searchYou should see which options are contract rates. A spot rate should be labeled as one.
A missing chargeA total that leaves out a local charge looks cheapest. The option should say a charge is missing.
Buying, selling and margin togetherA margin counted on buying differs from one counted on selling. Know which the tool shows.
Customer prices and markup rulesTwo customers on different terms should get two prices from one search, with nobody editing.
What your customer receivesCharges, validity and the way to say yes must be clear in an email on a phone.
What happens after yesWhatever is entered again after yes is where the errors come in.

Quote a real request: the six-step test.

Pick a rate request you answered last month and the rate sheet you priced it from. Choose an awkward one: LCL, air or a door delivery.

Hand over the rate sheetSend it exactly as the carrier sent it, and watch it load.You check: three lanes against the file, and a value it could not read.
Hand over the requestForward the email or paste its text.You check: what the tool read, and what it asked you to fill in.
Run the searchFind the option priced from your sheet. Then try a lane whose rate expires before the quote does, and one with a local charge missing.You check: the buying total, contract against spot, and whether each problem is flagged.
Set the priceAsk for buying beside selling, charge by charge. Change one selling price. Search again for a customer on different terms.You check: that the margin moves, and how it is counted.
Send the quote to yourselfSend two options to your own address and open the email on a phone.You check: the charges and the validity date, as your customer reads them.
Accept one optionThen ask to see the shipment, or the hand-off to your operations system.You check: whether a shipment now exists, and what you would still type.

Afterward, write two lists.

Note what you had to type, and what the tool got wrong without telling you. Let the second list decide: a hidden error reaches your customer.

How to judge AI quoting claims.

AI quoting software can mean three different jobs, and the risk differs in each.

Three jobs an AI can do in quoting, and what to ask about each
The AI	Ask
Reads a rate sheet or a request email	To see a value it could not read. It should be blank and marked.
Suggests a margin or a price	What the suggestion is based on, and whether anything is applied before you choose.
Sends a reply to the customer	Who approves each reply, and what happens to a request it misreads.

Then ask what any accuracy figure was measured on. Our own AI features, and what a person approves, are on AI in Freightools.

Where Freightools fits, and where it does not.

Of the four kinds above, Freightools is closest to the dedicated rate and quote tool. Booking a won quote also creates the shipment file.

In the pricing editor each charge line shows its selling value beside its buying value. The margin percentage is a markup on buying.

The quotation pricing editor for an ocean FCL quote, with buying and selling amounts for each charge line and the total buying, total selling and total margin at the top. — Product screenshot from the Help Center. Demo data.

Where Freightools fits for quoting, and where it does not
Subject	It fits when	It does not fit, or not yet, when
Rates	Your rates arrive as Excel, CSV, PDF, Word, an .eml email or pasted text.	You need rail rates loaded. Rate loading covers ocean, air and road.
Spot rates	You want contract and spot options in one search, with spot labeled SPOT RATE.	You expect pooled spot rates. They come from your own ocean carrier accounts.
AI Pricing Assistant	You want a margin suggested, and the price left to you.	You want a suggestion based on cost. It looks at won and lost quotes.
Acceptance	Your customer should accept or reject from a link, with no account needed.	You want the customer's click to book the freight. You confirm the booking.

The full workflow is on Freight Quoting. For the whole system, read the forwarding guide.

Questions about freight quoting software.

What is the best AI freight quoting software for a forwarder?

It depends on your own rates, so no list can name it. Judge an AI quoting tool on which rates it prices from, and whether it marks a value it could not read.

What does freight quoting software cost?

It depends on what the vendor counts: users, quotes or modules, plus onboarding. Freightools publishes its prices: Unlimited is $1,490 a month with up to 10 users. See Pricing.

Does quoting software replace the pricing team?

No. Someone still decides which rates to buy, what to sell them for, and when a customer is worth a thinner margin. The software takes over the retyping and the searching.

Run the same test on Freightools.

Send one rate sheet after you book. We load it on the call and quote a lane from it.

Book a demo See how Freightools quotes