Freight Quoting Software or a System Built for You?

Freight quoting tools solve different parts of the same job. Before you compare products, decide which part hurts most: finding rates, keeping the official record, getting requests out of the inbox, or running your own pricing rules from request to sent quote.

• Rate platforms store, find and share carrier and agent rates, and most now build quotes too.
• TMS quoting modules keep quotes next to bookings and invoices, in the system operations already use.
• Quote-workflow tools start at the incoming request and move it through rates, review and into the TMS.
• A system built for you runs your own quote flow, with your rules, on data you own.

Nexcade, one of the vendors below, publishes a similar four-part map. It sells one of these options and so do we, so treat both as maps, not verdicts.

Rate platforms put contracted and spot rates in one place, keep them current and let sales quote from them. Most have added quoting, booking and customer portals on top.

• Freightify describes itself as a rate management platform for procuring, managing and distributing spot and contract rates, with quotation and customer portal modules and a CargoWise integration.
• cargo.one combines air and ocean rate management, quoting and booking in one workspace, with TMS integrations that include CargoWise.
• Freightos offers forwarders multimodal rate management, instant quoting, sales portals and TMS integrations.
• Wisor presents itself as a layer on top of your TMS for rates, quotes and the sales pipeline, and says most teams are up and running within 48 hours.

They fit forwarders whose quotes are mostly standard lanes and modes, where speed comes from having the right rate in front of the pricer. What you give up is shape: the quote flow, approval steps and follow-up follow the product. You configure it; you do not redesign it.

Choose one when rates are the bottleneck and the rest of your process already works.

If operations already run on a TMS, it probably has a quoting module. CargoWise, for example, groups client rates, company tariffs, quotations, one-off quotes and autorating in its Tariffs and Rates module.

The strength is the record. A quote accepted in the TMS can become a booking without retyping, and finance sees the same numbers. The limit is the front end: the TMS keeps the quote, but someone still reads the email, finds the rates and fills in the form.

Choose it when you already run the TMS, your team knows it well, and one clean record matters more than speed at the inbox. It is also the system every other option has to connect to, so check integrations with it first.

These tools start where the work starts: the request. Nexcade reads the message and its attachments, gathers rates from the sources you choose, applies your pricing rules, holds the draft for review and writes the approved quote into your TMS. It keeps no rate database of its own and works with the sources you already have.

Quotiss is a lighter, sales-side tool: upload tariffs, add spot rates, send branded quotes, automate follow-up and track the team in its built-in CRM. It says an account can be set up in under an hour.

What you give up: your rules have to fit what the tool can configure, and you add one more product between the inbox and the TMS. Choose one when requests pile up in a shared inbox and your pricing logic is close to what most forwarders do.

This is what we do, so read this section with that in mind. We map how your quotes really flow, agree the ideal version with your team on a canvas, then build one system that runs it. You own the code and the data, and it runs in cloud accounts you control.

AJ Worldwide is our example. Its pricing team worked from three spreadsheets and a shared inbox. Since May 2026 it has worked in one pricing system: the shared inbox is connected, AI sorts every email and, on a click, reads a request into the quote form and lists what is missing. Contracted ocean, trucking and rail rates come from one catalogue, and approvals follow agreed rules.

• 14 pricers work every request in one system.
• Under five months from the first build to the team quoting in it.
• Every quote gets a follow-up date, and quotes nobody answers close as lost after a month.
• Three to four updates a week since go-live, adding tenders, export contracts, rail and the sales team.

What you give up is real. It takes months, not days. It needs someone on your side who owns the process and answers questions every week. And you pay for the build and for keeping it changing. It is the better choice when the way you price is part of how you win, and every product you tried needed workarounds.

Often. Our own pricing service page lists two of the points below as reasons we are not a fit. Buy a product if most of these are true:

Ask every vendor the same questions, us included, and test with your own requests rather than a prepared demo.

• Data: who owns the rates, quotes and customer history, and can we export all of it in a usable format at any time?
• Integrations: does it read from and write to our TMS and accounting software, and what happens when a sync fails?
• Rules: can we change margins, approvals and follow-up rules ourselves, or do we wait for your roadmap?
• Requests: show it handling five of our real requests, including a messy one and one with a missing rate.
• Exit: if we leave in two years, what do we take with us, and how long does it take?
• Owner: who on our side has to run it, and for how many hours a week?

Then follow the same path for every option on your list.