Tai TMS alternative for small freight brokers

Both vendors publish their prices, which makes this the rare comparison where nobody has to be taken at their word. Tai’s tier list on its own pricing page reads $995, $2,465, $4,595 and $7,925 per month, with Enterprise on request. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers priced at 49 €, 149 € and 399 € per month.

The structural difference matters more than the ratio. Tai meters staff logins and included shipments; Cargavo meters the organization. A brokerage that grows from four to nine people changes tier on Tai and stays put on Cargavo.

Tai is designed around live capacity. Its value comes from the connections: DAT, Truckstop, 123Loadboard, FedEx Freight, XPO, Estes, Old Dominion, Macropoint, Trucker Tools and FourKites are named on its own site, with no per-connection fee. Quote to covered load happens on one screen, and billing and carrier bill audit follow.

Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers designed around negotiated grids, because that is what a European road broker actually holds. Four grid models cover the road market: weight_zone (zones × weight brackets), pallet (price by pallet count × zone), mpl_bracket (linear-metre / LDM brackets) and hybrid_weight (a flat rate below a threshold, a rate above it). On top sit taxable weight with an LDM floor and a configurable volumetric ratio, configurable rounding, indexed fuel surcharge and options such as tail lift, ADR, ad valorem insurance and appointment booking.

From that one rebuilt grid, the engine produces two prices. The purchase price is what the carrier charges you. The sell price applies your margin rule per customer — percent, computed as p/(1-m), or absolute per bracket — and is calculated server-side. Your customer sees the sell price in a portal where your customers quote themselves, never the purchase price and never the margin.

This is the sentence most comparison pages hide, so here it is first: Cargavo ships zero carrier API or EDI connections today. It is not a roadmap tease and not a paid add-on — it does not exist. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers whose carriers work on contracted rates, not on live spot APIs.

Whether that is a deal-breaker depends entirely on how your carriers price:

• Your carriers send a negotiated rate sheet — an Excel or CSV grid, revised once or twice a year, sometimes with a fuel index. Nothing to integrate: rebuild it once and quote from it. This is the normal shape of European road brokerage.
• Your carriers quote live through a load board — DAT, Truckstop, 123Loadboard. Cargavo cannot read those. Tai can, and that is a genuine reason to choose Tai.
• Both — many brokers run contracted lanes plus spot. Cargavo handles the contracted half and leaves the spot half where it is.

Tai’s own pricing page states that direct carrier and load-board integrations are built in with no per-connection fees. That is a real advantage and we are not going to argue with it.

The honest answer depends on which market you buy capacity in, and Tai is explicit about the one it serves. Everything on its site is US-denominated and US-oriented: USD pricing, US load boards, US LTL carriers, a US sales phone number. Nothing there evidences EUR or multi-currency billing, nor a French, Spanish or German interface. A broker moving pallets from Lyon to Rotterdam has no DAT lane to read and no Old Dominion tariff to call — the connections that justify Tai’s price are connections to a market he never buys in. Cargavo bills in EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, CAD, MAD and PLN and runs in four languages, with quote references in the form Q-YYYY-NNNN and shipments as S-YYYY-NNNN.

Underneath that, the metering differs. Tai’s entry plan allows 2 staff logins; a six-person brokerage is already on a higher tier. Cargavo’s Starter plan carries 3 members, Growth 10 and Scale 30, and the price does not move with headcount inside a plan.

So does the buying motion. Tai’s site says: “Every brokerage runs differently. Meet with our team to review your workflows, business needs, and goals so we can help you find the right Tai TMS option.” That is a sound enterprise practice and a real cost in calendar time. Cargavo asks for an email address, gives you 14 days without a credit card, and expects you to rebuild a grid and quote a real lane on day one.