Category · Carriers & onboarding
Carrier integration without an API: onboard from the rate sheet
Onboarding a carrier means turning the rate sheet it already emails you into a structured grid the engine can price — no API, no EDI project, no IT on the carrier side. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers, so a regional haulier with an Excel tariff becomes quotable exactly like a national network.
6 guides Updated
Most software in this market assumes carriers are connected. In road freight brokerage they usually are not: the regional hauliers that win you margin send a spreadsheet once a year and have no integration team. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers built on that reality — the unit of integration is the tariff, not the connection.
| Approach | Needs from the carrier | Typical setup |
|---|---|---|
| Carrier API | A public API and credentials | Developer project |
| EDI | An EDI partner and message mapping | Multi-party project |
| Rate grid build | The rate sheet it already sends | One mapping, done once |
To make a carrier quotable you need five things from its rate sheet: the zone definitions, the brackets (weight, pallets or linear metres), the minimum charge, the fuel surcharge basis, and the options it bills separately — tail lift, ADR, ad valorem insurance, timed delivery. Add the validity dates and the carrier is done.
Notice what is not on that list: an IT contact, a project sponsor, a test environment or a go-live date. Onboarding a carrier is a mapping exercise done once per tariff version, and it is reversible — if a carrier stops being competitive on a lane, you archive the grid instead of decommissioning an interface.
Once several carriers are onboarded, comparison becomes automatic: the engine prices the same shipment against every grid that covers the lane and ranks the results. The choice stays yours; the arithmetic does not.
Limits. This is pricing integration, not operational integration. Cargavo does not pull live tracking from carriers, does not update tariffs automatically, is not a freight exchange and does not source carriers for you. It prices the carriers you have already contracted, from 49 €/month, with 7 currencies from the Growth plan with a 14-day trial and no credit card.
In this category
- 01 Pillar guide
Carrier Integration for Freight Brokers: How to Onboard Any Carrier Into Your TMS
To integrate a carrier into a TMS you have three options: a real-time API connection, an EDI message exchange, or a rate grid built from the carrier’s tariff. APIs and EDI only work with large carriers that run their own IT — most regional road carriers offer neither. That is why grid-based integration is the standard for freight brokers: you take the carrier’s existing Excel or CSV rate sheet, enter it as a structured grid (weight-zone, per-pallet, linear-meter or hybrid), and the carrier becomes instantly quotable. In Cargavo this takes about an hour per carrier, needs nothing from the carrier’s side, and is included in every plan from €49 per month.
12 min read Read the guide
- 02
API vs EDI vs Rate Grid: Carrier Integration Compared
There are three ways to integrate a carrier: an API that answers one pricing or tracking question at a time, EDI that exchanges agreed business documents, and a rate grid that stores the carrier tariff you already negotiated. Only the rate grid works on every carrier, because it needs nothing from the carrier side. API and EDI need the carrier to have built something first.
12 min read Read the guide
- 03
How to Onboard a New Carrier From Their Rate Sheet, Without an API
Onboarding a carrier without an API means turning the tariff file they emailed you into a structured rate grid, so your engine prices their lanes automatically. In Cargavo, a TMS for freight brokers, that is one carrier record plus one grid per tariff — roughly two hours of entry per carrier. What takes days is not the software: it is getting the carrier to answer the questions their rate sheet leaves open.
12 min read Read the guide
- 04
How to Quote Regional Carriers That Have No API
Most regional and specialised road carriers have no rating API because building one would cost them real money to publish numbers they already email you once a year. You quote them from the tariff itself: the rate table, the conditions page and the surcharge annex, entered as a structured rate grid your own engine prices against.
12 min read Read the guide
- 05
How to Compare Multiple Carrier Rates on One Shipment
Multi-carrier rate comparison means pricing one shipment against every carrier tariff you already hold for that lane, then reading four numbers per carrier: buy price, sell price, margin in euros and transit time. No carrier is contacted and nothing is tendered. The comparison is only valid if each carrier’s own chargeable basis — kilos, pallets or linear metres — is derived from the same shipment description.
12 min read Read the guide
- 06
Carrier Onboarding Checklist for Freight Brokers
Onboarding a carrier means collecting nine things before you quote a single shipment: the operating licence, the liability insurance certificate, the rate sheet, the zone definition, the fuel surcharge rule, the priced options with their trigger thresholds, the announced transit times, the operational contacts, and the payment details. Miss one and you either cannot quote or you quote a price you cannot invoice.
12 min read Read the guide
Questions people ask about this topic
Can I use a TMS with carriers that have no API?
Yes. Cargavo onboards carriers from their rate sheets, so no API and no EDI is required on the carrier side. This is the normal case in road freight: regional hauliers rarely publish an API, and their tariffs still price perfectly once mapped to one of the 4 grid models.
What do I need from a carrier to start quoting it?
Five things from the rate sheet: zone definitions, the brackets (weight, pallet count or linear metres), the minimum charge, the fuel surcharge basis, and the separately billed options such as tail lift, ADR, ad valorem insurance and timed delivery. Validity dates complete the setup.
Does Cargavo connect to carriers by EDI?
No. Cargavo has no EDI and no carrier API today, and the guides here never promise otherwise. Integration happens through rate grid build, which is why onboarding a carrier is measured in about an hour of structured entry rather than weeks of project time.
How does multi-carrier comparison work without integrations?
Every onboarded carrier is a grid. For a given shipment the engine computes the buy price against each grid whose zones cover the lane, then ranks them. Because all carriers go through the same engine, the comparison is like-for-like: same taxable weight, same roundings, same option handling.
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