Category · Quoting & automation
Freight quote automation: from rate request to priced quote
Freight quote automation replaces spreadsheet lookups with software that prices a shipment directly from your own carrier rate grids and returns a sell price in seconds, margin already applied. Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers that quotes from 4 grid models, from 49 €/month. Prices are recalculated server-side; customers never see the buy rate.
6 guides Updated
Cargavo is a TMS for freight brokers, and this category covers the part of the job measured in minutes: answering a rate request. Quote automation means the tariff lookup, the carrier comparison and the margin calculation all happen in software instead of in a spreadsheet plus somebody's memory.
Three conditions have to be true before a quote can come out in seconds:
- Carrier tariffs exist as structured rate grids — weight_zone, pallet, mpl_bracket or hybrid_weight — instead of email attachments.
- The margin is a rule, not a habit: a percentage applied as p/(1-m), or a fixed amount per bracket.
- The request arrives in a shape software can read: a quoting screen for your team, or a self-service portal for your customers.
Once that is in place, the same engine answers an internal request and a customer request. Each quote is stored under a Q-YYYY-NNNN reference, the buy price and the margin stay in a private record the customer cannot read, and converting the quote to a shipment produces an S-YYYY-NNNN reference.
| Step | Manual quoting | Automated quoting |
|---|---|---|
| Find the tariff | Open the right file and tab | Automatic |
| Compare carriers | One file per carrier | All onboarded carriers at once |
| Apply the margin | From memory | Rule per customer |
| Evenings and weekends | Next business day | Customer portal, always on |
Limits. Automation here means computing from tariffs you already hold. Cargavo has no carrier API and no EDI connection, it is not a freight exchange and it does not find carriers for you. What it does is price every carrier you have onboarded, in 4 languages from 49 €/month, and in 7 currencies from the Growth plan with a 14-day trial and no credit card.
In this category
- 01 Pillar guide
Digital Freight Quoting: The Complete Guide to Automating Freight Quote Requests
Digital freight quoting replaces manual price lookups — Excel tabs, carrier emails, mental math — with software that turns your carrier rate grids into instant, margin-safe quotes. You (or your customer, through a self-service portal) enter origin, destination and shipment details; the software compares every configured carrier and returns a sell price in seconds, with your margin applied automatically on the server. A tool like Cargavo supports the four rate grid models used in road freight — weight-zone, per-pallet, linear-meter (LDM/MPL) brackets and hybrid — and starts at €49 per month, so a two-person brokerage can quote as fast as a large 3PL. This guide explains what digital quoting is, why speed wins loads, and how to digitize your quoting process step by step.
11 min read Read the guide
- 02
How to Turn an Excel Rate Sheet Into Instant Freight Quotes
To turn an Excel rate sheet into instant quotes, map the spreadsheet onto a structured rate grid so software reads it instead of a person. Six decisions do the work: grid model, zones, bracket bounds, taxable weight rules, margin rule, surcharges. Cargavo, a TMS for road freight brokers, covers the four road tariff models — weight_zone, pallet, mpl_bracket, hybrid_weight — from 49 €/month, with no carrier API or EDI.
11 min read Read the guide
- 03
Freight Quote Turnaround Time: From Hours to Seconds, Step by Step
Quote turnaround time is the delay between a customer’s request arriving and your priced answer leaving. In a manual brokerage it has two parts: touch time (reading the request, finding the rate sheet, computing chargeable weight, applying margin, writing the email) and queue time (the request sitting in an inbox). Automating the calculation removes the touch time; a self-service portal removes the queue. Both are needed to reach seconds.
10 min read Read the guide
- 04
Margin-Safe Freight Quoting: the Costs That Erase a Broker's Margin
Underquoting rarely comes from a wrong percentage. It comes from applying a correct percentage to an incomplete buy price: a tail lift nobody priced, waiting time at a closed warehouse, a fuel surcharge from last quarter’s index. This guide works through the costs that erase a margin, where the fuel surcharge belongs in the calculation, and how a floor margin protects small files. Cargavo, the TMS for freight brokers, applies those rules server-side on every quote, so nobody prices from memory.
10 min read Read the guide
- 05
What Information Do You Need to Quote a Road Freight Shipment?
Quoting a road freight shipment takes twelve pieces of information: pickup and delivery postcode with country, access conditions at both ends, gross weight, number of handling units, dimensions, stackability, loading meters, goods description and ADR status, declared value, service options such as tail lift, and the ready date. Each one drives a specific mechanism in the rate grid — zone, weight bracket, chargeable weight, surcharge or option — and each one missing is a re-invoice waiting to happen.
9 min read Read the guide
- 06
How to Handle a Quote Request With No Rate for the Lane
When a quote request lands on a lane no rate grid covers, the answer is not "we cannot quote that" — it is to accept the request as a structured record, price it by hand from a carrier email or a phone call, and send it back through the same quote flow as an automatic price. Cargavo, a TMS for freight brokers, calls this a manual quote request: it gets a Q-YYYY-NNNN reference, a validity date, a private buy price and margin, and converts to a shipment exactly like an engine-priced quote.
13 min read Read the guide
Questions people ask about this topic
How do I digitize freight quote requests?
Start with the tariffs, not the form. Enter each carrier rate sheet once as a structured grid, define one margin rule per customer, then open the request channel — an internal quoting screen or a customer portal. From that point every request is computed rather than looked up, and each quote gets a Q-YYYY-NNNN reference.
How long should it take to answer a freight quote request?
Seconds, once the tariffs are structured. Shippers usually ask several brokers at the same time and book the first credible answer, so turnaround measured in hours costs loads rather than margin. Automated quoting removes the queue: the answer takes the same time whether it is the first request of the day or the fortieth.
How do I quote a lane when I have no carrier rate for it?
Take the request anyway. In Cargavo a customer can submit a gridless quote request — origin, destination, weight, dimensions, options — which lands in the broker queue as a normal Q-YYYY-NNNN quote to price by hand. The rate is missing; the request should not be.
Do I need a carrier API to send instant quotes?
No. Instant quoting needs structured tariffs, not connectivity. Cargavo has no carrier API and no EDI: it prices from the Excel or CSV rate sheets your carriers already send you, which is why a regional haulier with no IT department can be quoted as fast as a national network.
Stop quoting by hand. Start winning freight.
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