Buy-rates are where every freight movement begins. They establish the commercial foundation for decisions on routes, carriers, and service levels, influencing every operational decision that follows.
For procurement and contract teams, buy-rates define strategy. They determine how capacity is secured, how pricing decisions are made, and how customer commitments are met. But while rate data shapes how freight moves and how margins are made, rate selection remains one of the most time-consuming processes in logistics.
Global rate structures are complex and constantly changing. Even the best-negotiated contracts lose impact if the data behind them is slow to find, difficult to compare, or disconnected from day-to-day decision-making.
The pressure to move faster
Procurement in logistics is a race against time. Carrier rates change frequently, market conditions shift overnight, and available capacity can disappear within hours. Teams are expected to secure space, maintain margins, and deliver competitive pricing, often with limited time and incomplete information.
The challenge isn’t simply accessing data, it’s aligning timing, context, and confidence. Even when rates are stored in reliable systems, they’re often locked behind operational workflows, updated on different cycles, or visible only once a shipment or job is created.
The real barrier is the combination of fast-moving rates and slow-moving information. Procurement teams need to plan ahead, but most systems only surface rate data at the point of execution. By then, the opportunity to shape cost, service, or carrier choice has already narrowed.
Make your first shipment decision the right one
When rate data becomes visible only at the point of execution, teams across your business lose the ability to steer decisions earlier in the process. Information may exist, but it’s trapped in workflows built for delivery, not for strategy. This limits how quickly procurement and operations can respond to market shifts or carrier changes, and how effectively they can apply negotiated rates across the network.
The result is a structural disconnect. Procurement defines commercial intent, while planning and operations turn that intent into routing and carrier decisions. When systems only reveal rate data once shipments are already in motion, all teams lose visibility and influence at the stage where decisions have the greatest impact.
That delay carries through the entire process — even once a contract or spot rate is secured. The real challenge lies in applying that information when it matters most. This becomes almost impossible when rates are scattered across multiple sources, updated on different schedules, and often available too late to guide the next booking or negotiation.
When teams can’t access rates in time, opportunities aren’t just missed - they’re misaligned. Carrier selection becomes reactive, contract performance harder to measure, and the link between commercial intent and operational reality begins to break down.
CargoWise CarrierConnect: where rate selection meets rate certainty
Procurement and operational teams have always relied on accurate rate data to plan, compare, and commit with confidence. But as rate cycles shorten and carrier options expand, the way that data is accessed and applied needs to move faster too.
CargoWise CarrierConnect brings buy rate decisions forward in the process, giving procurement and contract teams earlier access to the information they need to plan and commit with confidence.
It brings together buy-rate data from CargoWise, CargoSphere, and Cargoguide in one place, allowing teams to search, refine, and compare rates across carriers, modes, and services in real time. Multiple display options, including detailed, like-for-like comparisons, make it easy to evaluate trade-offs between cost, service level, and transit time.
Each rate result is fully transparent, with clear charge groupings, terms, and, for ocean spot rates, related schedules. Teams can sort by total cost, transit time, carrier, or contract to identify the best fit for each shipment.
Once a rate is selected, CarrierConnect allows users to act immediately. The tool can be launched directly from the menu, and the chosen rate can be used to create to a new shipment, consol, booking with quote, one-off quote, or existing job. All relevant details are carried through automatically, reducing manual work, removing duplication, and ensuring that the decision made during rate comparison is accurately reflected in execution.
By making rate selection faster and more transparent, CarrierConnect gives forwarders the confidence to act early, select carriers strategically, and balance cost and service with greater precision.
Shaping the future of carrier decision intelligence
CarrierConnect is more than a rate comparison tool, it’s the foundation for integrated carrier intelligence that brings every decision factor into one single, trusted workspace. Today, it accelerates procurement decisions. Tomorrow, it will unify the elements that matter most for strategic planning and execution.
CarrierConnect is designed to evolve into a comprehensive decision platform, integrating the visibility and capabilities of carrier performance, sailing schedules, carrier contracts & allocations, carrier booking submission, CO2 emissions calculations and more.
This future vision ensures procurement and operations can weigh cost, capacity, performance, schedules, allocations, booking readiness, and environmental impact, and make the best carrier and route decision - fast.
CarrierConnect isn’t just for execution. By incorporating sell-rate visibility alongside buy-rate data, your company can leverage the platform at the quoting stage - delivering accurate, competitive quotes faster and with full confidence in margin control. This means smarter decisions from the very first customer interaction, aligning commercial intent with operational reality.
Every shipment starts with a rate. CargoWise CarrierConnect makes sure they start with the right one.
Find out how CarrierConnect gives forwarders faster access to accurate buy-rate information, enabling quicker decisions, fewer delays, and tighter alignment between planning and execution.