How do you build a freight quote?

Why is a freight quote more than the carrier rate?

The carrier ocean freight is often the easiest part. The hard part is making sure the rate applies to the shipment in front of you.

A rate can look good in a spreadsheet and still be wrong. It may be expired. It may be valid only for a certain date range, customer, commodity, equipment type, carrier, service or port pair.

It may exclude PSS, GRI, chassis, documentation, applicable AMS or ISF filing fees, handling, pickup, delivery, customs clearance, or destination charges. Sometimes one line in an email changes everything. Sometimes a note at the bottom of a PDF says a surcharge applies from a certain date.

Miss it and you can send a quote that looks profitable when the margin was never there.

What should you ask before quoting?

Understand the shipment before you touch a rate. A customer email that says "Please quote one 40HC from Shanghai to New York" leaves most of the quote undefined.

• Service scope: port to port, door to port, or door to door?
• Mode: FCL, LCL or air?
• Incoterms: who controls the freight, and which charges are yours to quote?
• Timing: is the cargo ready now or next month?
• Commodity: what is it, and is it hazardous?
• Equipment: 40HC, 40GP or reefer? A 20GP and a 40HC are not interchangeable. Different equipment means different ocean freight, chassis cost, drayage cost and availability.
• Weight: any overweight concerns?
• Pickup or delivery: full address or ZIP code, cargo weight, pallet count, and whether it needs a liftgate, an appointment, residential delivery or has limited access.

What charges go into an ocean freight quote?

Not every quote includes every item, but every item needs to be considered.

• Origin: pickup, origin handling, export documentation
• Main leg: ocean freight and carrier surcharges (BAF, PSS, GRI and others)
• U.S. import and filing charges: ISF filing, applicable AMS filing, and related documentation charges, depending on your service scope
• Destination: terminal and delivery-order fees, customs clearance, duty disbursement, drayage, chassis, pre-pull
• Risk items: demurrage, detention, and sometimes warehousing or transloading

Worked example: one 40HC from Shanghai to a New Jersey warehouse

One missed surcharge can turn a profitable quote into a loss. Here is how, on a single container.

The figures below are illustrative. The method matters more than the numbers.

This example assumes a port-to-door U.S. import quote and excludes duty, taxes, customs exams, storage, demurrage, detention, and other charges not known at the time of quoting.

Now suppose the carrier's rate sheet carried a footnote: a PSS of $800 per 40HC applies to sailings from October 1. The cargo sails October 3.

The true cost is $11,105, and the $745 margin is actually a $55 loss. The quote looked fine. The margin was never there.

What is the difference between a carrier rate and a selling rate?

A carrier rate is one part of your cost. A selling rate is what you charge the customer for the whole service, including every other charge and your margin.

Confusing the two is one of the most common mistakes new pricing people make. A customer should never receive a quote they believe is all-inclusive while you assume a few charges will be added later.

What should a quote say is excluded or subject to change?

Anything the customer could reasonably assume is included, but is not.

If a rate is valid only until a certain date, show the validity. If an item is subject to change, say so. If customs duties, exams, storage, demurrage, detention or accessorial charges are excluded, make that clear.

The goal is not to hide potential costs. It is to make sure the customer understands the commercial terms before the shipment moves.

Why do two experienced pricing people quote the same shipment differently?

Usually not because one knows more freight. Because the information is scattered.

One rate is in a carrier PDF. Another is in an email from a colleague. Local charges are in an old spreadsheet.

The customer's usual terms are in someone's inbox. The person who knows the lane best is out of the office.

So one person remembers the carrier's surcharge and the other does not. One includes destination handling and the other assumes it is collect. One uses this month's tariff and the other uses last month's.

That is a workflow and visibility problem, and it gets worse as the team grows.

Speed makes it worse. Salespeople and customers need quotes quickly, but speed without structure creates rework: a missing charge, an expired rate, the wrong equipment. Then someone revises the quote, explains the change to the customer, and possibly absorbs a cost that should have been included.

What should you check before sending any quote?

Run through this list every time, even when the request looks simple.

• Confirm the routing and service scope
• Confirm equipment and cargo details
• Check rate validity and conditions, including footnotes
• Identify all relevant charges
• Confirm the currency and unit of measure
• Check what is included and excluded
• Apply margin to the full cost, not the carrier rate
• Make the quote easy for the customer to understand
• Save the information so the team can find it again

What happens after the quote?

A quote that wins the business should not mean the next person starts from zero when a similar request arrives. You should be able to see what was quoted before, which carrier or vendor was used, what terms were offered, and whether it worked.

Over time, that becomes valuable commercial knowledge.

A forwarder can have good rates and still lose business if the quote process is slow, inconsistent or dependent on one person. The job of a pricing person is not only to find the lowest rate. It is to protect the company from sending the wrong quote and to help sales win business with confidence.

In freight, details matter. The quote is where those details become a commitment.