Freight Pricing Software Your Whole Network Follows
Freight pricing software turns a forwarder's margin rules into rules every quote follows. In Zavin, policy is set at four levels — company, country, branch, and customer — each with a baseline and “when this, then that” rules. Every quote is priced from the same policy, so one branch cannot quietly undercut another.
Pricing Policies is part of Zavin's Pricing & Quote Automation module. Zavin is the AI operating system for freight forwarders.
Last updated: October 2026
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- 4 levels
- Company, country, branch, and customer policy
- 34
- Shipment facts a pricing rule can test
- < 30 sec
- RFQ to sent quote, when rates are on file
- +6 pts
- Quote win rate pilot teams have seen
Where Freight Margin Leaks
In most forwarders, pricing policy lives in a manager's head and a shared spreadsheet. Each salesperson keeps their own markups. The Dubai branch prices Jebel Ali to Hamburg differently from the Karachi branch pricing the same lane for the same customer. Discounts get agreed on the phone and never written down.
Margin rarely disappears in one bad deal. It leaks one quote at a time, and by the time the monthly P&L shows it, nobody can say which rule was meant to apply or who decided to go below it.
Margin rarely disappears in one bad deal.
Freight Pricing Rules in Four Levels
Zavin stores pricing policy in layers. The most specific level that has a rule for the shipment wins:
Company — the baseline every quote starts from.
Country — adjustments for a market, such as a minimum for every US export.
Branch — the rules a branch manager owns for their desk.
Customer — terms agreed with one company or lead, which outrank everything above.
Guardrails Between the Levels
Within a level, you decide which rule takes priority with an optional seniority number; after that, the order of the list decides. Rules can carry start and end dates, so a peak-season surcharge or a tender rate expires on its own, and any rule can be switched off without being deleted.
One guardrail sits across the levels: a customer's margin can never go below the minimum of the branch that serves them. Sales can give a key account better terms, but not terms the branch has ruled out.
Rules Built on Real Freight Facts
A rule's conditions can test 34 facts about the shipment: mode, FCL or LCL, import or export, Incoterm, payment terms, free-hand or nominated cargo, the nominating agent, the customer, origin and destination country, port or airport, commodity, HS code, declared value, cargo-ready month, total cost, container count, TEU, equipment, chargeable or gross weight, CBM, weight or measure, and pricing tier.
That is what lets a policy say what a pricing manager actually means. Reefer is not priced like dry. Nominated cargo is not priced like free-hand. A 2,000 kg air shipment on chargeable weight is not priced like a 40-foot high cube.
- A margin percentage.
- A minimum margin per shipment, container, TEU, chargeable kilogram, or CBM.
- A “never below” floor.
- Different margins for different charge groups, such as freight versus destination charges.
- How quote options are ranked — cheapest, balanced, fastest, or most certain.
Worked Example: One Freight Lane, Four Pricing Levels
Take a 40-foot high cube from Jebel Ali to Hamburg. The company baseline is a 10% margin. The country policy for the UAE adds a minimum of USD 120 per container. The Dubai branch sets 8% for its sea exports, with a branch minimum of USD 100 per container. A long-standing customer has an agreed 6%.
Zavin applies the customer's 6%, because the customer level wins. The UAE minimum of USD 120 does not apply, because the branch level is more specific. But the branch minimum still holds, so on a low buy rate the quote lands at USD 100 of margin per container, not below it. On a nominated booking from the same customer, a separate rule for nominated cargo can apply instead. The quote shows which rule set the price, so the rep and the manager read the same answer.
| Level | Rule in this example | Does it price this quote? |
|---|---|---|
| Company | 10% margin | No — a more specific level has a rule |
| Country (UAE) | Minimum USD 120 per container | No — the branch level is more specific |
| Branch (Dubai) | 8% margin, minimum USD 100 per container | Its minimum still holds as a floor for the customer |
| Customer | 6% agreed margin | Yes — the most specific level wins |
Type a Rule Instead of Building a Formula
Admins can describe a rule in plain English — “Air exports from Dubai, 5%,” or “Reefer to Saudi Arabia, minimum USD 150 per container” — and Zavin turns the sentence into a draft rule they can read and edit. City names are matched to the right port or airport.
Anything Zavin cannot place is flagged, and the rule cannot be saved until it is resolved. Saving a rule always stays with a person.
Saving a rule always stays with a person.
Test a Rule Before You Trust It
Run any rule set against a sample shipment and see which rule applies and why, before a single customer sees a price. On a live quote, the pricing strip shows which rule set the price, and it warns the moment a rep's edit takes the margin below the minimum.
Because the same policy feeds automatic quotes, manually prepared quotes, re-pricing, and tariff templates, the answer the tester gives is the answer the customer gets.
A Floor That Protects Margin, and a Log That Explains It
When floor protection is switched on, a quote below the floor, or one whose margin cannot be verified, is held back from sending and goes to a manager for approval. Zavin never quietly rewrites the price; it stops the send and asks.
Every price change on a quote is logged with who made it, when, what changed, and why. Months later, when a customer disputes a rate or an auditor asks who approved a thin margin, the answer is on the quote.
Pricing That Learns From Your Own Deals
Zavin suggests margin changes with the evidence behind them, drawn from your own won and lost quotes. They stay suggestions until a person accepts them. Once a rule has 20 or more decided deals, you can see its win rate, and the same view works per customer.
When a customer's rules are working, copy them to a similar customer in one step. Pricing that improves is built from your own outcomes, not a generic benchmark.
Connected Modules
Pricing Policies is one module of the Zavin operating system — every module below works from the same data. See the full platform →
Freight Forwarding Pricing Strategy
The guide to margins, floors, and pricing levels this page puts into practice.
Pricing & Quote Automation
The quoting workflow every pricing rule feeds.
Rate Intelligence
The buy rates and tariff templates the policy marks up.
Enterprise Controls
Branch- and country-aware access control around who sets policy.
Reports & Analytics
Margin and win-rate reporting across branches and customers.
FAQs
Pricing Policies: Common Questions
How freight forwarders evaluate this module. Still have questions?
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