Manual Quoting Costs You Freight

60% of freight brokers say they lose out on loads because they can't quote fast enough. It’s not because they’re bad at selling freight. It’s because they’re buried in emails, spreadsheets, and rate sheets, trying to get a quote out the door.

In an industry where the fastest response often wins the load, quoting delays don't just hurt your win rate - they crush your margins.

Why Freight Quoting Is Broken

Here’s what quoting still looks like for many 3PLs and freight brokers:

• Shuffling through carrier rate sheets in Excel
• Copy-pasting addresses from email RFQs to a TMS
• Manually calculating linehaul, fuel surcharge, and accessorials
• Emailing or calling carriers to confirm spot rates

It’s slow. It’s manual. And it doesn’t scale.

When a customer sends a lane request, they’re not waiting hours - they’re shopping. Every moment you spend processing that quote is a moment your competitor might close the deal.

What the Data Says: Speed Wins Freight

According to a McKinsey report, the freight industry spends over $23 billion annually on quoting and bidding activities. Yet, 70% of those quotes fall through because responses are too late or inaccurate.

For LTL and FTL brokers, the window to quote on a new shipment is tight - often under 30 minutes. Spot quote success rates drop by 35% when response times exceed one hour.

Even enterprise shippers expect sub-hour turnaround now. In retail, 3PL partners are asked to respond within 15 minutes for time-sensitive, high-volume SKU moves.

In short: quoting is now a speed game. And slow quoting keeps brokers from hitting revenue targets.

The Solution: Automate the Quote Stack

Winning more loads starts with making your quote process smarter - and faster. Here's what a modern quoting operation includes:

1. Smart Data Extraction: Automatically pull origin, destination, weight, and equipment type from emailed RFQs or customer portals.

2. Rate Intelligence: Instantly surface historical and current market rates via carrier APIs, DAT, or internal rate indices.

3. Pricing Automation: Apply your company’s margin rules, accessorial logic, and fuel surcharge formulas digitally - no manual work.

4. Instant Response: Deliver quotes via email or TMS portals in minutes, not hours.

When quoting becomes a 2-minute task instead of a 2-hour one, your ops team shifts from firefighting to winning business.

Where Debales.ai Fits In

Debales.ai helps freight brokers and 3PL providers automate their front office quoting workflows. Using AI, we extract shipment details from emails, BOLs, or spreadsheets without manual entry. Then we overlay your rate rules, connect to carrier APIs, and generate a quote you can send directly or push to your TMS.

One freight brokerage cut average quote time from 42 minutes to under 5, boosting their load acceptance by 28% in just two months. That’s margin recovery, and it compounds fast.

What Logistics Teams Can Do Now

If you're a logistics manager or broker leader, here are five actions to take:

• Audit your quote cycle time. Time how long it takes from RFQ receipt to quote sent.
• Map your quoting process. Identify which parts are manual vs automated.
• Get carrier rate APIs. If your carriers support it, start ingesting digital rates in real time.
• Standardize your margin logic. Codify pricing rules so they can be systemized.
• Test AI quoting tools. Even one saved quote per day can mean $10K+ per month.

Start with one lane type - LTL, volume partials, or short-haul FTL - and build automation around the high-volume, repeatable work.

Fast Quotes Close Deals

Too many loads get lost in inboxes because teams are still quoting like it’s 2006. Spreadsheets and siloed rate sheets can’t keep up with today’s freight velocity.

The good news? You don’t need to overhaul your entire TMS or pricing model to speed up. Just layer automation at quote entry, rate sourcing, and pricing - and watch win rates climb.

Quoting is how you win the freight. Fast quoting is how you win it profitably.