The RFQ Process for Freight, Step by Step

A freight RFQ process (request for quote) is how you ask several carriers to price the same lane so you can compare them like-for-like and pick the best fit. Done well, it takes one focused afternoon and saves real money - when you send the same lane to five carriers you usually see a 15-30% spread on the quotes that come back. Done by email and spreadsheet, it eats two days, the quotes never line up, and you end up guessing.

This is the version that works for a small or mid-sized shipper who runs a handful of regular lanes and a few spot loads a month. No load board, no account-creation friction for your carriers, no 40-column tender template. Just a clean request, comparable answers, and a fast award.

What a freight RFQ is and why email-and-spreadsheet fails

A freight RFQ is a structured ask: "Here is a load (or a lane). Quote me an all-in price by a deadline." It is the core of any freight procurement process, whether you are pricing one spot shipment or running a small annual tender across ten lanes.

The email-and-spreadsheet method fails for predictable reasons:

• Every carrier answers in a different format. One quotes per km, one a flat all-in, one a base plus diesel surcharge plus a toll line. You can't compare them without re-typing everything.
• You forget what you sent. Three days later you can't remember if carrier C got the same weight and pallet count as carrier A.
• Quotes arrive at different times. The first answer anchors you, and by the time the cheapest one lands you've half-committed to someone else.
• Hidden charges surface after award. "All-in" turned out to exclude the waiting time, the second drop, or the ferry.

The fix is not a fancier tool. It is discipline at three points: send the identical request to everyone, force every answer into one all-in EUR/km view, and check the winning number against your own history before you commit.

Step 1: build your lane list

Start with what you actually ship. Pull the last three to six months of loads and group them into lanes - an origin region to a destination region, with a typical load profile.

For each lane, write down the facts a carrier needs to price it accurately:

Field	Example	Why it matters
Origin / destination	Vilnius (LT) → Hamburg (DE)	Defines the route and tolls
Distance	~1,180 km	Base for the EUR/km comparison
Equipment	Standard tautliner, 13.6 m	Wrong equipment = wrong price
Typical weight	18,000 kg	Drives whether it's a full or part load
Loading meters (LDM)	13.6 LDM (full) or 7.5 LDM (part)	The real capacity constraint
Pallets	33 EUR pallets	Sanity-check against LDM
Frequency	2-3 per week	Decides if it's tender-worthy or spot
Transit / deadline	Load Mon, deliver Wed (2 days)	Affects who can take it

If you are unsure whether a part load is priced by weight or by space, work out the loading meters first - that is usually what the carrier charges against. The loading-meters calculator converts pallet counts and dimensions into LDM so the number on your RFQ matches what the truck actually sells.

Tip: keep lanes you run weekly in one bucket (worth a small tender for a fixed rate) and occasional lanes in another (price these spot, each time).

Step 2: pick the carriers you already trust (not a marketplace)

UMERA is deliberately not a load board. The point of an RFQ is not to broadcast your freight to the open market and hope - it is to get competitive quotes from carriers you already know can run the lane. A marketplace gives you strangers and a race to the bottom on quality. A short list of trusted carriers gives you price competition and reliability.

For each lane, pick three to five carriers who:

• have run that lane or region for you before, or come recommended,
• have the right equipment and the right permits/ADR if needed,
• answer the phone when something goes wrong.

Three is the floor for a real comparison; five is plenty. More than that and you are creating work for carriers who won't win, which tires out the relationship.

You do not need them all on the same platform with logins. A good RFQ reaches the carrier where they already are - email, or a no-account magic link they can quote from in seconds without signing up for anything.

Step 3: send a clean, identical RFQ to each

This is the step that makes or breaks the whole process. Every carrier must receive the same request, the same facts, the same deadline. If carrier A is quoting 18 tonnes on 13.6 LDM and carrier B thinks it's 12 tonnes on 7 LDM, your comparison is meaningless.

A clean freight RFQ contains exactly this and nothing fuzzy:

1. Lane - origin and destination (postcodes if you have them).
2. Load - weight, loading meters, pallet count, stackable or not.
3. Equipment - the trailer type required.
4. Dates - load date, delivery deadline.
5. Special conditions - tail lift, ADR, temperature, multiple drops, customs.
6. What you want quoted - "an all-in EUR price including fuel and tolls" - so nobody hides a surcharge.
7. Deadline to respond - e.g. "by 16:00 today."

Send it to all of them at once, with the same deadline. A simultaneous deadline kills the anchoring problem - you open all the quotes together instead of reacting to whoever replied first.

Stop chasing quotes by email - run your next RFQ to your own carriers in 60 seconds.

Step 4: normalize every quote to one all-in EUR/km view

Quotes will come back in mixed shapes. Your job is to convert all of them into one comparable number: all-in EUR, and all-in EUR/km. This is the single most valuable habit in freight procurement.

For each quote, add every line that you will actually pay - base haulage, fuel surcharge, tolls, ferry, waiting-time allowance, second-drop fee - into one total. Then divide by the lane distance.

Worked example - Vilnius → Hamburg, ~1,180 km, 18,000 kg, 13.6 LDM full load:

Carrier	Base	Fuel surcharge	Tolls	Other	All-in EUR	EUR/km
Carrier A	€1,180	included	included	-	€1,180	€1.00
Carrier B	€980	€120	€85	-	€1,185	€1.00
Carrier C	€1,050	€90	€70	€40 (1 drop)	€1,250	€1.06
Carrier D	€1,320	included	included	-	€1,320	€1.12
Carrier E	€1,090	€110	included	-	€1,200	€1.02

Carrier A looked cheapest at first glance, but Carrier B lands at effectively the same all-in price once you've added their separate fuel and toll lines - the headline "€980" was misleading. The spread here is €1,180 to €1,320, about 12% on this lane, and on noisier lanes it is routinely wider.

To check whether the quotes themselves sit in a sensible band, run the lane through the freight-rate calculator and compare the indicative EUR/km against what your carriers sent. If every quote is well above the indication, you may have the wrong equipment spec or a bad season; if one is far below, ask what's excluded before you celebrate.

Step 5: check the price is fair (your own history)

A benchmark from a tool is a sanity check. Your own history is the real benchmark. You already know what this lane cost you last month and last quarter - that number is more honest than any market average because it reflects your actual loads, your actual carriers, your actual service level.

Keep a simple running record per lane:

Lane	Last paid (EUR/km)	This RFQ best (EUR/km)	Change
Vilnius → Hamburg	€1.04	€1.00	-4%
Kaunas → Rotterdam	€0.98	€1.07	+9%
Klaipėda → Warsaw	€1.10	€1.05	-5%

If the best quote is below your last paid rate, good - award it. If it is meaningfully above (the Kaunas → Rotterdam line, +9%), pause: is it the season, a capacity crunch, a fuel spike, or did your spec change? That context tells you whether to accept, re-send to one more carrier, or wait a day.

General information only - not customs, tax or legal advice. Cross-border lanes can carry duty, VAT and customs steps that sit outside the freight price; confirm those separately.

Step 6: award and keep the relationship

Awarding is more than picking the lowest EUR/km. Weigh it against the things that cost you real money when they go wrong:

• Reliability - on-time record on this lane.
• Communication - do they flag a delay before you have to chase?
• Capacity - can they cover you when volumes spike?
• Damage / claims history.

A carrier €0.02/km more expensive but who never leaves you stranded is usually the cheaper choice across a quarter.

When you award:

1. Tell the winner clearly - confirm the lane, the price, and the all-in terms in writing.
2. Tell the carriers who didn't win. A two-line "thanks, not this time, we'll be back next round" keeps them quoting seriously next time. Carriers who never hear back stop bothering, and your competitive set shrinks.
3. Log the award in your per-lane history so the next RFQ has a benchmark.

The point of doing this to your own carriers instead of an open marketplace is that every round strengthens the relationship. They learn your loads, you learn their reliability, and prices stay competitive because they know there are three others on the same request.

A worked timeline: from lane list to award in one afternoon

Here is how to run a freight tender for a single lane without it eating your week. This is a spot or small-tender pace; a full annual multi-lane tender stretches the same steps over a couple of weeks.

Time	Action	Output
13:00	Pull the lane facts (Step 1)	One clean lane sheet
13:15	Pick 4 trusted carriers (Step 2)	Short list
13:30	Send the identical RFQ, deadline 16:00 (Step 3)	4 requests out
13:30-16:00	Carry on with other work	Quotes arrive
16:00	Open all quotes, normalize to all-in EUR/km (Step 4)	One comparison table
16:15	Check best against your history + a rate indication (Step 5)	Fair / not fair
16:30	Award winner, notify the rest, log it (Step 6)	Lane booked, record updated

Three and a half hours, mostly hands-off while the quotes come in. The discipline - identical request, all-in normalization, your-own-history check - is what turns a chaotic email thread into a repeatable request for quote routine you can run every week.

FAQ

How many carriers should I include in a freight RFQ?

Three to five. Three is the minimum for a meaningful comparison; five gives you a healthy spread without creating wasted work for carriers who won't win. Beyond five you risk tiring out good carriers who keep quoting and never get awarded.

What's the difference between an RFQ and an RFP in logistics?

An RFQ (request for quote) asks for a price on a defined load or lane - the spec is fixed, you just want the number. An RFP (request for proposal) is broader: you describe a need and ask carriers to propose how they'd solve it, including service design, not just price. For day-to-day freight buying, you almost always want an RFQ.

How do I compare quotes that use different surcharge structures?

Normalize everything to one all-in EUR total, then divide by the lane distance for an EUR/km figure. Add every line you'll actually pay - base, fuel surcharge, tolls, ferry, waiting time, extra drops - into a single number per carrier. That all-in EUR/km is the only fair basis for comparison.

Is UMERA a freight marketplace or load board?

No. UMERA is not a load board or freight exchange. You run an RFQ to your own trusted carriers, who quote via a no-account magic link without signing up for anything. The goal is price competition among carriers you already rely on, not broadcasting your freight to strangers.

How often should I re-run an RFQ on a regular lane?

For weekly lanes on a fixed rate, re-tender every quarter or when fuel/capacity shifts noticeably. For spot lanes, run a fresh RFQ each time - prices move week to week, and a quick four-carrier request keeps everyone honest.

What if every quote comes back higher than my last paid rate?

That usually signals a market or spec change, not a bad RFQ. Check whether it's seasonal capacity, a fuel spike, or a changed load profile. Run the lane through a rate indication to see if the whole band has moved, and if so, accept the new reality or wait a day or two before awarding.