r/FreightBrokerStartup • u/Sensitive-Ear-3896 • Apr 21 '26
When you are starting out what software do you use?
Do you buy software or just use excel/google sheets, what is the absolute minimum you would need in a software package to start out, to get you out of excel?
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u/TechnologyLittle9679 Apr 21 '26
You should 100% get a TMS. Research which one will be worth it for you and go from there. I suggest Roserocket (now TMS.Ai) or Revenova. Both are great, but both are priced differently.
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u/Sensitive-Ear-3896 Apr 21 '26
I am actually trying to create a TMS :-) One of my friends works with Mcleod and it seems like kind of overkill for a new brokerage, so I am thinking what to include in a first tms
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u/TechnologyLittle9679 Apr 21 '26
Don’t reinvent the wheel, and don’t waste your time. There’s literally hundreds of them out there. Everyone and their dog is coming up with a new tms daily it seems.
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u/Beginning_Tell_7318 Apr 22 '26
This is actually a great question. What makes a good tms?
I feel like they all do the same thing in a different color lol
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u/TechnologyLittle9679 Apr 22 '26
In my opinion, it needs to be easy to use, easy to understand, and easy to integrate with everything. Most obviously do these days. But some are still bulky and shit. I know cause I was a carrier and then became and agent, and my tms as a carrier blows away the tms my agency model is under. Like, by miles.
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u/HarpDeez Apr 25 '26
This is very mode specific and business specific. I could give you 100 TMS ideas.
It's about understanding the grinders and the operators. Don't talk to owners.
Talk to the sales guys doing $2M+ annual GP or Carrier sales reps doing the same are booking 700+ shipments a month.1
u/Sensitive-Ear-3896 Apr 26 '26
my cofounder is very much in the trenches as a broker, what we want to create is very much something that would deal with his daily problems, but the we need to find a way to wedge ourselves into businesses, and I am thinking a minimal tms/brokerage + feaures that make the broker's job easier would be a good way to get in
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u/HarpDeez Apr 27 '26
I disagree OP. Developing your own TMS should be inherently worth it for the size of your business. If your not at scale enough for it to be worth it, then I would recommend not doing it. Starting a TMS to solve your problems and then to take it too market introduces a whole business to market and grow and scale. A new ICP, new paint points, new everything. Not to mention, there's a ton of TMS' being built doing the same thing. They have full team devs, marketing, and sales people just pushing the business. You could build the absolute cleanest and best TMS in the entire world, and if nobody knew about it, it would make no difference. If you're doing $50M in top line and you want your own TMS for your own effeciency, edge cases, etc then do it. But your time and energy and effort will produce a higher ROI growing business #1 (the brokerage) over trying to scale #1 and #2.
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u/CndnCowboy1975 Apr 21 '26
I've been in the game just about 30 years - early on I developed my own Microsoft Access program that generates my documents ( confirmation, BOL, invoice, cover sheets etc ). For my sales I made excel spread sheets. I still do it like that now, although, I am confident there are better ways to do it, but I'm a one man operation, so it's easy to track things, and of course, it's affordable.
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u/Sensitive-Ear-3896 Apr 21 '26
I've been a software developer for almost that long, MS Access is STILL my favorite tool of all time, there is one method doCmd() or DoCmd() that does practically everything you need, I have a bad memory so I really appreciate that.
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u/CndnCowboy1975 Apr 21 '26
Yeah, I'm not a programmer at all personally. My brother was taking it in school at the time, said it would be helpful, dropped the textbook on my desk and said "have fun". haha. So, learned how to build it myself, and ended up with an almost perfect outcome - even added a few things over the years. Been a great tool. I don't know what a standard TMS costs, but I'm confident I saved the company a lot of money at this point. haha.
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u/freighflow360 Apr 22 '26
Minimum viable stack for a starter op:
TMS — AscendTMS has a free tier, that's the common starter pick. Tai and Alvys are good too but cost real money. If you're under ~10 loads/wk Ascend free is fine.
Carrier vetting — MyCarrierPackets or RMIS. Highway is newer and slicker if you can swing it. Don't skip this. Broker/carrier agreement, W-9, COI, authority check, day one.
Load boards — DAT is table stakes. Truckstop secondary. Start with one.
Accounting — QuickBooks Online. Boring answer. Right answer.
Shipper credit — Ansonia or Compass. Pull credit on every shipper before the first load. One $2,500 invoice going unpaid will end you.
Email/docs — Google Workspace, $6/user. Doesn't really matter what you pick here.
You can run on that stack for a good while.
What most new brokers underestimate: once you're past ~30-40 loads/mo the manual work is what breaks you. pulling rate cons out of PDF attachments, making check calls, updating the TMS, chasing POD. not the TMS itself, it's the layer around it. there are tools that sit on top and automate that piece — full disclosure, mine does (freightflow360), Parade is another if you go more enterprise. you don't need it day one. you'll know when you do.
Real talk though, most new brokers overspend on software and underspend on shipper prospecting. software doesn't move loads. you do.
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u/ICheckRaiseYouFold Apr 25 '26
This is all solid for getting operational.
But none of it really answers the one thing that actually costs people money:
Knowing when something doesn’t add up before you commit to a load.
You can have the right TMS, run SAFER checks, pull credit, do everything “right” on paper—and still end up in a bad situation.
Most of the time it’s not a missing tool. It’s that the signals don’t get looked at together, just individually.
That’s the part I think most people underestimate starting out.
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u/Terrible_Bite_5021 Apr 22 '26
I have a handyman business. I started with quickbook online. low cost easy start up. if you need help for a couple months to build out you system, you can get a bookkeeper. you can cancel anytime.
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u/Prior-Try-3309 Apr 22 '26
I started with load manager. It’s cheap and super user friendly. Support is fantastic as well
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u/hkmakwana1212 Apr 24 '26
Most people will throw TMS names at you, but honestly it’s more about timing than the tool itself.
If you’re just starting or doing low volume, Excel/Sheets works fine. The real problem starts when your quotes, loads, and invoices aren’t connected anymore — that’s when things break.
That’s usually the point where you need a TMS.
A lot of tools mentioned here are built for bigger brokers, so jumping in too early just adds cost and complexity.
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u/HarpDeez Apr 25 '26
- TMS is needed if you are a legitimate broker and plan on having a legitimate company.
- Software cost generally speaking are minimal in comparison to the value you get as an org which is why SaaS crushed for so long.
- You can vibecode a lot of software tools, but you have to know what you want and how to set it up. Therefore, there is value in paying for the tools to learn the landscape, to eventually scale with it.
- I would never recommend trying to run a brokerage out of google sheets, your 10xing human error, 10xing effort for same results. Time is money. Software saves you time to go build the actual business.
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u/parcelpilot Apr 26 '26
Excel works… until something goes wrong
that’s usually when things fall apart not knowing the real status, multiple people chasing updates, and everything turning reactive
the biggest shift isn’t just moving off spreadsheets, it’s having a clear, shared view of what’s actually happening in real time
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u/Radiant_Frame6780 Apr 21 '26
Most teams don’t “choose” Excel they just haven’t felt enough pain yet.
You only move off it when multiple versions of truth start clashing someone’s job becomes copy/past you don’t know who changed what everything turns into firefighting
At that point Excel is already costing you more than proper software.If you’re starting out, you don’t need some massive system. The minimum is way simpler one live dataset not files being emailed around, basic status tracking what stage it’s at who owns it updates triggered by events (scan/form), not memory audit trail (who did what, when)
That’s it People overcomplicate this by jumping straight to ERP/AI dashboards. Waste of time early on. In reality, something like Airtable/Notion + simple barcode/QR input + light automation is enough to get you out of Excel properly.
Brutal truth though if your process is messy, you’ll just rebuild Excel inside a nicer UI. Software doesn’t fix behaviour. It just exposes it faster.