Your freight rates have drifted. We'll show you how far.
Rate benchmarking and supply chain reviews that find the money your freight is quietly costing you. The commercial precision of an in-house logistics team, without the cost of building one.
One of your biggest costs. Rarely checked like one.
Outside cost of goods and payroll, freight is often one of the largest lines on the P&L. The people who run it aren't pricing specialists, and the people who could scrutinise it can't see the market. That gap is where money leaks.
Rate complexity
Forwarders negotiate hundreds of contracts a year. You negotiate yours every year or two, if at all. Without benchmark data, there's no way to tell 5% over market from 30%.
Rate drift
Surcharges, fuel adjustments, peak levies and annual GRIs pile up. A rate that was competitive in year one is often 10 to 15% adrift by year three.
Incoterms chosen by habit
Terms set by default can leave you paying for freight, insurance or customs risk that should sit with your supplier.
No specialist in-house
Freight procurement is a fraction of someone's job, squeezed between other priorities. So benchmarking never actually happens.
Growth outpacing process
A brand that grows from £1m to £10m in freight spend in three years is often still on the deals it made in year one, with far more buying power going unused.
Lanes set up in a hurry
New markets and suppliers go with whoever onboards fastest, locking in cost that's expensive to unpick.
A volatile market
Rate swings, tariff changes and capacity crunches make freight hard to forecast. Most businesses end up reacting to invoices instead of tracking the market.
Recognise two or more of these? Your rates are worth a second look.
Book a callBuilt for growing, mid-market UK brands.
Businesses where freight is a significant cost, but nobody in-house does freight procurement full-time.
- Never benchmarked
You're paying what you were quoted, with no independent way to check it against the market.
- Outgrown your freight deals
Your volumes and buying power have gone up, but your rates were agreed when you were much smaller.
- Entering a new market
A new country, supplier or fulfilment route that you want set up properly from day one.
What could a benchmark find?
Move the slider to your annual freight spend. The range uses the 8 to 18% FreightSpend typically finds on reviewed spend.
The real number depends on your lanes, modes and contracts. That's what the first call is for.
Indicative only, based on the 8 to 18% range found on reviewed spend. Not a quote or a guarantee.
Talk it through with TimFour ways we cut freight cost
Market rate data, supply chain audit expertise and hands-on delivery, so savings are realised, not just reported.
All services
Freight Rate Benchmarking & Savings Projects
Your forwarder and carrier rates checked against the market, lane by lane. Overspend found, leverage built.
02Incoterm & International Supply Chain Reviews
Who carries cost and risk at each stage of your supply chain. Structural savings, and less exposure.
03New Freight Lane Setup
New market, supplier or fulfilment route? The right carrier, Incoterm and paperwork from day one.
04Ad Hoc Consultancy
A specialist on call for RFQs, tenders, contract renewals and one-off logistics decisions.
From first call to lower invoices.
Four steps, run alongside your day-to-day shipping.
- A call with Tim
Your lanes, modes, partners and contracts, and when your rates were last reviewed.
- Your data
Rate cards, recent invoices and contracts. We do the analysis, so your team doesn't have to.
- The benchmark
Your rates checked lane by lane against market data, surcharges included, with a clear view of where the money goes.
- The saving, realised
Renegotiate with your current partners or go to tender, with hands-on support until the new rates are in place.
“Freight is often one of the largest line items on the P&L outside of COGS and payroll. Yet it's frequently the least scrutinised.”Tim Powell, Founder, FreightSpend Consulting
Fixing it takes three things at once.
Reading rate cards, weighing modal trade-offs, structuring RFQs. A specialist discipline.
Independent rate data to benchmark against, not your forwarder's view of the market.
A proper project, run without disrupting day-to-day shipping.
A full-time freight procurement hire is hard to justify below a certain spend, and a side project in a stretched ops or finance role never gets prioritised. That's the gap FreightSpend fills.
Turning freight into a source of margin.
FreightSpend Consulting is a UK freight and logistics consultancy founded by Tim Powell. We help ambitious brands take control of their freight spend, with the rate benchmarking, supply chain expertise and commercial precision of an in-house logistics function.
We work in partnership with clients to turn freight from an unmanaged cost line into measurable, lasting margin improvement.
More about FreightSpend- 15+ yearsSenior freight and supply chain leadership
- COVID-19 disruptionCapacity crunches and sharp rate swings
- BrexitA new customs reality for UK importers and exporters
- Tariffs and instabilityA market that keeps moving
Questions we get asked.
No. FreightSpend is an independent consultancy. We don't move freight, so our view of your rates isn't tied to any carrier or forwarder.
On reviewed spend, FreightSpend typically finds savings of 8 to 18%. The real figure depends on your lanes, modes and contracts. A first call is the quickest way to get a sense of it.
No. The point is to bring the specialist time and market data your team doesn't have, so the work gets done without pulling people off day-to-day operations.
Not necessarily. The benchmark gives you the evidence to renegotiate with your current partners or to go to tender. Which route makes sense depends on what the data shows.
Your whole multimodal profile: road (LTL and FTL), ocean and air, plus the Incoterms and customs setup around them.
Growing, mid-market UK brands where freight is a significant cost but there's no full-time freight procurement specialist in-house.
Find out what you should be paying.
Book a call with Tim to talk through your lanes, partners and contracts, and where the savings are likely to sit.