Timing matters
The strongest position is before the general rate increase takes effect and before an auto-renewal clause resets your term. The weakest is the week your commitment lapses.
Home Services Carrier Contract Optimization
Contract optimization
Your carrier agreement is negotiable. Most shippers never test it.
Carrier pricing is built from a dozen moving parts — base discounts, earned-discount tiers, minimum charges, accessorial concessions and the annual general rate increase. Change any one in isolation and the carrier recovers it somewhere else. We read the whole agreement.
What gets reviewed
The levers inside a parcel agreement
A headline discount percentage tells you almost nothing on its own. These are the terms that decide what you actually pay.
| Term | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Base discount by service | Discounts differ by service level and weight break. A strong ground discount paired with a weak express discount can still leave you overpaying if your mix skews express. |
| Earned discount tiers | Incentives that scale with weekly or annual spend. If you've grown since signing and the tiers weren't reset, you're being paid at your old volume. |
| Minimum charge | The floor beneath every shipment. Heavy discounts on light packages are worthless if the minimum charge catches them all anyway. |
| Dimensional divisor | Often more valuable than a rate discount for anyone shipping low-density product. Moving from 139 to 166 reduces billable weight on every oversize parcel you ship. |
| Accessorial concessions | Additional handling, oversize, residential and delivery-area surcharges are separately negotiable and frequently left at published rates. |
| General rate increase | Announced annually and rarely uniform — surcharges typically rise faster than base rates. The published average is not what your mix will experience. |
| Term and volume commitment | What you've promised, what happens if you miss it, and how much flexibility you keep to move volume between carriers. |
The divisor point is the one most shippers miss. If you ship large, light boxes, a better dimensional divisor usually beats a bigger percentage discount — because it reduces the billable weight every surcharge is then calculated against.
Process
How a review runs
You send an invoice and the agreement
A recent carrier invoice — ideally a full billing period — plus your current pricing agreement. More history gives a sharper read, but one period is enough to start.
We profile your actual shipping
Service mix, weight and zone distribution, dimensional weight exposure, surcharge frequency and the share of spend that isn't transportation at all. Most shippers are surprised by the last number.
We benchmark against comparable volume
Your terms measured against what shippers with a similar profile are actually holding — not a published rate card, which nobody with volume pays.
You get a written scorecard
What you pay now, what the same volume should cost, which terms are the weakest, and what to ask for. Yours to keep whether or not you work with us.
Negotiate, or move the volume
Some shippers take the analysis back to their carrier and renegotiate directly. Others move volume into our group programs and get the rates without the conversation. Both are fine.
Worth knowing
Three things that change the outcome
Surcharges outpace base rates
Accessorial increases have consistently run ahead of base rate increases. A discount negotiated only on base rates erodes every year as the surcharge share of your invoice grows.
Your data is the leverage
Carriers price against what they know about your shipping. Walking in with your own profile — density, zones, surcharge frequency — changes what you can credibly ask for.
Find out what your agreement is really worth.
Send a recent invoice and your current pricing agreement. Written analysis back in one to two business days, no cost and no obligation.