For years, many shippers relied on a relatively straightforward formula to forecast freight costs. Historical spend, contracted rates, and projected volume were usually enough to plan budgets and manage expectations.
That approach no longer holds.
Today, freight costs are increasingly volatile, harder to explain, and even harder to predict. Shippers often see invoices come in higher than expected, margins erode quietly, and forecasts miss the mark, even when shipment volume has not changed dramatically.
So what's changed?
Freight volatility used to be tied to obvious market events such as fuel spikes, peak season, or major disruptions. Now, volatility is part of everyday shipping operations.
Carriers adjust pricing more frequently, accessorials are applied more aggressively, and small shipment variances can trigger cost changes. The result is a cost environment where the final freight charge often looks very different from the original estimate.
This makes it difficult for shippers to answer basic questions:
Why did this shipment cost more than expected?
Is this an isolated issue or a recurring pattern?
Are higher costs driven by operations, contracts, or carrier behavior?
Without clear answers, forecasting becomes guesswork.
Accessorial charges have always existed, but their impact has grown significantly.
Common accessorials such as liftgate fees, residential delivery, limited access, detention, reweighs, and dimensional adjustments now account for a larger percentage of total freight spend than many organizations realize.
The challenge is not just that accessorials exist. It is that they are often applied after delivery, inconsistent across carriers, difficult to predict upfront, and poorly tracked over time.
When accessorials are treated as unavoidable extras rather than measurable cost drivers, they quietly undermine freight budgets and distort forecasts.
Another major contributor to unpredictability is rerating.
Shipments are frequently rerated after delivery due to incorrect weight or dimensions, accessorials added post-shipment, carrier audits, or data mismatches between systems.
In many shipping operations, 30 to 40 percent of shipments experience some form of rerate. Each adjustment widens the gap between expected and actual spend and adds friction between operations, finance, and carriers.
The bigger issue is that many organizations do not measure how often rerates occur or how much they add to total freight costs.
Carrier performance and pricing behavior have also become more variable.
Two carriers with similar base rates can produce very different total costs once real-world behavior is factored in. This includes how frequently accessorials are applied, billing accuracy, willingness to resolve disputes, and on-time delivery performance.
Without visibility into these patterns, shippers may assume higher costs are market-driven when they are actually tied to specific carriers or lanes.
Freight data often lives across multiple systems such as rating tools, carrier portals, invoices, spreadsheets, and ERP platforms.
When data is fragmented or inconsistent, it becomes difficult to answer fundamental questions:
What did we expect this shipment to cost?
What did it actually cost?
Why was there a difference?
Is this happening repeatedly?
Without a clear connection between estimated costs, shipment execution, and final invoices, forecasts rely on averages that mask real issues.
While freight cost predictability may never return to what it once was, shippers can take steps to reduce uncertainty and regain control.
Differentiate freight spend from freight waste
Shippers need to distinguish between costs driven by market conditions and costs driven by operational issues, accessorials, and billing errors. This starts with having visibility into where costs originate and how often they occur.
Make accessorials visible and measurable
Accessorial charges should be tracked by type, carrier, lane, and frequency. When accessorial data is centralized and trendable, it becomes possible to identify preventable costs and recurring issues.
Track rerates as a performance signal
Rerates should not be treated as unavoidable noise. Monitoring how often shipments are rerated, which carriers are responsible, and how much those rerates add to total spend provides a clearer picture of forecast risk.
Evaluate carriers based on total performance, not just base rates
Shippers benefit from measuring carrier performance across spend, volume, lane activity, billing accuracy, and on-time delivery. Understanding these patterns allows teams to see which carriers consistently deliver predictable outcomes and which introduce cost variability.
Connect estimated costs to final outcomes
Forecast accuracy improves when expected freight costs can be compared directly to final invoiced amounts. Closing this loop creates accountability, strengthens forecasting models, and supports better decision-making across operations and finance.
Freight cost unpredictability is not just a finance problem or an operations problem. It is a visibility problem.
Shippers that can clearly see how costs evolve from quote to shipment to invoice are better positioned to forecast accurately, explain variance, and manage freight spend proactively.
In today’s freight environment, predictability does not come from static rates or annual contracts. It comes from understanding cost drivers, monitoring carrier behavior, and using data to manage what used to be invisible.
For teams looking to improve forecast accuracy and reduce freight cost surprises, seeing how end-to-end freight visibility works in practice can be a helpful next step. Contact our team today to schedule a short demo and see how this visibility comes together.