Tender Acceptance Rate

Tender acceptance rate measures how often a carrier says "yes" when a shipper offers them a load under their contracted terms. If a carrier is tendered 100 loads in a month and accepts 85, their tender acceptance rate is 85%. It's one of the most telling metrics in carrier performance management because it reveals whether contracted capacity is real or theoretical.

A high tender acceptance rate – typically above 90% – means the carrier is honoring their contractual commitments and the routing guide is functioning as designed. A low rate means the shipper is regularly falling through to backup carriers or the spot market, usually at higher cost and lower service reliability. Every rejected tender creates work: the load needs to be retendered, often through multiple backup carriers, and may ultimately end up brokered at a premium with a carrier the shipper has no performance data on.

Tender acceptance tends to fluctuate with market conditions. In a loose freight market with excess carrier capacity, acceptance rates climb. In a tight market, carriers cherry-pick – accepting loads on desirable lanes and rejecting those that don't fit their network or pay enough relative to spot rates. This is exactly when routing guides break down and freight costs spike. Shippers who track tender acceptance by carrier and by lane can identify which carriers are reliable partners in all markets versus those who only perform when conditions favor them.

The metric also informs procurement strategy. If a lane's primary carrier consistently rejects 30% of tenders, that lane needs either a rate adjustment, a carrier replacement, or additional routing guide depth. Addressing this proactively – rather than absorbing the cost of repeated fallback – is one of the highest-ROI activities in freight management.