Rate Confirmation Template

What a rate confirmation is, and is not

A rate con covers one load. It says what the broker will pay, where the truck goes, when it is expected, and what the extras cost. Both sides sign it and it becomes the commercial record for that shipment.

What it is not is the contract of carriage. That remains the bill of lading, which governs the carrier's liability for the goods themselves under the Carmack Amendment. A rate confirmation settles money between a broker and a carrier; it does not change what the carrier owes the shipper if a pallet arrives crushed. Nor does it replace the broker-carrier agreement — the master contract signed once at setup, which continues to govern insurance, indemnity, re-brokering and everything else the rate con does not mention.

Three documents, three jobs. Confusing them is how disputes end up in the wrong conversation: a damage claim argued from a rate confirmation, or a detention argument argued from a bill of lading.

What belongs on a complete rate con

Most disputes trace back to something that was never written down. These are the fields that earn their space.

• Load number. The reference everything downstream is matched against — the invoice, the paperwork, the payment.
• Both parties with MC and DOT numbers. Identifies exactly which entity agreed, which matters when a carrier operates several.
• Stops in running order, with appointment windows. "Deliver Tuesday" and "deliver Tuesday 0900 appointment, firm" are different commitments, and the second one is the only one you can enforce.
• Reference numbers per stop. The PO or pickup number the facility will ask for at the gate. A driver who does not have it waits.
• An itemized rate. Linehaul and fuel separately if that is how it was agreed. An all-in figure is fine too, as long as it says all-in.
• Detention terms. When it starts, what it pays, and whether it needs documented in-and-out times. Silence here means an argument later.
• TONU. What is paid if the load cancels after dispatch.
• Required documents and where to send them. This is what determines when the payment clock actually starts.

Detention: the clause that pays for itself

Detention is the most argued-about line in freight, and almost all of the argument is avoidable by writing three things down before dispatch: how much free time, how much per hour after that, and what evidence is required.

That third one is where carriers lose. A rate con saying "detention $65/hr after 2 hours, documented in and out times required" is a clear rule. A driver who records arrival and departure on the delivery receipt has met it. A driver who does not has a claim with no evidence, and the broker is right to refuse it.

The proof of delivery form has arrival and departure fields precisely so those times get captured at the dock where they are provable, rather than reconstructed from memory a week later.

Reading one as a carrier

Before you accept, check five things. It takes a minute and it is the highest-value minute in dispatch.

1. Do the stops work with your hours? An 0900 delivery 700 miles away tomorrow is a different load than it looked.
2. Are appointments firm or FCFS? First come first served at a busy DC can mean four hours on the dock.
3. Who pays lumpers, and how? If the rate con is silent, ask in writing before dispatch. A text is a record.
4. What is the detention rule? No free time stated means no detention agreed.
5. What paperwork is required, and by when? This sets your payment date more than the net terms do.

Then sign and send it back, and keep your copy. It is the document you will quote from when the invoice is queried.

Writing one as a broker

The clearer the rate con, the fewer phone calls. Name the facility rather than the city. Put the reference number the gate will ask for on the stop line. State whether the driver is expected to assist with unloading, because "driver assist" discovered on arrival is how loads fall apart.

Two clauses are worth including as standard. One prohibiting re-brokering without written consent — double brokering is a real and expensive problem, and the prohibition needs to be on the document. And one listing the required documents, so the carrier knows what a complete invoice packet looks like before they are chasing payment.

Both are printed in the conditions block on the generated PDF.

Using the template

Fill in the two parties, add a row per stop in the order the truck runs them, then the rate lines. The total updates as you type. The load number doubles as the document number, so what prints matches what both systems are tracking.

Everything runs in your browser, and signed out nothing is stored, so there is no carrier list and no history — save the PDF when you make it. Saved carriers and a rate confirmation history come with the paid plan; a load board does not, and never will. When the load delivers, the freight bill you send afterwards puts the same references on the bill so the two documents match, and the free bill of lading generator produces the shipping document that actually travels with the freight.

Limitations

This is a template for a single load. It is not a broker-carrier agreement, does not carry either party's standard terms, and does not verify anything — not authority, not insurance, not the safety rating of the carrier on the other end. Those checks are yours to do, and a signed rate con with a carrier you did not vet is worth less than the paper.

It also does not send, sign or store anything. There is no e-signature workflow here; the document is signed the way rate cons have always been signed, by printing or annotating and sending it back.