Short answer
A load tender is a shipper’s formal offer of a specific shipment to a carrier or broker. It includes pickup and delivery details, equipment, reference numbers and usually the rate. The carrier or broker accepts or rejects it, often within a set response window. Tenders arrive by EDI 204, through a shipper portal, or by email.
Why tenders matter
For contract freight, the tender is where an awarded lane turns into an actual load. A shipper may have agreed rates with five providers on a lane, but nothing moves until one of them accepts a tender.
Shippers track how often each provider accepts. A carrier or broker that rejects too many tenders tends to get fewer of them, and can lose the lane at the next bid.
How tendering works with a routing guide
- The shipper’s routing guide ranks providers for each lane, usually by rate and past performance.
- The load is tendered to the primary provider first.
- If the primary rejects it or doesn’t answer in time, it goes to the next provider in line.
- If everyone in the guide passes, the shipper goes to the spot market, usually at a higher rate.
When capacity is tight, carriers reject more contract tenders in favor of better-paying spot loads, and freight falls further down the routing guide.
Tenders in brokered freight
A broker is often on both sides. It accepts a tender from the shipper, then offers the load to a carrier. On the carrier side, the broker’s rate confirmation does the job of the tender: the carrier signs to accept.
How tenders arrive
| Channel | How the offer comes in | How acceptance goes back |
|---|---|---|
| EDI | An EDI 204 Motor Carrier Load Tender | EDI 990 Response to a Load Tender |
| Shipper portal or TMS | Load appears in the shipper’s web portal | Accept or reject button in the portal |
| PDF or email body with load details | Reply email, or a signed confirmation | |
| Phone | Spot request from a shipper contact | Verbal yes, followed by written confirmation |
Example and common mistakes
Example (illustrative): at 10:00 AM a shipper’s system tenders a Chicago to Columbus dry van load to its primary carrier with a two-hour window. The carrier has no truck and rejects at 10:40 AM. The tender moves to a broker second in the routing guide, which finds a carrier, accepts at 11:15 AM and sends that carrier a rate con.
Common mistakes
- Accepting without a truck. Accepting and then giving the load back hurts more than a clean rejection.
- Missing the response window. Silence usually counts as a rejection.
- Treating an updated tender as new. A change or re-sent tender for the same shipment creates a duplicate load if nobody catches it.
- Not reading the details. Equipment, appointment type and accessorial rules can differ from the lane award.
How FreightVero handles it
FreightVero doesn’t receive EDI or email tenders today. Loads are entered in the TMS with required-field checks for every stop, and they appear on the load board. AI load entry is live: it reads a rate confirmation or air-freight delivery order, drafts the load with the source text behind each field, flags re-sent documents and revised rates, and waits for a person to confirm. EDI is planned.
