Short answer
Looking for freight broker software free of charge? It exists, but it is limited. MVMNT has a $0 plan capped at 15 shipments a month. Most other tools offer a free trial of two weeks to 30 days, then charge. Spreadsheets cost nothing but carry real risk. Free works for your first few loads, and paying makes sense once you book loads every week.
Search for freight broker software free and you will get a pile of pages promising a free TMS. Some of them mean free forever. Most mean free for 30 days. A few mean free if you buy something else from them. When you are starting a brokerage, those differences matter a lot.
We checked what the free options actually are on each vendor’s own site, as of October 2026. Here is what is out there, what the catches are, and when it is time to pay.
The three kinds of “free” broker software
When a broker TMS says free, it usually means one of these:
- A free plan. You can use it with no end date, but with limits on loads, features or both.
- A free trial. Full or close to full access for a set number of days, then you pay or lose access.
- Free with a catch. The software is free because the vendor makes money another way, like a marketplace, a load board or factoring.
And then there is the oldest free option in freight. A spreadsheet, an email inbox and a folder of PDFs.
Freight broker software free plans and trials, compared
| Product | What is free | Paid price after that |
|---|---|---|
| MVMNT | Free plan. 15 shipments and 50 quote emails a month, unlimited users | TMS plan $169 per user a month, billed annually |
| AscendTMS | 30-day free trial, no credit card | Basic $69, Premium $119, Pro $149 per user a month |
| TruckingOffice | 30-day free trial, no credit card | Broker plan $45 a month, unlimited dispatches |
| TruckLogics | Free trial, length not stated for the broker plan | Broker plan $99.95 a month, or $89.96 a month billed yearly |
| Vektor TMS | 2-week trial | Priced per load for brokers, quoted on a call |
| DAT Broker TMS | No free plan | Starts at $100 a month |
| FreightVero | No free plan and no free trial | Starter $349 a month, 5 users and 250 loads |
Sources: MVMNT, AscendTMS, TruckingOffice, TruckLogics, Vektor TMS, DAT, and our own pricing page. All checked on each vendor’s own site, as of October 2026.
The one real free freight broker TMS: MVMNT
MVMNT is the closest thing to a free TMS for freight brokers we found. Its pricing page lists a Free plan at $0 per user a month. It lets your whole team try the TMS and the AI quoting tool, with 15 shipments a month, 50 quote emails a month, and 20 or more integrations. Users are unlimited.
Fifteen shipments a month is roughly three or four loads a week. That is enough for a new agent or a one-person brokerage getting its first customers. Once you pass it, the next step that includes unlimited shipments is the TMS plan at $169 per user a month billed annually. A three-person office on that plan is over $500 a month. EDI is a $249 a month add-on per trading partner.
Free trials that turn into a bill
Most of the free freight broker TMS results are really trials.
- AscendTMS runs its marketing at thefreetms.com, and the homepage says its plans start at zero dollars. But the pricing page we checked lists Basic at $69 per user a month with a free 30-day trial. Also, its pricing page says DAT or Truckstop load board access inside Ascend requires your own paid subscription.
- TruckingOffice is mostly a carrier tool, but it has a Broker plan for $45 a month. Its FAQ says you can use it free for 30 days with no credit card.
- TruckLogics sells a Broker plan with carrier management, rate confirmations, DAT load search and invoicing. It offers a free try, but the page does not say for how long.
- Vektor offers a 2-week trial and prices brokers per load moved, quoted on a call.
None of that is a knock on these products. A trial is a fair way to test software. Just put the end date on your calendar and know what the bill will be before you load six months of carriers and customers into it.
Free with a catch
Some software is free because the vendor gets paid somewhere else.
UROUTE is a good example of how to read the fine print. Its motor carrier software is advertised as totally free. That offer is for carriers. The homepage lists a monthly SaaS subscription and points you to sales for industry-specific options, with no dollar amounts shown.
DAT takes the opposite approach. Its page titled Free TMS Software? warns brokers away from free starter packages and steers them to DAT Broker TMS, which starts at $100 a month. In other words, the free TMS search lands you on a paid product.
The general rule is simple. If software is free forever, ask how the company makes money. It might be load volume, a marketplace cut, factoring, or upsells. None of those are bad, but you should know which one it is.
Questions to ask before you load your data into anything free
- What happens on the day the trial ends? Do you lose access, or get dropped to a smaller plan?
- Can you export your carriers, customers and load history to a spreadsheet, and is that free?
- Are the features you tested in the trial included in the plan you will actually pay for?
- Is support included, or only for paid plans?
- Are there separate fees for EDI, load boards or tracking that the headline price leaves out?
Running a brokerage on spreadsheets
Plenty of brokers started with a spreadsheet, an inbox and a shared drive. It costs nothing, and for the first handful of loads it works. Here is where it starts to hurt:
- Rate cons. You build each rate confirmation by hand in Word or a PDF tool, and nothing stops a truck from rolling on an old version.
- Carrier vetting. Checking authority and insurance lives in someone’s head or a separate tab, with no record of who checked what.
- Paperwork. PODs and BOLs sit in email. When a customer asks for a POD on a load from three weeks ago, you go digging.
- Billing. Loads delivered but never invoiced are easy to miss. Each one is money you already earned and have not collected.
- Accessorials. Detention and lumper approvals get lost in text threads, then get disputed at invoice time. See our guide to accessorial charges.
A spreadsheet does not enforce anything. That is fine when you are the only person touching every load. It is not fine once you add a second person or a second shift.
When paying for broker software makes sense
There is no magic load count. These are the signs we would watch for:
- You are booking loads every week, not once in a while
- Someone other than you is dispatching or billing
- A customer wants EDI, a portal, or tight POD turnaround
- You have had a load roll on a stale rate con, or an invoice go out without a POD
- You are spending more hours chasing paperwork than finding freight
When you hit those, the monthly fee is usually smaller than the money leaking out through missed billing and disputes. If you are still deciding, our guide to TMS pricing for freight brokers breaks down the common pricing models, and choosing a freight broker TMS covers what to test in a demo. If you are just getting set up, start with how to start a freight brokerage.
Where FreightVero fits
FreightVero is not free. There is no free plan and no free trial. Starter is $349 a month for 5 users and 250 loads, with no per-load fees. What you get for that is a broker TMS for small brokerages that enforces its checkpoints in the database, so a load cannot be dispatched without a signed, current rate con, or marked Delivered without a POD and the signer’s name.
Final thoughts
Free freight broker software is real, but it is narrow. MVMNT’s free plan is the one true free option we found, and it caps you at 15 shipments a month. Almost everything else is a trial that becomes a bill. Spreadsheets are free in dollars and expensive in mistakes.
Use free while you are proving out your first customers. Once loads come in every week and more than one person touches them, pay for something that keeps the paperwork straight. Then pick based on what it stops from going wrong, not on whether the first month was free.