# Digital freight forwarding software > Digital freight forwarding software for the operation you already run: AI quoting, carrier bill audit, exception triage, and TMS sync, live in days not months. Digital freight forwarding does not have to mean becoming a software company, migrating onto someone else's marketplace, or signing up for a six-month implementation. Fretie gives a traditional forwarding team the digital layer customers now expect, on top of the stack it already runs. Instant quotes, self-serve approval links, line-level carrier bill audit, live shipment visibility, and an auditable AI pipeline, while CargoWise or Magaya stays the system of record. ## Why forwarders leave legacy software ### One operation, five systems Most forwarders run the TMS for some functions, Excel for quoting, a separate CRM, disconnected accounting, and email holding it all together. Every handoff between them gets re-keyed by a person, which is double work the digital-native competitors simply do not do. Fretie is the layer that connects the quote inbox, the rate ledger, and the TMS into one flow. ### Pricing you're scared to open Forwarders on legacy platforms describe being afraid of the monthly bill: per-module, per-transaction pricing that jumps 20 to 50 percent under new models. Fretie prices on transparent usage credits you can see per action, per run, in your own dashboard. ### Six months to go live The big-TMS playbook is a 6 to 12 month implementation and a steep learning curve before anyone quotes faster. Fretie connects to your inbox and rate sheets in an afternoon, and the first AI-priced draft reply usually lands the same day. ### Reports nobody can act on Eight in ten forwarders say they cannot get real-time reports their managers and accountants can actually use. Fretie's ledger is live by construction, showing margin per quote, leakage per shipment, and win rate per lane, because the data the agents work from is the data you report from. ## The customer experience of a digital forwarder Customers get answers in minutes, quote options they can compare, and a link where they approve with one click. There is no portal login and no phone tag. To them, you look like the digital-native competitors; behind the scenes it is your same team, your same carrier contracts, your same margins. ## Durable by default A quote pipeline that drops emails is worse than no pipeline. Fretie runs on durable workflows: every run is retried, resumable, and replayable, with a step-by-step timeline streamed live to the browser. Ledgered, the way freight should be. ## Digitize without the rebuild No rip-and-replace project, no six-month integration. Connect the inbox, load rates, keep your TMS. The digital layer wraps the operation you already have, and your team keeps their tools. ## What you get - Minutes-fast quoting on your own contracts - Public quote approval links, no customer login - Line-level carrier bill audit with AI-drafted disputes - Daily exception triage with a morning digest - Live agent-run timelines, streamed to the browser - Durable, replayable pipeline for every request - Copilot chat over live org data - Keeps CargoWise or Magaya as the system of record ## Frequently asked questions ### What is digital freight forwarding? It is forwarding where the commercial workflow (quoting, booking, tracking, communication) happens through fast digital channels instead of manual email back-and-forth. Fretie brings that model to traditional forwarders without replacing their operation. ### Do I need to change how my team works? Mostly no. Requests still arrive in the same inboxes and bookings still land in the same TMS. What changes is that the reading, rating, and drafting happen automatically, and your team's job shifts to reviewing and deciding. ### How is this different from a digital forwarder like Flexport? Digital forwarders compete with you for your customers. Fretie is software for your forwarding business: your contracts, your margins, your customer relationships, with the digital experience layered on top. ### What does "durable pipeline" actually mean? Every quote request runs as a durable workflow: if a step fails it retries, nothing is silently dropped, and every run can be replayed and audited step by step. Reliability is what makes automation trustworthy enough to put near your revenue. ### Can my customers track shipments? Accepted quotes flow into bookings and shipment tracking inside Fretie, and your team can share status without digging through carrier sites. The TMS remains the operational record. ### How long does implementation take? Days, not months. Connect Gmail or Outlook, upload rate sheets (AI parses PDF, Excel, even photos), and the pipeline is live. There is no data-migration project, because Fretie layers on top of your existing systems instead of replacing them. ### How does pricing work? Transparent usage credits. Each AI action, whether an autopilot run, a document extraction, or a dispute draft, has a visible credit cost, and you can see exactly where credits went in your own dashboard. No per-module licences, no surprise per-transaction line items. ### Can a small freight forwarder go digital without a big IT project? Yes, and that is who this is built for. A two-desk operation on Gmail and spreadsheets can connect an inbox, load a handful of rate sheets, and start replying to rate requests with priced quotes the same day. The IT project is the thing being avoided. ### Does Fretie replace my TMS? No. Fretie handles the commercial front of the business (quoting, follow-up, reconciliation, exceptions) and pushes confirmed bookings to CargoWise or Magaya, which stay the operational system of record. --- Source: https://fretie.com/features/digital-freight-forwarding