Tabi Pricing Pressure Index: Broker Awarded Margins Rise to 15.5% in September as the Spot Benchmark Firms

The September TPPI held at 41, mildly broker-favored, as spot quote volume grew 3.0%, awarded margin rose to 15.5%, and the quote-to-market spread narrowed to 12.0% on a firmer per-mile benchmark

MIAMI, Oct. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tabi Connect (“Tabi”), an AI-powered truckload pricing intelligence and automation platform that freight brokers use to bid on more than $29 billion in freight annually, today released the September 2026 edition of the Tabi Pricing Pressure Index (TPPI), built from 1.5 million spot freight quotes a month across more than 1,000 shippers. The index shows the spot market remains mildly broker-favored, with awarded margin up 0.9 points to 15.5%. The quote-to-market spread narrowed to 12.0% because per-mile benchmark rates firmed on shorter hauls, and brokers still kept more on the loads they won.

Descartes’ $100 million acquisition of broker TMS provider Tai in August shows how much value the market places on freight brokerage data. A broker’s TMS records the loads it moved, and the quotes it lost never reach it. Those lost quotes show where a broker’s pricing stands against the market. The TPPI measures the quote-to-market spread across every submitted spot quote, won or lost. Paired with the awarded and paid carrier rates in a broker’s TMS, that complete record is what a freight pricing strategy is built on.

“Every broker is looking at roughly the same market data now, so the edge comes from knowing where your own pricing stands,” said Ricky Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Tabi Connect. “In September, awarded margin ran from 14.7% to 17.2% depending on the shipper and from 13.4% to 18.3% depending on the equipment. Flatbed is the clearest case. Brokers quoted it 21% over the benchmark and still kept the least margin, because the benchmark appears to be running below what carriers are actually being paid. The brokers holding margin right now price off their complete freight quote history, lost quotes included, and treat the benchmark as one input.”

Key findings from the September 2026 TPPI report on spot freight rates, broker margins, and market balance include:

• Market mildly favors brokers: The TPPI held flat at 41. The four-week average of 40 is running below the eight-week average of 45 as an August spike toward neutral unwinds, and 41 is near the high end of the index’s 2026 range.
• Awarded margin expanded as the benchmark firmed: Awarded margin rose 0.9 points to 15.5%. The quote-to-market spread narrowed 1.6 points to 12.0% because per-mile benchmark rates rose 4.6% on shorter hauls while per-mile quoted rates rose 3.2%.
• More freight moved to spot: Spot quote volume grew 3.0% while the awarded share of quotes slipped 1.3% from August. Average haul shortened 4.2% to about 660 miles.
• Enterprise freight is shopped widely and still pays: Enterprise shippers sent 55.7% of spot quote volume and awarded 0.31% of it, roughly one award per 318 quotes, against 4.47% for Regular shippers. Awarded margin on Enterprise loads was 16.4%, close to the 17.2% on Regular loads.
• Award rate says little about margin: Among shippers that awarded freight, awarded margin ranged only from 15.3% to 16.8% across award-rate cohorts. Shippers awarding more than 4% of quotes received the tightest quotes, 7.5% over the benchmark, and still returned 15.3%.
• Flatbed benchmark is running light: Brokers quoted flatbed 21.1% above the benchmark and kept the lowest awarded margin, 13.4%, which puts the implied carrier buy about 5% above the benchmark. Reefer returned the highest awarded margin at 18.3%, and van carried 64.0% of volume at 14.9%.
  
  

Win rate and margin moved independently in September. Enterprise freight awarded rarely and paid well, and awarded margin was nearly flat across shipper award rates. A win rate on its own says little about whether a broker’s pricing is right. The lost quotes alongside the wins show where it actually stands.

Tabi Connect’s Pricing Pressure Index tracks week-over-week pricing pressure in the spot freight market on a scale of 0 to 100. Built from live spot freight quoting activity and excluding contract freight, the index shows shipper advantage as the score rises and broker advantage as the score falls. Brokers can find the full September 2026 report at tabiconnect.com.

About Tabi Connect

Tabi Connect is an AI-powered rate management and freight quoting platform built to automate and enhance the work of freight brokers directly where that work happens, inside the freight quoting workflows, pricing decisions, and operational systems they rely on every day. By integrating with shipper TMS platforms, APIs, RPA workflows, and email, Tabi Connect centralizes inbound quote requests into a single intelligent system and replaces manual data entry with AI-driven business rules that can be updated instantly using plain English.

Tabi Connect centralizes all freight quote data into a real-time system of record and uses AI-powered analytics to surface insights in plain English across shippers, lanes, and markups, with built-in governance and auditability.

Trusted by more than 100 customers, including several of the top 100 transportation companies in North America, Tabi Connect processes millions of quotes for North America's largest shippers with speed and accuracy.

To learn more about Tabi Connect, visit tabiconnect.com.

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