Logistics Software Cost Calculator
TMS, fleet, freight, or shipping software. Honest build range in 3 minutes.
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Scope your build
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Your estimate
Build range, plus year one
Build
$24,000 – $30,500
Year one total
$27,500 – $35,000
How we price
Lean pod at $12K–$15K per month. One senior engineer plus part-time PM and QA. Build only, not vendor list pricing.
- Fixed scope, fixed price proposal in 5 business days
- Senior engineers only, no juniors swapped in
- Walk away after the diagnosis if it's not a fit
Ranges are planning estimates, not quotes. Final price depends on discovery, data quality, and the integrations you actually need.
Custom logistics and shipping software costs $35,000 to $200,000 to build, depending on the system and integration scope. A fleet or dispatch tool lands around $35K to $80K. A multi-mode TMS or freight forwarding platform with EDI, carrier APIs, and customs runs $90K to $160K. A shipper-carrier marketplace or port operations build reaches $100K to $200K. RaftLabs builds these with a lean pod at $12K to $15K per month.
01 Systems covered
What you can scope here
Use the calculator for any of these. Ranges reflect a custom build at our standard rate, not vendor list pricing.
Transportation management (TMS)
Order intake, dispatch, carrier selection, and freight audit. A focused build lands $40K to $90K. Multi-mode with EDI and ERP sync runs $90K to $160K.
Freight forwarding & customs
Quotes, bookings, bill of lading, customs docs, and milestone visibility. $50K to $120K depending on modes and how deep the customs workflow goes.
Fleet management & telematics
GPS tracking, maintenance schedules, ELD, and driver apps. $35K to $80K for a single fleet; more once telematics hardware is in the loop.
Warehouse management (WMS)
Receiving, putaway, picking, barcode and scanner flow, and inventory. $40K to $100K depending on automation depth and hardware.
Freight marketplace / load board
Two-sided shipper and carrier matching, spot rates, and payments. $80K to $140K. Marketplaces carry trust, payments, and dispute scope on top of the core.
Port, terminal & vessel ops
Berth, yard, container, and demurrage tracking with AIS vessel data. $100K to $200K for terminal-grade operations across ocean and inland moves.
02 Cost drivers
What actually moves the number
Four levers explain most of the variance between a $40K dispatch tool and a $200K port operations platform.
Integrations and EDI
Every carrier API, EDI trading partner, ERP, and telematics feed adds scope, and ongoing upkeep when a partner changes formats. This is the single biggest swing on a logistics build.
Modes and network size
Single-mode road fits a flat data model. Multi-mode (ocean, air, rail, road) and multi-country networks add data, rules, and reconciliation that ripple through every screen.
Compliance and trade rules
Customs filings (ACE, AES), hazmat handling, and SOC2 or ISO 27001 evidence add documentation and audit work on top of the build itself.
Deployment
Cloud is the default and fastest to ship. Hybrid and on-premise, common near port and warehouse hardware, add infrastructure work and lift the build 25 to 50 percent.
How the number drifts in real life
Logistics builds start clean and grow at the edges. The core system, the TMS, the WMS, the fleet tracker, tends to hold close to estimate. It's the connections around it that move the line: the second carrier API, the EDI partner who insists on their own mapping, the ERP that has to stay the system of record, the telematics feed nobody scoped until the drivers asked for it. See the logistics software work we take on for the shape of these projects.
Two patterns account for most of the drift. The first is integration count. Each carrier, EDI trading partner, and ERP connection is small on its own, but three stacked together is often a 30 to 50 percent swing on the core build. The second is mode and geography. A single-mode, single-country operation fits a flat model. The moment ocean, air, and road share one screen, or a second country brings its own customs and currency, the data model and the reconciliation logic both get heavier.
When you use the calculator, anchor the base on the system type, then add a 25 to 40 percent buffer if you already know more than one integration or a second mode is coming. That's the honest range. Anything tighter assumes the scope holds, and in logistics the scope rarely does once real trading partners show up.
If the real question is whether to build at all versus staying on an off-the-shelf platform, run the numbers through the free build vs buy calculator first, or read how we approach logistics software development.
How it works
The estimate models a custom build at RaftLabs's standard rate: $6K to $7.5K per person per month, with a lean pod of one senior engineer plus part-time PM and QA at $12K to $15K monthly. Base effort per system type is calibrated to real logistics builds. The low end of each range assumes single-mode, single-country, off-the-shelf integrations; the high end assumes multi-mode, multi-country, EDI and ERP work, and SOC2 or ISO 27001 evidence.
Related tools
Frequently asked questions
- It depends on the system. A fleet management or dispatch tool typically costs $35K to $80K. A transportation management system (TMS) or freight forwarding platform with EDI, carrier APIs, and customs documentation runs $90K to $160K. A shipper-carrier marketplace or port and terminal operations build reaches $100K to $200K. Plan for 15 to 25 percent of the build cost per year for support and integration upkeep.
- Integrations move the number more than anything else. Each carrier API, EDI trading partner, ERP connection, and telematics feed adds scope and ongoing maintenance. After that it's modes and geography: single-mode road is a flat model, while multi-mode (ocean, air, rail, road) and multi-country networks add data, currency, and customs complexity. Compliance (customs filings, hazmat, SOC2) adds documentation work on top of the build.
- Buy when your operation fits a standard category and per-shipment or per-seat pricing stays reasonable. Build custom when the platform's data model doesn't match how you actually move freight, when integration surcharges and per-shipment fees eat your margin, or when your workflows (multi-mode, unusual customs, niche carriers) don't fit the vendor. The build usually pays back when subscription plus integration fees cross roughly $40K to $60K per year.
- A focused single-system build (a dispatch tool, a fleet tracker, or a shipper portal) ships in 10 to 16 weeks. A multi-mode TMS or freight forwarding platform with full EDI and ERP integration runs 4 to 6 months. The calculator's standard timeline assumes a lean pod; an expedited schedule costs roughly 30 percent more because we add a second engineer.
- The hourly rate is lower, but the full cost of ownership often is not. Logistics software lives or dies on integrations, EDI, carrier APIs, telematics, and each one needs careful testing against real trading-partner data. A team billing $35 to $40 per hour with senior engineers and tight communication usually lands the same scope in fewer combined hours than a $15 to $25 per hour shop that needs more rework. Compare the full project cost, not the hourly rate.
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