Last updated September 2026
Do Emerge and Freightos compete?
Not really, and the fact that they get compared says more about the phrase "freight quoting software" than about either product.
Freightos is a marketplace where importers and exporters buy international shipping from freight forwarders. Emerge is a platform where US shippers buy domestic surface capacity from carriers. Different freight, different counterparties, different spend. A company can need both at once and there is no overlap to rationalize.
If you landed here trying to work out which one to buy, the question is almost certainly answered by where your freight moves rather than by any feature comparison.
Choose Freightos if your freight crosses an ocean
Freightos is a marketplace where importers and exporters get instant, bookable air and ocean quotes from freight forwarders, with the Freightos Baltic Index providing market context. The company is publicly traded on Nasdaq under CRGO.
If your quoting pain is twenty emails to three forwarders to get one ocean quote, Freightos is a genuinely good answer, and a better one than Emerge. It is built for exactly that problem and we will not pretend otherwise.
Choose Emerge if your freight moves on US highways
Emerge is shipper-side freight quoting software for the US surface freight market: spot quoting against your own carriers plus a marketplace of 45,000+ vetted carriers, Dynamic RFP for contract lanes, LTL alongside truckload since August 2026, and rate benchmarking at the moment you award.
If your quoting pain is domestic truckload or LTL spend, and your counterparties are carriers rather than forwarders, Freightos was not built for that job.
Does Freightos handle domestic trucking?
Partly, and the distinction matters.
Freightos does book truck shipments alongside air and ocean. What it books is generally the inland leg around an international move: drayage from the port, or trucking that forms part of a door-to-door international quote. That is a real capability and worth knowing about if you are already using Freightos for the ocean leg.
What it is not is a domestic truckload procurement platform. It does not run contract RFP events against a carrier base, it does not put dozens of asset carriers in competition on a single US lane, and its counterparties are forwarders rather than the carriers themselves. If your problem is a domestic bid cycle rather than an inland leg, that is a different product category.
Side by side
| Emerge | Freightos | |
|---|---|---|
| Freight type | US domestic surface: truckload, LTL, drayage | International air and ocean, plus the inland legs around them |
| You are | A shipper buying capacity from carriers | An importer or exporter buying from forwarders |
| Counterparties | 45,000+ vetted carriers | Freight forwarders |
| Contract RFPs | Core product (Dynamic RFP, mini-bids) | Not the focus |
| Market context | Lane-level benchmarking at award time | Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) |
| Pricing | Usage-based | Paid inside the shipment price |
| Company | Private | Publicly traded, Nasdaq: CRGO |
A worked example
A home goods distributor imports 40 containers a month from Vietnam into Long Beach, then moves the goods inland to three regional DCs on truckload.
That is two quoting problems, not one.
The ocean leg is a forwarder problem: comparing rates and transit times across forwarders for a port-to-port or door-to-door move, with the FBX index as a sanity check on whether the rate is reasonable this month. Freightos is built for this.
The inland leg is a carrier problem: 40 containers becomes several hundred truckload movements a year across a handful of lanes, which is enough volume to run a proper bid rather than accept spot rates. That means putting carriers in competition, awarding lanes, and benchmarking what you awarded. Emerge is built for this.
Freightos can move the boxes off the port. It is not going to run your annual truckload bid. Using both is not a compromise, it is the correct architecture.
If you do both, use both
No single platform on the market solves international forwarding and domestic truckload procurement well, and the ones that claim to are usually strong at one and thin at the other.
Running Freightos for the ocean leg and Emerge for the domestic leg means the two do not compete for the same spend and there is no integration conflict to manage. They sit at different points in the same journey.
Frequently asked questions
Do Emerge and Freightos compete? Not meaningfully. Freightos serves importers and exporters buying international air and ocean freight from forwarders. Emerge serves US shippers buying domestic truckload and LTL capacity from carriers. Different freight, different counterparties, different spend.
Does Emerge quote international air or ocean freight? No. Emerge is built for US surface freight: truckload, LTL and drayage. For international air and ocean, Freightos or a forwarder-side platform is the right tool.
Does Freightos handle US domestic truckload? Freightos books truck shipments, but generally as the inland or drayage leg of an international move rather than as standalone domestic truckload procurement. It does not run contract RFP events against a US carrier base. For domestic truckload procurement you want a shipper-side platform built around carriers rather than forwarders.
Which is better for a company doing both? Both, for their respective legs. The two platforms address different counterparties and different spend, so there is no duplication to rationalize and no integration conflict.
What is the FBX index? The Freightos Baltic Index, a container freight rate index published by Freightos that gives importers market context on whether an ocean quote is in line with current rates. Emerge's equivalent for domestic freight is lane-level benchmarking applied at the moment you award.
Quote your truckload freight
If the domestic leg is where your spend and your headaches live, start with the full guide to centralized freight quoting for shippers, or book a demo and run one of your inland lanes against the marketplace.
Also worth a look: Emerge vs. Shipwell and Kuebix alternatives.
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