How Much Does Freight Broker Software Cost in 2026? Real Prices and Hidden Fees

Short answer: Freight broker software costs anywhere from $0 for a basic free tier to $5,000 or more a month for a full-service platform, and the headline price is rarely the real cost. The number that matters is the all-in monthly figure at your team size and load volume, after per-user fees, setup fees, integrations and overages. For a typical brokerage of 5 to 15 people moving 200 to 500 loads a month, that lands between roughly $1,000 and $4,600 a month across the main vendors.

The three pricing models

Every broker TMS on the market prices one of three ways, and the model matters more than the starting number.

Per-user pricing is cheapest when you are two people and most expensive when you are twenty. Volume pricing is the reverse. Tiered plans sit in between and punish you at the step points.

Published prices, November 2026

Prices from each vendor’s public pricing page or, where no page exists, from directory listings. Confirm current terms with the vendor.

What the same brokerage pays on each model

Three realistic brokerages, using published prices only. Setup fees, third-party subscriptions and overages are excluded and covered below.

A. Two people, 60 loads a month, just started

• AscendTMS: $0 on the free tier, or about $200 on Premium

• Aljex: $699 plus setup fee

• Tai: $995

• Polt: $1,199

• Rose Rocket: $2,080

AscendTMS wins on price. Polt and Tai cost 5 to 6 times more and only make sense once manual work is costing more than that.

B. Six people, 300 loads a month, growing

• AscendTMS: about $600 on Premium, or $414 to $894 on the reported 2026 plans

• Aljex: Professional from $999 (6 users exceed Essential’s cap of 5) plus implementation fee

• Tai: Premium $2,465 (6 logins, 600 shipments)

• Polt: Growth $2,899 (500 loads)

• Rose Rocket: $2,080

This is where tiers bite. One hire over Aljex’s cap or Tai’s login count moves the whole bill up a tier. At 300 loads Polt’s Growth plan is above Rose Rocket’s flat fee; at this size compare what each includes, since Polt bundles tracking, the driver app and AI agents in the plan.

C. Fifteen people, 1,000 loads a month, established

• AscendTMS: about $1,500 on Premium

• Aljex: Professional from $999 (15 users) plus implementation fee; above 15 users, Enterprise from $2,375

• Tai: Premium+ $4,595 (12 logins) is one login short, so Pro $7,925 (25 logins, 2,500 shipments)

• Polt: Pro $5,999 (1,100 loads)

• Rose Rocket: $2,080 published starting price; confirm what it covers at this volume

• Turvo: $5,000

At this scale the cheapest published number is Rose Rocket’s starting price and Aljex’s Professional tier, but both need a quote to confirm scope. Tai’s login caps push a 15-person team to its top tier. Polt’s Pro plan is in the middle and includes AI, tracking and vetting.

The fees that are not on the pricing page

1. Setup and implementation. Aljex charges a one-time fee on every tier and does not publish it. McLeod implementations are typically multi-month and quoted. Alvys includes implementation; Turvo includes onboarding and data migration in its $5,000; Polt includes onboarding, with an implementation specialist on Pro.

2. Per-user fees. The silent cost of AscendTMS, Tai and Aljex as you hire. Ask what one more user costs next year, not this year.

3. Third-party subscriptions. A TMS “integrates with” DAT, Greenscreens, SONAR or Highway; your DAT or Greenscreens subscription is still billed separately. Tai and Aljex both say so on their pricing pages.

4. EDI per partner. Alvys includes 2 EDI partners on Growth and 5 on Scale and charges per partner above that. Tai counts customer EDIs per tier. Aljex includes 1 or 2.

5. Overages. Tai describes overage pricing without publishing it. Volume-priced vendors move you to the next tier instead. Ask how a busy month is billed.

6. AI usage. Rose Rocket includes unlimited AI agent use. Polt prices by shipment volume and AI consumption, with the full AI agents in every plan. Alvys and Tai include AI features in the platform. Ask whether AI is metered.

7. Data migration. Turvo includes it. Most vendors quote it. Budget for it if you are switching.

8. Training and support tiers. Tai includes a CSM and quarterly reviews on every plan. Polt adds priority support, training and QBRs on Growth. Aljex includes 10 to 15 hours of training on Professional and Enterprise.

How to get a real number

Ask every vendor for the same written quote: your user count, your monthly loads, the integrations you need live on day one, EDI partners, implementation and training, and the price in twelve months if you add five people and 50 percent more loads. Put the six answers in one column each. The cheapest headline price has never won that table in our experience; the cheapest twelve-month total usually belongs to the model that matches how you grow.

For the full criteria beyond price, see our guide to choosing a TMS for freight brokers and the head-to-head comparisons of Polt, Tai TMS, Rose Rocket and Alvys.

See Polt’s pricing

Prices reviewed in November 2026 from public vendor pages and directory listings. Confirm current terms with each vendor.