Starboard

Starboard provides AI-powered rate management and quoting tools for freight forwarders. Its workflow reads RFQ emails, extracts cargo and route details, finds rates, applies margins, and drafts quotes. A searchable rate database brings together contract rates, vendor spot rates, and live carrier pricing. Starboard says it connects to major ocean carriers and more than 100 airlines for live pricing. The AI can email preferred carriers to request rates, track replies, parse their pricing, and save it in the database. Starboard Lite supports ocean FCL, LCL, and air quoting. Users are instructed to add it to Gmail or Outlook and connect carrier portals. The listed capabilities include rate comparison, contract management, accessorial rules, and carrier bid management. Lite costs $199 a month, has one seat, and can be canceled at any time. Dedicated implementation and support are listed as Premium capabilities. For Gmail accounts without ambient ingest enabled, Starboard says it accesses only messages and threads users actively open in the extension. Its privacy policy names CargoWise as an example of a system for synchronizing bookings.

Starboard brings email-based quoting and rate sourcing together with a searchable rate database. Lite has one seat, while dedicated implementation and support are reserved for Premium capabilities.

Starboard is aimed at freight forwarders handling quote requests and carrier rates. Its Lite plan supports ocean FCL, LCL, and air quoting.

Starboard is an AI rate-management and quoting platform for freight forwarders. It suits teams handling recurring ocean and air RFQs through email, especially those that need contract, spot, and live carrier pricing in one searchable place. Its main advantage is automating the path from inbound request to draft quote, while the Lite plan’s single seat limits its fit for larger teams.

Overview

Starboard turns an RFQ email into a quotation workflow. Its AI extracts cargo and route details, finds matching rates, applies margins, and drafts a quote. For forwarders whose staff repeatedly rekey email requests into rate systems, that can remove several manual steps and make email the starting point rather than a separate intake channel.

The rate database combines contract rates, vendor spot rates, and live carrier pricing. Starboard says it connects to major ocean carriers and more than 100 airlines for live pricing, so users can compare different commercial sources instead of relying on a static tariff file. The value of that breadth will depend on whether a forwarder’s required carriers and lanes are represented.

Key features

AI quoting and sourcing

The AI identifies shipment information in RFQs, searches rates, adds margins, and prepares a customer-facing draft. It can also email preferred carriers for rates, monitor replies, parse the returned pricing, and save the results to the database. That combination is more useful for teams that routinely solicit fresh rates than for operators whose pricing is already fixed and rarely requires carrier outreach.

Rate controls and coverage

Starboard Lite includes rate comparison, contract management, accessorial rules, and carrier bid management. Those controls give a forwarder a way to compare sources and account for extra charges while maintaining bid information. Lite supports ocean FCL, LCL, and air quoting, covering the shipment modes most central to many forwarding desks.

Email, portals, and integrations

Lite requires an add-in for Gmail or Outlook and connections to carrier portals. That setup aligns with email-led operations but adds deployment work across users and portal accounts. Starboard’s privacy policy identifies CargoWise as an example of an integrated system for synchronizing bookings, which may matter to forwarders already using that platform.

Security and data handling

Data is protected with TLS/HTTPS in transit and AES-256 encryption at rest, with company-level isolation. Starboard says its OpenAI API configuration disables model training on submitted inputs and minimizes provider retention; content may still be retained for abuse monitoring for up to 30 days. For Gmail accounts without ambient ingest enabled, the extension accesses only messages and threads a user actively opens, a narrower access pattern for privacy-conscious teams.

Pricing

Starboard Lite costs $199 a month, billed $199/month. It can be cancelled at any time and includes one seat. That makes it a straightforward entry point for an individual forwarder or a small operation assigning quoting to one person, but the single-seat limit is restrictive for teams that need concurrent users.

Lite’s published scope includes the core quoting and rate-management functions, but not those dedicated services.

Platforms

Starboard is offered through an API, browser extension, iOS, and web. Gmail and Outlook users access Lite through the relevant add-in, while carrier-portal connections support rate retrieval. The combination suits desks working across email and web systems, with API access available for broader integration work.

Who it's for

Starboard is built for freight forwarders, particularly teams managing frequent RFQs across ocean FCL, LCL, and air shipments. It is a strong match when staff spend substantial time extracting requests, requesting carrier rates, and reconciling several rate sources. A single-seat Lite subscription is better suited to a solo operator or a narrowly assigned quoting role than to a department-wide rollout. Businesses that do not quote from email, or that need dedicated implementation from the outset, should look beyond Lite.

Pros and cons

• Pro: AI extracts RFQ details, applies margins, and drafts quotes, reducing repetitive email-to-quote work.
• Pro: Contract, spot, and live carrier pricing are searchable together, with stated connections to major ocean carriers and more than 100 airlines.
• Pro: Automated carrier outreach can collect, parse, and store replies rather than leaving sourcing in separate inboxes.
• Con: Lite is limited to one seat, making it a poor fit for shared team use at the entry price.
• Con: Dedicated implementation and support require Premium capabilities, potentially increasing the commitment for complex deployments.
• Con: Gmail or Outlook add-in installation and carrier-portal connections add setup requirements before email automation can work.

Alternatives

For a wider category comparison, see Freight Rate Management Software.

• Freightos is the better choice for users wanting a free plan or an annually billed Individual Starter Ocean plan at $119 a month with one user and defined lane and history limits.
• Infor Public Sector suits organizations seeking a broader platform available across Android, API, iOS, self-hosted, web, and Windows, with pricing handled by contact.
• Magaya Rate Management is an alternative for buyers preferring a subscription-based license and demo-led pricing.
• Freightify is preferable when a seven-day rate-search trial without a credit card is important, with paid plans beyond the trial.
• Shipthis offers all modules at $89 per user per month and may suit buyers prioritizing a lower stated per-user price.
• cargo.one is worth considering for a freemium starting point with a free Starter tier and API and web access.
• Freightek Rate Management provides free and paid web plans, including a $145 monthly Standard option.
• Loadar is a freemium web alternative for shippers needing contract, flexible, and spot tenders with ERP integration.

Verdict

Choose Starboard if your freight-forwarding operation wants email-native RFQ handling, automated carrier sourcing, and one searchable database for contract, spot, and live rates. The main reason to look elsewhere is scale: Lite’s one-seat structure and Premium-only implementation and support make it less suitable for larger or service-intensive deployments.