Why benchmark linehaul and fuel separately?

Because they move for different reasons and you act on them differently. Linehaul reflects the carrier's price for your freight and is negotiated. Fuel is formula-driven off a schedule and an index, so the thing to evaluate is the schedule itself rather than the weekly amount.

How do you benchmark accessorial charges?

Against your own network rather than a market index. Look at which facilities generate accessorials, which carriers bill them most on comparable freight, and whether charges match the agreed schedule. Accessorials clustering at one site usually point at an operations problem rather than a carrier problem.

Can you compare an all-in rate to a market benchmark?

Only to an all-in benchmark. Comparing your all-in rate to a linehaul index overstates how far above market you are, and it moves with fuel in ways that have nothing to do with the rate you negotiated.

What should be specified in a bid package about fuel and accessorials?

The fuel schedule, including the base and the index referenced, and the accessorial schedule. Collect linehaul separately from carriers so bids are comparable, rather than accepting all-in numbers with different assumptions buried in each one.

See how GoodShip works

GoodShip unifies your transportation data, pinpoints the opportunities and risks that matter most, and helps your team act on them.

Request a demo

Back

October 26, 2026

How to Benchmark Contract Rates: Linehaul, Fuel and Accessorials Separately

Sergei Egorov

Director of Growth Marketing at GoodShip

An all-in rate hides where you overpay. Two carriers quoting the same all-in number on the same lane can have very different linehaul rates, fuel programs, and accessorial schedules, and only one of those three is something you negotiate directly.

Breaking a rate into its parts and benchmarking each one separately turns a vague sense that a lane is expensive into a specific thing to fix.

The three components

Linehaul

The base cost of moving the load. This is the component that reflects the carrier's view of your freight, and the only one market benchmarks compare cleanly.

Benchmark linehaul against a linehaul index, never against an all-in figure. Track it both as a total and as a rate per mile, because on a lane with changing mileage the two can move in opposite directions.

Fuel

Fuel is formula-driven rather than negotiated load by load. What you are actually evaluating is the fuel schedule: the base price where the surcharge starts, the increment, and the index it references.

Two carriers on identical linehaul can differ meaningfully on fuel because of the schedule they are on. That is a structural difference you can address once, rather than a rate you argue about every quarter.

In GoodShip, when you propose a new rate to a carrier, linehaul and linehaul rate per mile are calculated automatically using current fuel prices and your fuel schedule on file, so the components stay separated rather than collapsing into one number.

Accessorials

Detention, layover, stop-offs, lumper fees, liftgate, reconsignment, and the rest. These are usually the least examined part of the rate and often the most actionable.

Benchmark accessorials differently than linehaul. The useful comparison is not against a market index, it is against your own network: which facilities generate them, which carriers bill them most, and whether the charge matches the schedule you agreed to.

How to break the rate apart

Start with the components you can separate cleanly in your data: linehaul, fuel, and accessorial charges by lane and by carrier. GoodShip's network analytics include a cost breakdown by carrier, fuel, and accessorial where that data is provided.

Then benchmark each one on its own terms. Linehaul against third-party market data, with a linehaul and all-in toggle so you never compare across the two. Fuel against the schedule and the current index. Accessorials against your own history, by facility and by carrier.

Compare against your contracted plan as well as market. A lane can sit at market and still be well above the rate you contracted for, weighted by the volume you committed.

What breaking it apart tells you

A lane over market on linehaul is a rate problem. Renegotiate it with the incumbent, or put the lane into a mini-bid if the gap is too wide for a renegotiation to close.

A lane at market on linehaul but expensive all-in is usually a fuel schedule or an accessorial problem. Neither is fixed by rebidding the lane, and rebidding will not make the charge go away.

Accessorials clustering at one facility are telling you about your dock rather than the carrier. Detention concentrated at a single site is an operations fix with a cost attached, and it will follow you to whichever carrier wins the lane next.

A carrier whose accessorials run well above peers on comparable freight is worth a specific conversation, backed by the lane-level record rather than an impression.

Keep the components separate in the bid, too

If carriers bid all-in with no visibility into how fuel and accessorials are handled, you get bids that bury assumptions you cannot compare.

Specify the fuel schedule and the accessorial schedule in the bid package, and collect linehaul separately, so the comparison across carriers is actually like for like.

Frequently asked questions