What is routing guide fall-off?

Routing guide fall-off is when primary carriers reject awarded loads and tenders cascade to backup carriers and the spot market. Your real cost per load rises even though the contracted rate has not changed, which is why it often goes unnoticed in spend reporting.

At what tender acceptance rate should you run a mini-bid?

Set a threshold per metric and act when a lane sits below it. In GoodShip, primary tender acceptance defaults to 95% and tender score to 90%. The trend matters as much as the level: acceptance falling for several consecutive weeks is worth acting on before it reaches a threshold.

Should you renegotiate or rebid a failing lane?

Renegotiate when the gap is modest and the carrier performs on service. Rebid when the gap is too wide for renegotiation to close, when service is the problem, or when you want carriers outside the current award back in the conversation. Reallocate volume instead when a cheaper contracted carrier on the lane has capacity.

How many lanes should a mini-bid cover?

Scope it to the cause rather than a target count. Group lanes failing for the same reason, and include neighboring lanes, since carriers price networks rather than isolated lanes.

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October 27, 2026

Routing Guide Fall-Off: When to Run a Mini Bid and How

Sergei Egorov

Director of Growth Marketing at GoodShip

Routing guide fall-off is what happens when your primary carriers stop accepting the loads they were awarded. Tenders cascade down to backup carriers and then to the spot market, and your real cost per load rises while the contracted rate on paper stays exactly the same.

A mini-bid is the correction. The question is when to run one rather than renegotiating, and how to scope it. For how mini-bids work generally, see What Is a Freight Mini-Bid? This post is about the specific case where a routing guide is coming apart.

The thresholds that should trigger action

These are starting points to adjust to your network rather than universal rules.

Primary tender acceptance falling below its threshold on a lane. In GoodShip, primary tender acceptance defaults to 95% and tender score to 90%, both adjustable. Once a lane sits below its threshold, you are routinely paying backup or spot rates on freight you thought was covered.

Acceptance falling for three consecutive weeks, even from a healthy level. The trend matters more than the level, because a lane sliding from 97% to 88% is heading somewhere worse.

Actual average cost per load above the contracted rate. This is cascade cost showing up in your spend. If actual exceeds contract on a lane, the routing guide has already failed there.

Spot loads appearing repeatedly on a contracted lane. Once a contracted lane generates regular spot loads, the contract is not functioning.

Accepted volume well short of committed volume. A carrier can post acceptable acceptance on the loads you tender and still be far below the volume they committed to in the award.

Renegotiate or rebid?

Not every fall-off needs a bid event.

Renegotiate when the gap is modest, the carrier is performing on service, and you want to keep them. In GoodShip you can propose a new rate to the carrier directly from the lane, with linehaul and rate per mile calculated from current fuel prices and your fuel schedule, and the carrier accepts or declines by email with the status visible on the page.

Rebid when the gap is too large for a renegotiation to close, when service is the problem rather than price, or when you want carriers who were not awarded the lane last time back in the conversation.

Reallocate volume instead when the problem is tendering behavior rather than price. If a cheaper contracted carrier on the same lane has capacity, moving volume is faster than any bid. In GoodShip, shifts in tender acceptance and routing surface as Detected Actions, which is usually where you see this first.

How to scope a mini-bid

Scope it to the problem rather than to a lane count. That might be fifteen lanes in one region or a few hundred across the network.

Group lanes that share a cause. Lanes failing because of a regional capacity shift belong in one event. A single facility with chronic detention driving rejections belongs in a different one, and may not be a pricing problem at all.

Include the lanes next to the failing ones. Carriers price networks rather than individual lanes, and a bid covering only your worst lanes invites high bids on all of them.

Decide who to invite. If service is the reason, the carrier set has to include carriers who were not awarded last time.

How to run it

In GoodShip, a mini-bid is the same kind of bid event as a full-network RFP, in the same workspace. Multiple rounds, RFI gating, bid guardrails, target rates, and primary and backup awarding all work the same way.

Give carriers the lane detail they need to price accurately. In the carrier portal they see lane-specific detail including lead time, seasonality, and average pickup and drop-off days from your historical network data.

Compare bids on performance as well as price, using historical carrier performance, market benchmarks, and previously awarded lanes and rates alongside each bid. For larger events, the AI Scenario Builder models award options under cost, service threshold, and incumbency constraints.

When the event ends, awarded lanes convert automatically into network commitments in your routing guide.

How long it should take

The limit on mini-bid frequency is setup time rather than process. If pulling the lane list, assembling volumes, and building the bid package takes three weeks, you will not run them often enough to matter.

Ask any platform how long a forty-lane mini-bid takes from setup to award. That number determines whether continuous correction is real or theoretical in your operation. The shift toward running them routinely is covered in Mini-Bids Up 70%.

Frequently asked questions