Freight decision engine

It answers the three decisions that drive freight cost and speed: (1) FCL or LCL — a full container or shared space, split at ~15 CBM; (2) sea, air or rail — set by your deadline against each mode’s transit time; and (3) the landed-cost multiplier — duty and VAT stacked multiplicatively on the CIF value. Enter destination, volume, weight, goods value and the max days you can wait, and it returns a recommendation with the numbers behind it.

Below ~15 CBM you share a container and pay per cubic metre; above it, a 20ft’s ~28 CBM of usable space starts to cost less per CBM than LCL. At 15 CBM the LCL bill (15 × the per-CBM rate) meets the fixed 20ft price, so it is the point where booking a whole box stops being wasteful. The exact crossover moves with the LCL rate and the 20ft price, so the engine recomputes it against your destination’s brackets rather than quoting a frozen number.

It prices the time saved. Air is ~8–15× sea per kg, so it only wins when the days it saves are worth more than the premium. The engine estimates your daily capital cost (goods value × 10% ÷ 365) and multiplies it by the days air saves over sea: if that time-value exceeds the air premium, air pays for itself; if not, sea does. This is the calculation forwarders rarely show, and it is the whole reason a $50,000 urgent shipment flies while a $5,000 bulk one ships.

Duty and VAT stack: a 5% duty then 15% VAT is not 20%, it is 1.05 × 1.15 = ×1.2075 (20.75%). The engine multiplies (1 + duty) × (1 + VAT) per destination — Saudi ×1.2075 vs UAE ×1.1025 vs Qatar ×1.05 — so the same $10,000 CIF lands at $12,075 in Saudi and $10,500 in Qatar, a $1,575 gap most quotes hide.

No. Rates and transit times are published reference ranges (MEDIUM/LOW confidence), not live quotes. Use the recommendation to choose a mode and direction, then confirm the actual figure with a licensed forwarder before booking.