ROI Calculator
Estimate what a change to your freight quoting process could mean for your team. Enter your annual quote volume, time per quote, labor cost and expected implementation costs. The calculator shows hours freed, the portion you expect to realize financially, first-year ROI and simple payback.
The prefilled inputs are an illustrative example, not measured VelocityOS results. Replace them with your own baseline before using the output in a business case.
How To Use This Freight Quoting ROI Calculator
Start with the number of comparable quotes your team completes in a year. Measure current and expected active work time from a complete request to an approved customer offer. Include rate lookup, charge assembly, checks, corrections and human review in both measurements.
Then enter the share of quotes likely to use the new workflow, your fully loaded hourly labor cost, and the percentage of freed time you expect to realize as a financial benefit. Add annual software and administration costs plus one-time implementation costs.
If the team will use all freed time for other work without reducing costs or avoiding planned spending, enter 0% financial realization. You can still see the hours and capacity value separately.
What Do The Results Mean?
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Hours freed per year | Estimated reduction in active quoting hours across the quotes using the new workflow. |
| Capacity value | Hours freed multiplied by hourly labor cost. This describes available capacity; it is not automatically a cash saving. |
| Realized labor benefit | The portion of capacity value you expect to convert into a financial benefit. |
| Annual net benefit | Realized labor benefit less annual software and administration costs. |
| First-year net benefit | Annual net benefit less one-time implementation costs. |
| First-year ROI | First-year net benefit divided by first-year software, administration and implementation costs. |
| Simple payback | Months required for annual net benefit, assumed to accrue evenly, to cover implementation cost. |
Do not add capacity value to realized labor benefit. The latter is already a portion of the former.
How Is Freight Quoting ROI Calculated?
Annual hours freed = annual quotes × workflow adoption × max(0, current minutes per quote − expected minutes per quote) ÷ 60
Capacity value = annual hours freed × fully loaded hourly cost
Realized labor benefit = capacity value × financial realization
Annual net benefit = realized labor benefit − annual software cost − annual administration and support cost
First-year ROI = (annual net benefit − one-time implementation cost) ÷ (annual software cost + annual administration and support cost + one-time implementation cost) × 100
Simple payback in months = one-time implementation cost ÷ (annual net benefit ÷ 12), when annual net benefit is positive.
The model assigns zero time savings if the expected workflow takes as long as, or longer than, the current process. It reports no payback when annual net benefit is zero or negative.
An Illustrative Freight Quoting ROI Example
Suppose a team completes 6,000 quotes annually. Active work falls from 30 to 15 minutes per quote, and 80% of quotes use the new process. At a fully loaded cost of $40 per hour, that frees 1,200 hours with a $48,000 capacity value.
If the team expects to realize 50% of that value financially, the modeled labor benefit is $24,000 per year. With $12,000 in annual software cost, $3,000 in annual administration cost and $8,000 in one-time implementation cost, the model shows:
- $9,000 annual net benefit after recurring costs
- $1,000 first-year net benefit after implementation
- 4.3% first-year ROI
- 10.7 months simple payback
These numbers illustrate the formulas. They do not predict a particular forwarder's results.
Test Adoption And Financial Realization
Use the sensitivity table beneath the calculator to see how annual net benefit changes when workflow adoption and financial realization are lower or higher than your base case. Adoption describes how many quotes follow the new process. Financial realization describes how much of the freed capacity becomes a financial benefit.
For a conservative case, reduce both assumptions and include expected review and exception work in the new time per quote. For an optimistic case, increase an assumption only when a pilot or staffing plan supports it.
Establish A Baseline Before Making A Purchase Decision
Time a sample of recent air, FCL and LCL quotes, separating routine requests from exceptions. Record active work time through approval, along with revisions and the share of quotes that could follow a standardized workflow. Use the same measurement boundary during a pilot.
This calculator models quoting labor and listed costs. It excludes taxes, financing, discounted cash flows, error reduction, customer revenue and any unproven change in win rate. Track quote outcomes separately with the quote win-rate guide. For process changes that may affect time per quote, see how to generate freight quotes faster.
Evaluate The Quoting Workflow
The result depends on your actual processes and costs. Explore VelocityOS quote management to identify which steps could change, then time a representative pilot before updating your assumptions.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Time saved may create capacity without changing spending. Use the financial realization input to count only the portion supported by a cost reduction, avoided planned expense or another defensible financial assumption.
Simple payback requires positive annual net benefit after recurring costs. If that value is zero or negative, the modeled benefit does not recover the one-time implementation cost.
Keep win-rate uplift outside this base calculation unless you have evidence that connects the new quoting workflow to a measured change in wins and contribution margin. Evaluate it as a separate scenario to avoid overstating the result.
The calculator assigns zero time savings. Recurring and implementation costs still appear in the financial results.