MIAMI, Oct. 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tabi Connect (“Tabi”) is an AI-powered pricing intelligence and automation platform that helps truckload brokers bid on more than $29 billion in freight annually. As peak season volatility and diesel prices drive up tender rejections and push freight to the spot market, brokers face an urgent real-time quoting challenge to protect their margins. Tabi emphasizes that static or delayed pricing is no longer viable and securing profitable business in today’s market requires brokers to evaluate moving buy rates and issue accurate quotes instantly before high-margin spot opportunities pass.
Truckload tender rejections have climbed to about 14.5% since September 21, 2026 and are tracking above 2023 and 2024 levels, according to FreightWaves SONAR data. At the same time, spot rates have risen from roughly $2.40 per mile a year ago to $3.42 per mile, leaving carriers ahead of last year on a net revenue basis despite elevated diesel prices.
Diesel prices are intensifying the squeeze, the national average price of diesel was $6.38 per gallon in September 2026, about $2.63 more, or roughly 70% higher, than a year earlier, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Prices are also moving quickly and unevenly and rose about 24 cents in the week of September 21st, then fell about 15 cents the next week, while regional averages ranged from about $5.96 per gallon on the Gulf Coast to $7.36 on the West Coast.
That volatility means a quote that looked profitable in the morning can become underpriced by the afternoon if the carrier market moves faster than the brokerage’s pricing process. When a routing guide runs out of carriers willing to take the load, that freight becomes a spot quote request, often sent to several brokers at once with a short response window. Fuel surcharges typically apply only to loaded miles, so carriers fold unrecovered deadhead and repositioning costs directly into their base buy rate, causing the broker’s actual cost to rise even if the fuel surcharge table remains unchanged.
For brokers still quoting by hand, that combination creates immediate operational risk: missed bid windows, stale carrier costs, and inconsistent pricing across reps quoting the same lane. In an unstable market, consistency becomes just as important as speed because even small pricing discrepancies can create margin leakage across branches, teams, and customers. Manual teams either respond slowly and lose the load to a faster competitor or quote from yesterday’s buy rate and risk carrying a thin margin, or no margin at all, once the truck is booked.
“When rejections climb, the spot market becomes the front line for broker margin,” said Ricky Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Tabi Connect. “Brokers don’t get more time to quote just because there’s more freight. The ones who can price quickly, on current buy rates, the same way every time, are best positioned to capture the margin peak season offers.”
Tabi’s rate management system (RMS) helps brokers respond faster without sacrificing rate discipline. The platform pulls freight quote requests from shipper TMS platforms, bid boards, email, and APIs into a single system, then applies each brokerage’s custom pricing rules, including markups and fuel surcharges, so every quote reflects current costs and consistent logic. Brokers can update these rules in plain English as market dynamics shift, while Tabi’s Control Tower gives teams oversight before quotes are sent.
“Peak season is a margin opportunity for brokers who are ready for it,” said Gonzalez. “The goal of automation is to help brokers quote the freight they actually want, at a rate that still makes sense once the truck is booked, while the window is still open.”
To learn how Tabi Connect helps brokers automate freight quoting and protect margins, visit tabiconnect.com.
About Tabi Connect
Tabi Connect is an AI-powered rate management and freight quoting platform built to automate and enhance the work of freight brokers and shippers directly where that work happens — inside the quoting workflows, pricing decisions, and operational systems they rely on every day. By integrating with shipper TMS platforms, APIs, RPA workflows, and email, Tabi Connect centralizes inbound quote requests into a single intelligent system and replaces manual data entry with AI-driven business rules that can be updated instantly using plain English.
Tabi Connect centralizes all quoting data into a real-time system of record and uses AI-powered analytics to surface insights in plain English across shippers, lanes, and markups, with built-in governance and auditability.
Trusted by more than 100 customers, including several of the top 100 transportation companies in North America, Tabi Connect processes millions of quotes for North America’s largest shippers with speed and accuracy.
To learn more about Tabi Connect, visit tabiconnect.com.
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