Tabi Connect Reports Awarded Broker Margins Fell to 16.9% in July as Spot Quote Volume Rose 15%

With pricing power still tilted toward brokers, Tabi Connect is advising brokers to hold steady rather than compete on price.

MIAMI, Aug. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tabi Connect ("Tabi"), an independent rate management and freight quoting platform built for freight brokers, today released the July 2026 Tabi Pricing Pressure Index (TPPI). Awarded broker margin fell 4.5 points month over month to 16.9%, even as spot quote volume rose 15.2%, a combination the report says points to a market still favoring brokers, though by a narrower margin than earlier in the summer.

"July continued to mirror the trends seen over the previous two months: brokers still have the advantage, just not as much of it," said Ricky Gonzalez, CEO and co-founder of Tabi Connect. "Awarded margin is still above the historical average, but it fell while volume jumped. That usually indicates that brokers should hold their rate instead of chasing the extra freight, because a thinner margin and a wider volume pool tend to mean shippers are getting ready to push back. Market pricing is becoming more predictive, which gives brokers a clearer signal to price with confidence instead of guessing."

Brokers defended that margin by pricing closer to the market: the quote-to-market spread narrowed 3.9 percentage points, from 22.6% to 18.8%, and eased further to 15.7% in the most recent week. The share of quotes converting to awarded freight fell 3.7% month over month, and average haul length held steady at approximately 674 miles, ruling out a shift in lane mix as a driver of the margin change.

Key findings from the July 2026 TPPI report:

• Awarded broker margin fell 4.5 points month over month, from 21.4% to 16.9%, but stayed 2.2 points above the 14.7% historical average.
• Spot quote volume rose 15.2% against the prior four-week average, while the awarded share of quotes fell 3.7% month over month.
• The TPPI closed July at 36, up 10 points week over week, though its four-week average of 26 remained below the eight-week average of 29.
• The quote-to-market spread narrowed 3.9 percentage points month over month, from 22.6% to 18.8%.

A similar selectivity edge showed up by win rate: brokers converting fewer than 1% of quotes captured the strongest awarded margin, at 17.3%, compared with 14.2% among brokers converting more than 4%. By equipment type, van freight, 63.0% of volume, set the market baseline at a 14.5% margin, reefer ran highest at 14.7% despite the lowest win rate of the three at 0.60%, and flatbed carried the widest market spread at 23.3%.

The pattern holds regardless of how the freight is sliced: the brokers holding onto margin are the ones being careful about what they say yes to, not the ones saying yes to everything. That distinction matters more as more quoting moves through automated systems.

"Push enough volume through AI without anyone checking it, and a broker ends up in that higher-volume, thinner-margin group, because nobody caught the quote that should not have gone out," continued Gonzalez. "Let automation handle the busywork, but keep a person accountable for what actually gets sent."

The TPPI tracks week-over-week pricing pressure in the U.S. spot freight market on a scale of 0 to 100, where a rising score favors shippers and a falling score favors brokers, using data drawn exclusively from live spot market quoting activity. The index closed July at 36, up 10 points week over week, though its four-week average of 26 stayed below the eight-week average of 29, keeping the broader trend broker-favored.

The full July 2026 TPPI report, including trend charts and detailed segmentation, is available at 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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