SONAR Launches Bulk Trucking Contract Rate Benchmarks via API, Bringing Pricing Transparency to One of Freight’s Most Opaque Segments

“Bulk freight has always been one of the least transparent corners of the trucking market,” said Julie Van de Kamp, Chief Marketing and Operations Officer, SONAR. “Contract rates in this segment have been negotiated largely in the dark — carriers have a strong read on market conditions, but shippers have had no independent benchmark to work from. We built this to close that gap.”

Closing the Transparency Gap in Bulk Freight

Bulk trucking — which moves commodities including agricultural products, chemicals, construction materials, and energy inputs — represents a significant and persistent segment of domestic freight volume. Despite its scale, the segment has lacked the kind of standardized rate data that now exists for truckload, intermodal, and other freight modes.

The result has been a structural information asymmetry: carriers that operate bulk fleets develop deep market knowledge through experience and volume, while shippers and procurement teams negotiate contract rates without an independent reference point. That dynamic affects quoting accuracy, contract cycle outcomes, and the ability to model lane costs reliably.

SONAR’s Bulk Rates API addresses this directly. By delivering outbound state-based contract pricing with round trip rates included, the data gives both sides of the bulk freight market a common reference — and gives logistics technology teams the building block they need to bring rate intelligence into quoting tools, TMS platforms, and procurement workflows.

Key Capabilities

• Outbound state-based pricing: Contract rate benchmarks organized by origin state, enabling market-level analysis across bulk freight lanes.
• Round trip rates: Pricing that reflects actual carrier economics in bulk operations, where round trip utilization is central to route profitability.
• API-first delivery: Data is available directly via the SONAR API, designed for teams embedding rate intelligence into existing tools and workflows.

Built for the Teams That Move Bulk Freight

The Bulk Rates API is designed to serve multiple constituencies across the bulk freight ecosystem.

For shippers and procurement teams in commodity-intensive industries — agriculture, petrochemicals, construction materials, and energy — the data provides a benchmark for contract negotiations that has never previously been available in standardized form. Teams that have historically set contract rates based on carrier quotes alone now have an independent data point for every lane.

For carriers operating bulk fleets, the benchmarks provide market-level visibility into contract rate positioning — supporting more confident bid pricing and reducing reliance on anecdotal rate intelligence.

For logistics technology developers and TMS platforms serving the bulk market, the API delivers a rate data layer that can be directly integrated into quoting and workflow tools, eliminating the need to build and maintain proprietary rate collection systems.

Part of SONAR’s Expanding Rate Intelligence Platform

The Bulk Rates API extends SONAR’s rate intelligence coverage across an additional freight mode, building on the platform’s existing data across truckload, intermodal, and rail markets. SONAR’s Outbound Tender Volume Index (OTVI), Outbound Tender Reject Index (OTRI), and related rate indices have become standard references for truckload market conditions; the Bulk Rates API applies the same data-driven approach to a segment that has until now been largely outside the coverage of modern freight intelligence platforms.

“Every freight mode deserves the same quality of market data,” said [SPOKESPERSON]. “We’ve spent years building transparency into the truckload market. This is about extending that work into segments where the opacity is even greater and the need for good data is just as real.”

Availability

Bulk Rates are available now via the SONAR API. Current SONAR API subscribers can contact their account manager or email cs@gosonar.com to enable access. Organizations interested in exploring the data can request information at https://pardot.gosonar.com/sonar-api-bulk-rates.