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# Pricing Engine

Price every shipment accurately with a powerful rule-based engine that handles any tariff structure, including dynamic fuel surcharges.

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TQLZone-based pricingFuel surchargeExcel importLedger

10+

Pricing module types

TQL

Query language

Excel

Import support

Live

Fuel index updates

Transport order · Spot quote

![Spot quote panel on a transport order with turnover lines (quantity, price, subtotal, total, VAT rate and category), cost lines with price category and company, and the resulting subtotal, VAT, total, costs and net profit](/assets/screens/spot-quote.webp)

Turnover and cost lines side by side, with net profit computed before you send.
1. Select a pricing and press Generate to fill the lines
2. Turnover lines with VAT rate and pricing category
3. Cost lines per category and company
4. Subtotal, VAT, total, costs and net profit

Pricing in freight is complex: zone-based tariffs, per-pallet rates, fuel indices, minimum charges, volume discounts. Transportial's pricing engine handles all of these with a flexible rule system and TQL (Transportial Query Language), a SQL-like syntax for building data-driven pricing rules without writing code.

## What it does

A code-level inventory of what Pricing Engine covers, in the terms you will find inside the product.

### Module types for every tariff shape

A pricing is a set of modules evaluated against the order, shipment, trip or resource.

* Fixed, unit, time, percentage  
A fixed amount; a price per unit (mi, mile, load meter, kg, shipment, action, goods, item, equipment); time-based per second up to per year at trip or action level; a percentage over earlier modules (the classic fuel surcharge).
* Zone, A-to-B, table  
Zones by country, city, postal code, street or exact location; lane prices from A to B, optionally reversible; rate matrices with rows in kilograms and cells in miles or other units, pasteable from Excel.
* Variable adjustment (indexation)  
Fixed or percentage changes against a price variable index such as a diesel index, per difference from a base level. This is how fuel clauses are modeled.
* Formula, TQL formula, field  
Free formulas, [TQL](/en-us/product/reporting)\-driven formulas over any data, or an entity field times a factor.
* Grouping and subscriptions  
Module groups, highest-of or lowest-of selections, element modules per pricing category, and subscriptions billed weekly to yearly with pro-rata and allocation by trips, hours worked or miles driven.

### Where a pricing applies

* Entity types  
Fleet vehicle, vehicle, trip, transport order, shipment, chauffeur, transport equipment or accumulated data, at move-action or shipment level.
* Invoicing cadence  
Trigger types end of trip, end of transport order, end of week, week or month, month, quarter, year, or monthly, quarterly and yearly from a start date.
* Contracts  
Customer and contractor contracts carry a pricing, validity dates and delivery terms; a setting can restrict quoting to active contracts with agreed rates.
* Options  
Direct pricing, combine per customer, self-billing, once per invoice, reverse, and tax rates per line.

### From price to ledger

* Pricing categories  
Each category carries credit and debit ledger codes, so a quote line already knows its accounting destination; a description template formats the invoice line.
* Cost side  
Default driver and vehicle cost pricings turn routes into expected cost; toll from routing posts to its own category. Net profit is visible on the quote before it is sent. See [routing](/en-us/product/routing).
* Expected vs actual  
Ledger entries hold expected and actual debit and credit per business and category, with variance charts on the order, trip and dashboards. See [invoicing](/en-us/product/invoicing).
* AI price module generator  
Describe a tariff or upload rate cards, contracts or price lists and the modules are generated for review.

## How it works

1. ### Model the tariff  
Create a pricing with modules: a zone matrix, a per-LDM unit price, a fuel percentage, a waiting-time module per action hour. Or let the AI generator draft it from your rate card.
2. ### Attach it  
Put the pricing on a customer contract, a capacity contract or a resource, with validity dates.
3. ### Generate the quote  
On the order, select the pricing and press Generate. Turnover and cost lines fill in; edit them if needed.
4. ### Send and convert  
The customer accepts or declines on the public quote link; accepted quotes become orders and later invoices. See [invoicing](/en-us/product/invoicing).
5. ### Reconcile  
Expected revenue and cost sit next to actuals in the ledger, per order, customer or lane.

Order · Cost elements

![Cost elements section of an order with a transport charges line for a business in euros, and buttons to add means of transport, goods, restrictions and cost elements](/assets/screens/cost-elements.webp)

Cost elements on the order and its loads feed the same ledger as the quote.

## Tariffs are data, not spreadsheets with macros

Real freight tariffs mix shapes: a zone matrix by ZIP code, a minimum charge, a per-pallet rate above a threshold, a diesel clause, a waiting-time rate after the first hour. Transportial models each as a module and lets modules combine, select the highest or lowest, or nest into groups. The whole tariff is evaluated by the engine at quote time and again at invoice time, so a price is reproducible months later.

Indexation deserves a specific mention. A price variable index (a diesel index, a wage index) is maintained once, and every variable-adjustment module referencing it recomputes from the difference to its base level. No re-keying of surcharges on the first of the month.

Order · Quote

![Quote form on an order with a spot quote toggle, turnover and costs tables, VAT and totals](/assets/screens/order-quote.webp)

A quote generated from pricing rules, editable line by line.

## Price and cost on the same screen

A quote without its cost is a guess. Because driver and vehicle cost pricings, toll from the route and subcontractor rates from capacity contracts all produce cost lines in the same ledger, the spot quote shows net profit before it leaves the building. The negative-margin alert on the [plan board](/en-us/product/plan-board) catches the trips where the plan drifted from the quote.

## Concepts & terminology

The words this module uses, with links to the full glossary where a term has its own page.

[Open the glossary](/en-us/glossary)

Pricing

A named tariff: a set of modules, a target entity type, a trigger type and options such as combine per customer or self-billing.

Pricing module

One rule inside a pricing: fixed, unit, time, percentage, zone, A-to-B, table, variable adjustment, formula, TQL formula, field, element, group, highest or lowest of, subscription, or Excel matrix.

Pricing category

A label with credit and debit ledger codes that classifies each line for invoicing and accounting.

Price variable index[Glossary](/en-us/glossary/fuel-surcharge)

A time series such as a diesel index that variable-adjustment modules use for indexation.

Trigger type

When a pricing produces invoice lines: end of trip, end of order, end of week, month, quarter or year, or periods from a start date.

Spot quote

A one-off quote on an order, generated from a pricing or typed by hand.

Ledger

Expected and actual debit and credit entries per business and category, derived from quotes, invoices, trips and costs.

Self-billing

Invoicing on behalf of the supplier: the executed work under a capacity contract becomes a purchase invoice automatically.

## Built for

Where this module carries the most weight, plus the free tools on the same topic.

[transport-companies](/en-us/solutions/transport-companies)[freight-forwarders](/en-us/solutions/freight-forwarders)[logistics-service-providers](/en-us/solutions/logistics-service-providers)[Trip profitability calculator](/en-us/tools/profitability)

Technical details

TQL is compiled to a structured calculation tree and evaluated server-side at price calculation time. Variable indices are fetched from external APIs on a configurable schedule by the Worker backend node.

## Frequently asked questions

### Can I import my rate cards?

Yes. Table and Excel modules take pasted matrices, and the AI price module generator drafts modules from uploaded rate cards, contracts or price lists.

### How are fuel surcharges handled?

Either as a percentage module over the freight lines, or as a variable-adjustment module indexed to a diesel price variable, so the surcharge follows the index automatically.

### Can I price waiting time?

Yes. Time modules at action level price waiting per minute or hour, and can start after a free period.

### Do quotes show margin?

Yes. Cost lines from driver and vehicle cost pricings, toll and subcontractors sit next to turnover lines, and net profit is shown on the quote.

### Can prices differ per customer?

Yes. Contracts carry a pricing with validity dates and delivery terms per customer, and a setting can require an active contract with agreed rates.

### What is TQL used for in pricing?

TQL formula modules compute a price from any data reachable by query, for instance the number of stops in a ZIP code area or the sum of pallets across an order.

## Related features

[View all features](/en-us/product)

[Invoicing & Financial ManagementClose the financial loop without leaving Transportial, from first quote to final payment.](/en-us/product/invoicing)[Transport Order ManagementManage the full lifecycle of every shipment, from booking to delivery.](/en-us/product/transport-orders)[Reporting & InsightsTurn operational data into decisions with configurable dashboards, TQL-powered queries, and a complete audit trail.](/en-us/product/reporting)

View all features

[Transport Order Management](/en-us/product/transport-orders)[Interactive Plan Board](/en-us/product/plan-board)[AI-Powered Trip Optimization](/en-us/product/trip-optimisation)[Fleet & Resource Management](/en-us/product/fleet-management)[3D Load Planning](/en-us/product/load-planning)[OpenMove Driver App](/en-us/product/driver-app)[Real-Time Vehicle Tracking](/en-us/product/vehicle-tracking)[Multi-Modal Routing](/en-us/product/routing)[Pricing Engine](/en-us/product/pricing-engine)[Invoicing & Financial Management](/en-us/product/invoicing)[Message Automations](/en-us/product/message-automations)[Document Management & Generation](/en-us/product/documents)[Integrated Email Inbox](/en-us/product/email-inbox)[In-App Chat](/en-us/product/chat)[Customer & Business Portal](/en-us/product/customer-portal)[Integration Framework](/en-us/product/integration-framework)[Reporting & Insights](/en-us/product/reporting)[Multi-Tenancy & White-Label](/en-us/product/white-label)[Security & Access Control](/en-us/product/security)

## Ready to put this to work?

Start free with full platform access, or talk to our team about your specific operation.

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