Quoting & client management for regional 3PLs
You priced that account two years ago. Nothing has checked it since.
Rateflow builds the quote, keeps the rates your client actually agreed to, and reads your invoices back in — so the deal you sold and the deal you got end up on the same screen.
Requesting setup tells us you're interested — we'll get in touch and set the thing up properly, with your rate card in it. It isn't a trial and there's nothing to cancel.
Operator-built, not deck-built
This is the sales desk a warehouse operator wished existed before the yearly rate review turned into spreadsheet archaeology.
Built inside a 3PL
The awkward lines are here because real quotes needed them: minimums, container unloads, first-item pricing, and the one-off charge that never fits the template.
Set up by hand
Every account starts on a call with your services and rates loaded. A blank quote builder is not the product.
Demo data only
The screenshots use Harbor Line Logistics, the seeded demo company. No customer logos, no fake proof, no real client rates on the site.
The before and after
Right now your rates live in a file named FINAL_v7.
Every 3PL has this spreadsheet: three generations of tabs, a rate with a question mark on it, and one cell that says to call somebody. Here's the same information, the way your client gets it.
What you're going from
| A | B | C | D | E | F | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2024 RATES — DO NOT USE (kept for Dave) | |||||
| 2 | Client | Storage | storage NEW | pick&pack | container?? | notes |
| 3 | Northgate | $17.25 | 18.50?? | 3.25 | see email | raise in Q3!! |
| 4 | Copperleaf | $16.00 | #REF! | 2.9 or 3.1? | $495 | CALL TOMAS |
| 5 | Alder+Finch | 18.5 | 18.5 | (old tab) | 525 | |
| 6 | Rowan (new) | quoted?? | 3.40 | #REF! | which version?? | |
What your client gets
The whole thing, end to end
Four steps, and the fourth one is the reason for the other three.
Plenty of software will help you write a quote. The part nobody does is come back a year later and tell you how it went.
Quote it
Build off your own rate card — container unload, storage, pick & pack, B2B out, freight, minimums, the one-off line you always end up adding. Not a generic proposal template with your logo on it.
How quoting worksSend it
They move it. The sheet re-prices in front of them.
The client opens a portal, not a PDF. They move their own volumes and watch the sheet re-price. Questions go in the portal, so the answer lives with the quote instead of in somebody's inbox.
Try the rate sheetFreeze it
Typed “Ellis Brandt” · Aug 22, 2025 · $22,529/mo at quoted volumes
They type their name and the rates they accepted become a snapshot — the version you can point at eighteen months later when someone says that isn't what we agreed.
What gets keptCheck it
Volume outran billing. This account gets flagged.
Your invoices come back in on their own and get held against what you quoted. Storage up 58% while billing only moved 11% is a sentence you should be able to read off a screen.
How actuals arriveStep 02 — what the client sees
Hand them the math instead of defending it.
The incumbents make their margin in the gap between what the client thinks they're paying and what they're actually paying. This is the opposite bet: show the whole card, let them move the volumes themselves, and win the ones who were going to audit you anyway.
This is what your client gets. They move their own volumes and the rate sheet re-prices in front of them — same rates, no surprises on the first invoice.
| Service | Qty | Rate | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Container unload — 40′ HC, floor loadedReceiving | 4/ container | $525.00 | $2,100.00 |
| Pallet storageStorage | 420/ pallet / mo | $18.50 | $7,770.00 |
| Pick & pack — first itemFulfillment | 1,850/ order | $3.25 | $6,012.50 |
| Pick & pack — additional itemFulfillment | 2,405/ unit | $0.45 | $1,082.25 |
| Carton & dunnageFulfillment | 1,850/ order | $1.10 | $2,035.00 |
| B2B pallet pick & loadOutbound | 95/ pallet | $22.00 | $2,090.00 |
- Receiving10%
- Storage37%
- Fulfillment43%
- Outbound10%
- Effective cost / order
- $11.40
- Effective cost / pallet
- $50.21
Both figures are derived from the total above, not quoted separately — which is the point. A client who can see the blended number stops asking you to justify the storage rate in isolation.
In the real portal this sheet carries your branding, the client types their name to accept, and the rates they accepted are frozen exactly as shown — $1,500 minimum and all.
Step 04 — where the real numbers come from
You don't change one thing about how you bill.
Your invoices already go out by email. Rateflow's address rides along on that send, so a copy lands here on its own. Nothing new to remember, no export, no monthly ritual that gets skipped in December.
To: client@northgate…
Bcc: northgate@…rateflow.app
July filed against the accepted quote. The comparison updates itself.
Unsure? It queues for a human instead of guessing.
Once a few months are in, the comparison runs itself: what you quoted, what they actually did, and which direction the gap is pointing. How actuals work
Scope
What it isn't.
Faster to tell you up front than to waste a call on it.
Not a WMS
It doesn't run your floor, print labels, or move inventory. Keep whatever you're running.
Not a general CRM
No campaigns, no lead scoring, no deal-stage theatre. Pipeline, contacts, notes, tasks, and the quote attached to all of it.
Not accounting
It reads your invoices; it doesn't write them. Your books stay wherever they are.
Not self-serve
There's no trial that drops you into an empty screen. Every account gets set up on a call, with your rate card loaded.
Who built it
Written by someone who runs a warehouse, for the job he was already doing badly in a spreadsheet.
Every service in the quote builder exists because a real quote needed it. The container unload logic, the minimum monthly, the one-off line that doesn't fit anywhere — none of that came from a product meeting.
I knew what we quoted. I knew what we invoiced. Putting those two numbers next to each other was an afternoon of spreadsheet work per client, so it happened about once a year, on the account that had already gone wrong.
Start with a conversation, not a signup form.
Request setup and we'll reach out to get you set up — your services, your rate card, your clients loaded. If it isn't a fit we'll tell you on that call.