Quick Answer: An RFP locks in hundreds of lanes at once. In this market, that makes it the riskiest bulk decision a broker makes all year. Van buy rates were still 45.1% above year-ago levels in August 2026, and brokers with the most contract exposure bottomed at −25% total margin. RFP Manager is built on settled payments from the largest payments network in brokered truckload freight held to the data standards of a publicly traded bank.
Every Contract Is a Bigger Bet and Payments Are the Only Facts That Matter
An RFP isn't just a pricing exercise. It's a 12-month promise across hundreds of lanes, made before the market moves. And right now, it's moving fast.
Triumph's H2 2026 data shows broker total margin dropped as much as 24% from December 2025 to February 2026 as buy rates rose faster than contract sell rates could catch up. Tender rejections hit multi-year highs, route guides broke, and brokers locked into earlier rates covered freight at a loss. Larger brokers felt it most, those with more than $50 million in gross margin bottomed at −25%, growing just 8.6% total margin year over year, while smaller brokers with fewer enterprise commitments grew 25–37%. Scale created contract exposure, and that exposure became a liability.
Some RFP tools offer market forecasts powered by posted rate indices, what someone was asking for, not what brokers actually paid to move a load. Postings are ads. Quotes are opinions. Payments record what freight actually moved for. Triumph processes the payments, which is why RFP Manager runs on the Triumph Network—the largest payments network in brokered truckload freight, covering nearly 70% of North American brokered freight, and the only freight pricing platform held to the data standards of a publicly traded bank. Nobody can predict the future in this environment, but we believe the payment, audit, and factoring data in the Triumph Network is a much stronger market signal to incorporate into your pricing going forward.
Price Every Lane with Verified Data
RFP Manager provides rate forecasts modeled on your data and the data in the Triumph Network. It puts a Long-Term Verified Buy Rate next to a transaction-verified Long-Term Market Buy Rate on every lane, then projects how both will move over the life of the contract. Eight or more baselines drawn from settled transactions no licensed-index dependency, no guesswork. Before you publish, RFP Manager flags high-risk lanes so you can make no-bid calls early.
And RFP season doesn't have to mean weeks of manual work. RFP Manager processes 10,000 rows in under 10 minutes. Upload your data as-is, run multi-round bid management, and export back to Excel without rebuilding your workflow. Turnaround runs 70–90% faster than traditional methods.
Your Bid Is a 12-Month Promise. Build It with Facts.
If your pricing model still reflects 2024-era buy rates or depends on posted-rate benchmarks, your margin's already at risk heading into 2027. See how RFP Manager helps you price smarter with transaction-backed benchmarks, pre-bid risk flags, and post-award lane monitoring built in. Book a demo today and go into this RFP season with facts, not assumptions.