7 Ways to Reduce Your Freight Shipping Costs

Freight costs are one of the largest controllable expenses for most businesses. Whether you're shipping a few pallets a week or hundreds, there are concrete steps you can take to reduce what you're spending without sacrificing delivery speed or reliability.

1. Use a Multi-Carrier Rate Shopping Platform

The fastest way to overpay for shipping is to use a single carrier for everything. Every carrier has lanes where they're competitive and lanes where they're not. A TMS platform that compares rates across multiple carriers for every shipment ensures you're getting the best available price, every time.

Razor Logistics provides this technology at zero cost to our clients. For every shipment, our platform compares rates from dozens of carriers and recommends the best combination of price, transit time, and service quality.

2. Classify Your Freight Correctly

Freight misclassification is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes in LTL shipping. If your freight class is too high, you're overpaying on every shipment. If it's too low, you'll face reclassification charges that can exceed what you would have paid at the correct class.

Work with your logistics provider to audit your freight classifications. Even small adjustments can yield meaningful savings across hundreds of shipments per year.

3. Optimize Your Packaging

Density is a key factor in freight pricing. By reducing excess packaging, using appropriately sized boxes, and stacking efficiently on pallets, you can improve your freight density and potentially qualify for a lower freight class.

Consider investing in custom packaging for your most frequently shipped products. The upfront cost is usually recovered quickly through lower shipping rates.

4. Consolidate Shipments

Multiple small LTL shipments to the same region cost more than fewer, larger shipments. If your order patterns allow it, holding orders for an extra day or two to consolidate into a single shipment can significantly reduce your per-unit shipping cost.

5. Negotiate Based on Data

Don't accept carrier rate increases at face value. Use your shipping data to understand your lane-level spend, volume trends, and carrier performance. Shippers who negotiate with data get better outcomes than those who negotiate based on relationships alone.

If you work with a 3PL like Razor, we handle this negotiation for you, leveraging our aggregate volume and market intelligence to keep your rates competitive.

6. Reduce Accessorial Charges

Accessorial charges (liftgate delivery, residential delivery, inside delivery, limited access) can add $50-$200 per shipment. Review your accessorial patterns and look for ways to reduce them.

Can your customer accept delivery at a commercial dock instead of a residence? Can you schedule deliveries during business hours to avoid after-hours charges? Small operational changes can eliminate recurring accessorial costs.

7. Review and Audit Your Invoices

Carrier billing errors are more common than most shippers realize. Duplicate charges, incorrect weights, wrong accessorials, and misapplied discounts add up over time. A regular invoice audit process (or a logistics provider that handles this for you) can recover 2-5% of your freight spend.

The Bottom Line

Most businesses can reduce their freight costs by 15-25% through a combination of these strategies. The key is having the data, technology, and carrier relationships to execute them consistently.

If you're ready to see what you could save, contact Razor Logistics for a free shipping analysis.