You pay €1,000 to ship a pallet from Košice to Munich. The carrier who drove it earned €800. Nobody told you.
That €200 difference didn't evaporate. It went to the freight forwarder who arranged the transport — your spedition. They didn't drive the truck, didn't load the cargo, didn't cross the border checkpoint at 4 a.m. They made a phone call and sent an invoice.
And here's the part that matters: you had no way of knowing. The forwarder's margin is invisible by design. They quote you a price. You pay it. Somewhere downstream, a carrier accepts a lower one.
This isn't a scandal. It's just how European freight forwarding has worked for decades. But in 2026, with transparent alternatives available, it's worth understanding exactly where your money goes — and whether you're still getting value for what you pay.
How traditional forwarding actually works
Most senders never see the full chain. Here's what happens after you request a quote from your forwarder.
Your company needs to ship 12 pallets from Košice to Munich. You email your spedition. They quote €1,000. You approve. Behind the scenes, the forwarder doesn't own a single truck. They call their network — sometimes another forwarder, sometimes a carrier directly. The second forwarder takes a cut and passes the job to a carrier for €800. The carrier loads the truck, drives 300 km, and delivers on time. You pay €1,000. The carrier earned €800. Two intermediaries split the €200 difference.
The chain often looks like this:
Sender (pays €1,000) --> Forwarder A (keeps €120) --> Forwarder B (keeps €80) --> Carrier (earns €800)
Every hand in the chain takes a cut. Some forwarders subcontract to other forwarders, who subcontract again. Each layer adds margin without adding a truck. The sender overpays. The carrier is underpaid. And nobody in the middle has an incentive to make the price transparent — because the opacity is the business model.
The freight forwarding industry doesn't have a pricing problem. It has a visibility problem. The costs are there. You just can't see them.
The "digital forwarder" illusion
When companies like Sennder and Uber Freight entered European logistics, they promised to fix this. Better technology, faster booking, lower costs.
They delivered on the first two. The third? Not so much.
Digital forwarders replaced phone calls with APIs and spreadsheets with dashboards. That's genuinely valuable. But the fundamental model — sitting between sender and carrier, controlling pricing, taking a margin — didn't change. The margin got smaller. It didn't disappear.
Sennder's platform automates carrier matching, handles documentation, and provides real-time tracking. But they still set the carrier's rate. They still decide what the sender pays. The margin is cleaner, leaner, and better-hidden behind good UX. It's still a margin.
Same shipment, Košice to Munich. You use a digital forwarder instead of a traditional spedition. The experience is faster — instant quote, online booking, GPS tracking. You still pay €1,000. The carrier now earns €850 instead of €800. Progress? Yes. Transparency? The invoice still doesn't tell you what the carrier was actually paid.
If you switched from a traditional forwarder to a digital one, you probably got a better experience. But you didn't get a fundamentally better price. The middleman got a better website.
What you're actually paying for
Let's be fair. Forwarders don't just pocket your money and laugh. The margin covers real costs. The question is whether those costs are worth 15-25% of every shipment.
Here's a typical breakdown of what a forwarder's margin funds:
| Cost category | Share of margin | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Sales & account management | 25-30% | Your relationship manager, their quota, their team |
| Operations & dispatch | 20-25% | Finding carriers, managing bookings, handling exceptions |
| Risk & insurance | 10-15% | Payment guarantees, cargo liability, credit risk |
| Technology | 10-15% | Platform, tracking, integrations |
| Profit | 20-30% | Return to shareholders or owners |
Some of these costs are legitimate and hard to eliminate. Credit risk is real — carriers sometimes don't get paid, and the forwarder absorbs that risk. Exception handling matters when a truck breaks down at the Austrian border.
Here's the honest take: about 30-40% of what you pay in forwarding margin covers things that technology can automate entirely — carrier matching, rate comparison, documentation, tracking. Another 20-30% covers risk management that a platform with verified carriers and escrow payments can handle structurally. The remaining 30-40% is sales overhead and profit. That's the part worth questioning.
The question isn't whether forwarders provide value. It's whether 15-25% per shipment is the right price for that value in 2026, when algorithmic matching, digital documentation, and automated payments exist.
The marketplace alternative
A freight marketplace removes the intermediary. Carriers and senders connect directly. The platform provides the matching, the technology, and the trust layer — and charges a transparent fee instead of a hidden margin.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Same Košice-to-Munich shipment. The sender posts the load on a marketplace. Three carriers with matching routes and available capacity are algorithmically matched within minutes. The sender sees each carrier's rate directly — no markup, no intermediary pricing. They choose a carrier offering €920. The platform adds a 6% fee: €55. Total sender cost: €975. Carrier receives: €920. Platform fee: €55. Savings vs traditional forwarding: €25 on the sender side. Extra earnings for the carrier: €120.
The math is simple. When you remove the middleman, there's more money for both sides. The carrier earns more because nobody's skimming their rate. The sender pays less because the platform fee is a fraction of the forwarding margin.
That might not sound dramatic on a single load. But companies don't ship once. A mid-sized manufacturer shipping 50 loads per month saves €1,250/month — €15,000/year. A logistics manager shipping 200 loads per month saves €5,000/month — €60,000/year. Scale changes everything.
Real numbers, three models
Here's the same €1,000 shipment across three models — from the sender's perspective.
| Factor | Traditional spedition | Digital forwarder | Marketplace |
|---|---|---|---|
| You pay | €1,000 | €1,000 | €975 |
| Carrier receives | €800 | €850 | €920 |
| Margin / fee | €200 (20%) | €150 (15%) | €55 (6%) |
| Margin visible to you | No | No | Yes |
| You choose the carrier | No | No | Yes |
| Carrier sets the rate | No | No | Yes |
| Annual cost (50 loads/mo) | €600,000 | €600,000 | €585,000 |
| Annual savings vs spedition | -- | €0 | €15,000 |
Notice the last row. Digital forwarders save the sender nothing — the efficiency gains go to the forwarder as margin improvement, not to the sender as a lower price. In a marketplace model, the savings flow to both sides of the transaction.
A digital forwarder is a more efficient middleman. A marketplace asks whether you need a middleman at all.
Three questions to ask your current provider
You don't need to switch platforms tomorrow. But you should know the answers to these questions — and how your forwarder responds will tell you a lot.
1. "What percentage do you add to the carrier's rate?"
If they can't answer this clearly, or if the answer is "it's included in the price" — that's the opacity working as intended. A transparent provider will give you a specific number.
2. "Can I see the carrier's original quote?"
On a marketplace, this is default. On a forwarding model, this question usually gets deflected. The answer reveals whether you're dealing with a service provider or a price intermediary.
3. "What would I pay for this same shipment on a marketplace?"
Most logistics managers have never compared. The first time you do, the gap is hard to unsee. For a typical European FTL shipment, the marketplace price is 15-20% lower than the forwarding price — because the margin isn't there.
These aren't gotcha questions. They're due diligence. Any provider confident in their value should welcome them.
Frequently asked questions
How much do freight forwarders charge?
Traditional freight forwarders in Europe typically add a 15-25% margin on top of the carrier's rate. Digital forwarders like Sennder have reduced this to 10-15%, but the margin is still hidden in the price you pay. On a €1,000 shipment, that's €100-250 going to the middleman.
Can I ship directly with carriers?
Yes. Freight marketplaces like Cargoqon connect senders directly with carriers. You see carrier rates, choose your provider, and pay a transparent 6% platform fee (3% for founding members) instead of a hidden 15-25% forwarder margin. The carrier earns more, you pay less.
What is a freight marketplace?
A freight marketplace is a platform where carriers and senders connect directly, without a forwarder in between. Carriers set their own rates, senders choose from matched options, and the platform charges a transparent fee instead of taking a hidden margin. Think of it as the difference between booking a hotel through a travel agent vs booking directly.
How much can I save by switching from a forwarder to a marketplace?
On average, senders save 15-20% per shipment by switching from a traditional forwarder to a direct marketplace. On a €1,000 load, that's €150-200 saved. For a company shipping 50 loads per month, that adds up to €90,000-120,000 per year.
For a full comparison of how Cargoqon stacks up against the major European freight platforms, see our platform comparison.