SONAR's new Custom Insights tool is built for shippers, not carriers

What does SONAR's Custom Insights tool do for carriers?

Nothing directly. SCI: Custom Insights is a consortium-powered feature inside SONAR's Supply Chain Intelligence platform that gives participating shippers an ongoing view of their transportation network performance. Shippers contribute tender volume, acceptance rates, carrier information, and contracted rates. SONAR layers in market benchmarks. The result is a dashboard that tells shippers where they're overpaying, where tender rejection is building, and which carriers are underperforming.

The tool launched September 16 and is available only to members of the SONAR Shipper Consortium. Owner-operators and small fleets don't get access. But the intelligence it surfaces flows straight into the procurement decisions, routing guide changes, and rate negotiations that determine what freight you see and what it pays.

How the tool sorts lanes and flags risk

Custom Insights breaks shipper networks into three areas: Network Health, Benchmarking, and Network Optimization.

Network Health gives shippers an executive view of total spend, market versus actual spend, savings opportunities, at-risk spend, total volume, network risk, tender compliance, and pricing alignment. The page layers in SONAR market context and AI-driven insights on demand, rates, and capacity.

Benchmarking takes the analysis down to individual lanes. A feature called Lane Opportunities combines pricing alignment, lane difficulty, tender acceptance, and market conditions to sort lanes into four categories: High Risk Zone, Savings Opportunity, Carrier-Dependent Zone, and Efficiency Zone. That sorting tells shippers where aggressive pricing might be creating service exposure and where they may be overpaying.

Volume Compliance compares planned volume against actual volume so shippers can see where freight is surging, falling short, or shifting from expectations. A carrier performance issue reads differently if that carrier received far more freight than planned. A pricing decision may need a second look if the volume never materialized.

Network Analysis groups activity by origin or destination market, letting shippers evaluate spend, volume, rate alignment, tender rejection conditions, and compliance across facilities and markets. Users can drill into specific lanes to see whether an issue is isolated or part of a broader trend.

Carrier Intelligence gives a network-wide view of carrier performance: average rate, rate variance, tender acceptance, total volume, total lanes, average length of haul, risk level, and guidance. Shippers can drill into any individual carrier to see exactly which lanes are driving its numbers.

What shippers contribute to the consortium

To participate, shippers contribute transportation data: tendered volume, accepted and rejected tenders, carrier information, rates, and other network activity. That data feeds the consortium pool. In exchange, members gain access to deeper network intelligence that supports procurement, carrier management, routing guide strategy, and transportation planning.

The original Supply Chain Intelligence workflow now lives under Manual Analysis and remains available for mini-bids, project freight, scenario analysis, new lanes, and any freight that isn't yet part of a shipper's ongoing consortium data. That gives participating shippers both an ongoing view of their network and the flexibility to run one-off analysis whenever they need it.

Why this matters if you're bidding on shipper freight

When a shipper flags a lane as High Risk Zone because tender rejection is climbing, that lane moves up the procurement priority list. The shipper may add capacity, raise rates, or tighten routing guide rules. When a lane lands in Savings Opportunity because the shipper is paying above market, expect downward rate pressure in the next bid cycle.

If your acceptance rate on a shipper's freight is below network average, you're now a data point in Carrier Intelligence. The shipper can see your rate variance, your tender acceptance, and which lanes are driving your numbers. That visibility doesn't help you. It helps the shipper decide whether to keep you in the routing guide or replace you with a carrier whose acceptance rate is higher.

Volume Compliance tracking means shippers now have a clearer picture of where actual freight diverged from planned volume. If you're on a lane where volume surged and the shipper didn't adjust rates, that's context the shipper will carry into the next negotiation. If volume fell short and you held a routing guide slot, the shipper knows you didn't move the freight they expected.

The intelligence gap widens

Shippers in the SONAR Shipper Consortium now have an always-on view of network performance, market benchmarks, and carrier-level detail. Owner-operators and small fleets don't. You're bidding on freight with less information than the shipper has about your own performance on their lanes.

The tool doesn't change the fundamentals of carrier-shipper relationships. It accelerates the speed at which shippers can identify underperforming carriers, reprice lanes, and shift volume. If you're running shipper freight, assume the shipper can see your acceptance rate, your rate variance, and how you compare to other carriers on the same lanes. Adjust your bidding and your acceptance behavior accordingly.