Build vs. Buy: What Brokers Should Know Before Building Their Own Cost Model
Across the freight industry, brokerages are re-evaluating their pricing strategies in light of tightening budgets, volatile markets, and mounting pressure to do more with less. One trend we’re seeing emerge: more broker teams are exploring the idea of building their own internal cost model solutions.
It’s not surprising. As technology continues to shape brokerage operations, there’s a growing appetite to bring more capabilities in-house, especially those tied to profitability.
But building your own cost model is a heavy lift. What seems like a smart long-term investment can quickly turn into a slow-moving, resource-hungry project that drains your team before it delivers value.
We know because we’ve been there. It took us over 10 years to develop the pricing engine that powers the Transfix Solutions Console — and we had a full team of engineers, data scientists, and brokers dedicated to solving it.
What It Really Takes to Build In-House
Before choosing to build, it's worth breaking down what’s actually involved in creating a solution that works — not just once, but over time:
18+ months: Estimated timeline to train and launch a usable cost model that integrates contract rates, market data, and broker workflows.
$500K–$1M+: Approximate cost to build when factoring in tech resources, data lakes or trees, infrastructure, and maintenance.
Team Requirements:
Engineers (frontend + backend)
Data science / analytics
Product management
Domain experts to translate broker logic into product logic
Ongoing Resources: Training a cost model is not a one-and-done. It requires consistent monitoring, intense data validation, and quality checks and the reality is, ever-evolving market conditions (or black swan events) make pairing a trained cost model with a team of seasoned pricing analysts is critical to ensure accuracy across lanes on every granular level.
And this doesn’t include the time and focus lost while internal teams shift from their core responsibilities to support the build.
What You Get When You Buy
The Transfix Solutions Console gives brokers a fully integrated suite of pricing intelligence tools — built by brokers, for brokers — with no heavy lift required:
Custom Cost Model (CCM): Precision pricing based on real-time market data, historicals, and cost behavior across modes and lanes
Percent to Market: Compare your rates to market instantly. Make informed decisions about when to hold or renegotiate
Lane Insights: Identify cost trends, margin drags, and customer-specific behaviors by equipment, region, or freight type
Strategy Signals: Surface the exact moments when it's time to pivot between contract and spot
All available either via API or via TMS integration. The onboarding process is straightforward, yet tailored to each customer’s specific needs, with their key performance indicators (KPIs) at the forefront. Plus, our team is an extension of yours being as hands-on or hands-off as you prefer, arming your team with the insights you need to make better, more informed pricing decisions.
And because we’ve been refining this technology for over a decade, it’s not just accurate — it’s battle-tested. We’re proud to say that the margin of error is 0.5%, saving you not just time, but also money that can be used elsewhere.
The Bottom Line
The question isn’t can you build — it’s should you?
With stretched teams and rising pressure to perform, building internally often comes at the cost of speed, margin, and clarity. Meanwhile, the Solutions Console delivers a decade of pricing intelligence, already packaged and ready to plug into your workflow.
In a competitive market, timing matters. Precision matters. The Transfix Solutions Console gives you both, without the overhead of building from scratch.
Let’s talk about how we can help you get there faster.
