Carrier vetting software for freight brokers
Carrier vetting tools do four different jobs. Most brokerages use one from the first group and one or two from the others. This guide names the tools we have compared, with the price each vendor publishes on its own site and the date we read it.
No rankings, ratings or review scores: we are a vendor in this list. Tools are alphabetical within each category. Each links to a side-by-side comparison.
Official FMCSA sources
What to look for: Free and authoritative. Use them for the legal record and to spot-check any vendor. Expect no alerts, no joins across systems and no support.
- FMCSA QCMobile API — FMCSA's free developer API with a Login.gov WebKey; carrier, authority and BASICs resources, no insurance filings or alerts. (checked )
- FMCSA SAFER Web — The free, official FMCSA company snapshot; no account, no API, no alerts. (checked )
Lookup and monitoring tools
What to look for: A watchlist, an alert when FMCSA posts an insurance or authority change, and a published price. Check how many carriers a plan covers, whether the price is per seat, and whether alerts carry the filing's effective date.
- Carrier Assure — Carrier scores and SuspectCarrier reports; Premium $149/month, Enterprise with API by contact. (checked )
- Carrier411 — FreightGuard incident reports and FMCSA history since 2005, from $99/month with a 30-day trial. (checked )
- CarrierOk — Carrier intelligence with proprietary risk scoring from $149/month per user; the API is a separate pay-as-you-go product. (checked )
- CarrierOwl — A shared broker vetting workspace with a 100-carrier watchlist, Broker Pro $79/month, 30-day trial. (checked )
- CarrierSentry — Monitoring from $0 for 3 carriers to $49/month for 100 carriers. (checked )
- CSA Sentry — Carrier monitoring at $49/month for up to 100 carriers (Solo) or $149/month unlimited (Agency). (checked )
- DAT CarrierWatch — Carrier monitoring from DAT, from $149/month through a custom quote. (checked )
- SearchCarriers — Carrier search and watch alerts in three published plans from $20/month to $300/month. (checked )
- VerifyCarrier — VerifyCarrier Carrier watch: $49/month per account for 50 carriers. Email when FMCSA posts an insurance cancellation or involuntary suspension, with the effective date, or when the census shows an out-of-service or safety-rating change. 7-day trial after email verification, no card.
Onboarding and compliance platforms
What to look for: Carrier packets, identity checks and TMS integration for larger brokerages. Pricing is usually quoted, not published; budget for implementation.
- Highway — Identity-focused carrier onboarding for brokers; price not published, demo required. (checked )
- RMIS (Truckstop) — Carrier onboarding and compliance; RMIS Lite from $340/month, RMIS Pro by sales quote. (checked )
Carrier data APIs
What to look for: Whether the API is included or metered separately, what sources it joins (FMCSA record, insurance filings, UCC), and whether a source outage is reported or silently dropped.
- CarrierOk — Carrier intelligence with proprietary risk scoring from $149/month per user; the API is a separate pay-as-you-go product. (checked )
- FMCSA QCMobile API — FMCSA's free developer API with a Login.gov WebKey; carrier, authority and BASICs resources, no insurance filings or alerts. (checked )
- SaferWebAPI — A third-party FMCSA data API at $30/month flat with unlimited requests and a 15-day trial. (checked )
- Zyla API Hub — An API marketplace where each carrier-data listing sets its own plans and trial. (checked )
- VerifyCarrier — VerifyCarrier evidence API: included on every account (100 calls a month free, 1,000 on the $49 plan). One call returns the FMCSA record, insurance filings, matched UCC history and census contact overlaps, each with its source date and status.
Before you buy
- Every tool here reads the same public FMCSA records. Pay for the alerts, joins, scoring or workflow a vendor adds, not for the data itself.
- Ask whether the price is per seat or per account, how many carriers a plan watches, and whether the API is included or metered separately.
- An alert or a score is a prompt to review. Confirm coverage with the insurer and record what you checked; no tool makes the approval decision for you.
See every side-by-side on the comparison hub or read the carrier vetting guide.