The story
A TMS and a freight marketplace do different jobs, and a broker moving Mexico freight usually needs both. The TMS is your system of record: where a load is built, quoted, tendered, tracked, documented and billed. The marketplace is where that load meets carriers: you post it, vetted carriers on both sides of the border bid on it, and you book one. Cargado is a marketplace, not a TMS. It connects to your TMS so a load saved there reaches the marketplace without anyone re-typing it.
What a TMS does
A transportation management system runs the inside of your brokerage. It holds the customer, the order, the rate you quoted, the carrier you assigned, the documents and the invoice. Your team works in it all day, and your accounting depends on it. When a load is booked, held or canceled, the TMS is where that decision is recorded.
Many TMS platforms were built around domestic truckload, and cross-border data can be a poor fit: Mexican postal codes and addresses can fail validation, there may be no native field for a border crossing or a transfer leg, and there may be nowhere to store CTPAT status or CAAT codes. A TMS does what a system of record should do: it keeps the truth about your freight. Finding and vetting a Mexican carrier is a different job. What a TMS is, and where cross-border strains it.
What a freight marketplace does
A freight marketplace connects the two sides of a load: brokers who need a truck and carriers who have one. On Cargado, a broker posts a Mexico or Canada load with the details that decide coverage: lane, border crossing, equipment, certifications such as CTPAT and OEA, and door-to-door versus transload. Cargado matches the posting to carriers whose profiles fit, notifies them on the channels they already use, gives you a ranked list of suggested carriers, and keeps bids, questions and counters in one place.
The marketplace is invite-only. Every carrier applies, and the Cargado team reviews the application before the account is turned on. A U.S. carrier's USDOT number is looked up in FMCSA records and must show active authority; a Mexican carrier submits its RFC, SICT operating permit and company documents, which the team reviews. Cargado's review does not replace your own carrier onboarding. Carriers use it at no cost; brokers pay a subscription. How carriers are vetted.
A marketplace is not a system of record. It does not hold your customer contract, your margin or your invoice. It finds the truck.
Why Mexico freight needs both
Domestic freight is easier to keep in one tool. A U.S. carrier can be verified in seconds through public records, and everyone works in the same language. Mexico freight does not work that way. A Mexican carrier cannot be checked in one public lookup the way a U.S. carrier can; the permits, tax registration and insurance that do exist take real work to verify. The load moves in legs, with a Mexico portion, a border crossing and a U.S. portion, and carriers price each leg on its own. The conversation with the carrier is bilingual. Your TMS keeps the record straight; the marketplace does the finding, vetting, pricing and negotiating that the record depends on.
Running both by hand means re-keying every load from the TMS into wherever you find carriers. That is the gap an integration closes: the load flows in on its own, and on McLeod, Tai and Turvo integrations the bid and the booking flow back.
How the two work together on a Mexico load
With a TMS integration, a load moves like this:
- Quote in your TMS, price with the marketplace. Cargado Market Rates gives you a rate range for the lane, built from carrier bids on the marketplace and refreshed weekly. It is carrier cost, not a customer price, so add your margin and quote the customer. Look up a market rate.
- Save the load in your TMS. It syncs to Cargado. The lane, crossing, pickup, equipment and weight carry over. Syncing is not posting: carriers cannot see the load yet.
- Your posting rules decide what reaches carriers. Rules can offer the load to your dedicated carriers first, then to your preferred carriers for a set window, and only then to the marketplace. Rules can differ by lane and equipment type. You can still post by hand.
- Carriers bid on the posting. A load that came from your TMS shows a TMS synced tag, so carriers know it came straight from your system and reflects its current state. On a Mexico load, carriers price the Mexico portion, the crossing and the U.S. portion.
- On McLeod, Tai and Turvo integrations, bids come back to the shipment in your TMS. Your rate rules can counter automatically when a bid is above your rate, and when the carrier accepts, the booking goes back to your TMS on its own.
- Confirm the truck in Cargado Chat. The match opens a thread where you confirm the truck, trailer, crossing partner and pickup time. Chat translates messages between English and Spanish, so each side writes in its own language.
Book, hold or cancel the load in your TMS and the posting comes down on its own. Your team still sends its own rate confirmation whenever you want a person to check the match. If your team connects through API access instead, ask your Cargado contact what your setup sends back, and record the booking in your TMS yourself. What a TMS integration does.
Who owns what
A short way to remember the split:
- The TMS owns the record. Customer, order, quoted rate, assigned carrier, documents, invoice, and whether the load is booked, held or canceled.
- The marketplace owns the search. Matching, carrier vetting, notifications, bids, counters, market rates and the bilingual conversation with the carrier.
- The integration owns the hand-off. Loads flow from the TMS into Cargado, and on McLeod, Tai and Turvo integrations bids and bookings flow back, so nobody types the same load twice.
Which TMSs connect
McLeod, Tai and Turvo are the TMS integrations in production today. The Cargado team configures the integration with you, and it requires a Cargado subscription. If your team is on another system, Cargado offers API access instead of a TMS integration: the team issues a key scoped to what your system needs, such as syncing loads or looking up market rates, and your team builds against it. Get an API key for your integration.
What if you don't have a TMS?
You can use the marketplace on its own. Post loads and lanes by hand in the Cargado app, work bids there, and look up market rates in the app or the Excel add-in. The integration removes the re-typing; it is not a requirement. Post it right.
