123Loadboard publishes its carrier pricing, which is more than most of the industry does. If you are weighing what a load board subscription actually returns, and your freight touches Mexico or Canada, here is the honest comparison.
| 123Loadboard | Cargado | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | U.S. domestic trucking | Mexico and Canada freight, cross-border and domestic |
| Network | Open subscriber board | Invite-only: both sides vetted before anyone posts or bids |
| Rate data | Rate Check, in the top tier | 12,000+ Mexico and Canada lanes from real carrier bids |
| Carrier cost | $39, $59 and $79 per month, published | Join and bid at no cost |
| Carrier vetting | Subscribers verify authority themselves | FMCSA and SICT verified, CTPAT, OEA and FAST tracked |
123Loadboard publishes three carrier tiers on its own pricing page: Standard at $39 a month, Premium at $59, and Premium Plus at $79, with a ten-day trial. Rate Check, their lane rate insight tool, sits in the top tier.
That last detail is the one worth sitting with. Load visibility is table stakes. The thing that changes what you accept and what you turn down is knowing what a lane is actually paying, and on most subscription load boards that knowledge is the upgrade. You pay the entry price to see freight, then pay again to understand it.
Cargado prices carriers at zero. Not a trial, not an entry tier. Carrier access is at no cost and market rate visibility is included in it, because a carrier who can see the market bids better and covers more freight, and that is the whole point of the network. Brokers, 3PLs and forwarders pay the subscription, and every broker plan includes unlimited users rather than per-seat licenses.
123Loadboard publishes its tiers, features and prices on a page you can read in thirty seconds, no call required.
It is also built around a clear customer. The tooling is aimed at owner-operators and small fleets running U.S. domestic freight, with mileage and routing, document handling, credit checks, and a mobile app that works on the road.
Cargado is an invite-only marketplace. Brokers, 3PLs and forwarders are verified before they can post, and carriers are verified before they can bid. Carrier verification runs through FMCSA (the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) and SICT (Mexico's federal transport authority), with trusted-trader status tracked on the profile: FAST (Free and Secure Trade), PIP (Partners in Protection, the CBSA program), and CTPAT.
For a carrier, that means the freight in front of you comes from companies that were checked before they got a posting. For a broker, it means the bids coming back are from carriers who can legally and physically run the move, including the ones with the FAST approval you need for the dedicated lanes at the border.
The network today is 250+ vetted brokers, 3PLs and forwarders and 2,100+ vetted carriers running 215,000+ trucks, across 12,000+ lanes covered.
123Loadboard is built around U.S. domestic trucking, and it is honest about that in how the product is organized: search loads by state, IFTA tools, U.S. credit data.
Cargado is the modern marketplace for Mexico and Canada freight, and it is the only network built to span both. That covers freight crossing between the United States, Mexico and Canada, and freight moving domestically inside Mexico and inside Canada.
What that looks like in practice: Toronto to Chicago. Montreal into the Northeast. Winnipeg to Chicago reefer, where protect-from-freezing in January means reefer and heated capacity rather than a temperature-controlled trailer on paper. Brampton to Calgary domestic. British Columbia south into Washington. Southern Ontario into western New York.
Each posting carries the structure the move actually needs: crossing, equipment, whether it is a PARS move northbound into Canada or a PAPS move southbound into the United States, CUSMA (the trade agreement that replaced NAFTA) documentation, drop or live, temperature range. Chat is bilingual with instant translation, so a dispatcher in Monterrey and a dispatcher in Mississauga work the same thread. Canada freight quotes in Canadian dollars and U.S. freight quotes in U.S. dollars.
The carriers who get the most out of Cargado are the ones with authority to cross, with domestic Mexico or domestic Canada capacity, or running U.S. loads to and from border cities like Laredo and El Paso, who are tired of paying to see rates on lanes they do not run. The brokers who get the most out of it are the ones being asked for Mexico and Canada coverage they cannot source from a U.S. domestic board.
Brokers see live lane rates and vetted carriers on their own lanes in a demo. Carrier access is at no cost.
123Loadboard publishes carrier tiers at $39, $59 and $79 per month on its own pricing page, with a ten-day trial. Their Rate Check lane rate tool is included in the top tier.
No. Carrier access is at no cost and includes market rate visibility, so there is no upgrade tier standing between a carrier and the numbers. Brokers, 3PLs and forwarders pay a value-based subscription with unlimited users included.
Cargado is an invite-only marketplace where every broker and carrier is vetted before joining. Brokers post loads for spot coverage and post lanes as procurement events with date ranges, loads per day, commodity and equipment requirements, to source dedicated capacity.
Yes, where it connects to the border: U.S. loads to and from border cities, like Dallas to Laredo or El Paso to Charlotte, run on Cargado alongside cross-border moves and freight moving within Mexico and within Canada. Deep-interior U.S. freight that never touches the border corridor is the one thing it is not built for.
Yes, and many carriers do. Keep the domestic board for deep-interior U.S. freight and use Cargado for Mexico and Canada lanes and the U.S. legs that feed the border, where carrier access costs nothing and the vetting is done before you bid.