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Price a bid file in Excel

Price a whole RFP with the Excel add-in: map your wording, check one row, then fill Cargado formulas down your own bid file.

Broker
Updated
September 22, 2026

To price a whole RFP, map your file's trailer and crossing names once, check one lane on the Cargado Rates sheet, then fill Cargado formulas down your own bid file. The add-in works in Excel for Windows, Excel for Mac and Excel on the web. This article assumes it is already installed and you are signed in. If not, start with Install and use the Excel add-in.

Step 1: Create the sheets

In the Cargado task pane, click Create sheets. It adds two sheets to your workbook: Cargado Mappings and Cargado Rates. If they already exist, nothing is overwritten and you see Sheets already exist, skipping creation.

The signed-out Cargado task pane docked in Excel, with its four steps, with numbered callouts. 1 Log in first: Sign in with your Cargado account. No API key needed; 2 Create sheets: Disabled until you log in; adds Cargado Mappings and Cargado Rates; 3 Update mappings: Tell Cargado what your file calls each trailer and crossing; 4 Fill in rates: Type lanes on the Cargado Rates sheet, or use a formula.
Four steps in the task pane: log in, create sheets, map, fill in rates.

Step 2: Map your wording

Your customer's RFP will not use Cargado's names. On Cargado Mappings, the yellow Input Trailer Type and Input Crossing columns hold the words your file uses. Replace a yellow cell with your term, for example "53' Van" in the row that maps to DRY_VAN, or "Laredo TX" in the row that maps to LAREDO_INTL_BRIDGE. Leave rows you do not run as they are.

The Cargado Mappings sheet: yellow Input Trailer Type and Input Crossing columns next to Cargado's names. The Input Crossing cells, Laredo through Tecate, are outlined in blue.
Replace a yellow cell with the word your bid file uses.

Step 3: Price one lane first

On Cargado Rates, fill the yellow input columns A to E on one row: Origin, Destination, Trailer Type, Crossing and Miles. Write places as "City, State, Country", such as "Monterrey, NLE, MX". Leave Miles blank and Cargado works out the distance. Leave Crossing blank on a Mexico lane and Cargado uses its recommended crossing.

Now read across. The Cargado Mapped columns show the trailer and crossing your words turned into, plus the Recommended Crossing. The Cargado Rates columns show Low (p25), Mid (p50), High (p75), Confidence, a sparkline, the matched markets and more. If a lane looks wrong, the mapped columns usually show why.

The Cargado Rates sheet: yellow Input columns (Origin, Destination, Trailer Type, Crossing, Miles) for four Mexico lanes, and Cargado Rates columns Low (p25), Mid (p50), High (p75), Confidence and Rate Sparkline (p50). The sparkline cell P3 is outlined in blue with its CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50_SPARKLINE formula in the formula bar.
Fill in the yellow columns; the rate columns fill themselves.

Step 4: Fill formulas down your own bid file

The Cargado Rates sheet has 25 rows. For a longer file, call the functions straight from your RFP tab. With origin in A, destination in B, trailer in C and a Cargado crossing name in D:

=CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50(A2, B2, C2, D2)

Use _P25 and _P75 for Low and High, and CARGADO.RATE_CONFIDENCE for the label. Fill down. Trailer names like "Dry Van" work as typed. Crossings must be Cargado's names, such as LAREDO_INTL_BRIDGE, so look yours up from the mappings sheet if your file says "Laredo TX".

A Pied Piper Logistics RFP workbook with a CARGADO.RATE_HISTORY_P50 formula in cell G2, with numbered callouts. 1 The formula: Point it at your origin, destination, trailer and crossing cells; 2 Your input cells: Trailer names work as typed; crossings need Cargado's names; 3 The result: The Mid, in US dollars; fill the formula down; 4 Errors show as text: This crossing is not a Cargado name, so map it.
Point Cargado formulas at your own columns and fill them down.

Step 5: Fix cells that show an error

Errors appear as text in the cell:

  • Not logged in: sign in again from the task pane.
  • Missing: followed by a field name: a required cell (origin, destination or trailer) is blank.
  • Invalid trailerType or Invalid crossing: the name is not one Cargado knows. Check your mapping.
  • Could not geocode stop: add the state and country to the place.
  • No rates found for the given input: not enough recent data. See Why is there no market rate for my lane?

Important: each lane you price is a market rate lookup and counts toward your plan, like a lookup in the app. See Plan limits, and what the usage warning emails mean.

The Cargado Rates sheet with a Saltillo, COA, MX to Billings, MT row whose Low (p25) cell, outlined in blue, reads No rates found for the given input.
Errors show as text in the cell. This one means there is not enough recent data.

Still stuck?

Email us and a person on our team will answer. Send the posting link or a screenshot if you have one.

carriers@cargado.comfor carrierssuccess@cargado.comfor brokers and shippers

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