Rover Carrier wins better rates faster, booking freight in minutes instead of hours

Results TLDR

• • Tripled volume with a key broker, from 3-4 loads per year to 10+ loads in just 6 months.
  • Added 4 new broker relationships, bringing Cargado matches to 25 brokers, which is 25% of their total broker network.
  • Cut booking time from hours of calls and emails to a median of 27 minutes from bid to match.
  • Eliminated driver wait time that used to cost $50/hour while the team sifted through emails.
  • Earned better rates on the same lanes for higher revenue per load without adding trucks.
  • Converted skeptical dispatchers into daily Cargado users through ease of use and mobile notifications.

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Legacy load boards and emails slowed everything down

Rover Carrier is a Calgary, Alberta-based trucking company with 106 power units, plus a fleet of dry vans, reefers, straight trucks, and pups, serving lanes from British Columbia to Manitoba, and deep into the U.S. from California to Florida.

Before Cargado, Aman Sekhon, who handles logistics and sales for Rover, relied on both legacy Canadian and U.S. load boards to find freight, a process he called “time-consuming.”

"You send an email, you're waiting for a reply, you're not getting one back," Aman said. "I got another option on this truck, but this one was closer, but I'm not hearing from them. You're in limbo."

Drivers would sit idle at $50 an hour, waiting for rate confirmations that were slow to come. Even when Rover found loads that fit, the rates often didn't. Aman’s team would go back and forth with brokers about the rate they needed to make a lane work, but time after time, those rates were rejected whether through legacy load boards or email.

Beyond the inefficiency, there was also a real risk. Aman recalled a near-miss with freight fraud on a legacy load board, where anyone with a Gmail address can pose as a legitimate broker. One of his drivers was dispatched to pick up a load of TVs, but the pickup number didn't work. The "broker" kept calling, changing details, pushing the driver to proceed anyway. Aman sensed something was wrong and pulled his driver out.

"If I had picked up that load, I would have been in for fraud," Aman said. He later learned from the shipper that three loads had already been stolen through the same scheme, and the scammer was still posting on the same load board a year later. Aman said, "They should be verifying that, right?"

Rover needed a platform where carriers weren't the only ones being vetted.

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‘Cargado is free’: Tech-forward Rover gives Cargado a no-risk try

When Aman proposed Cargado, the dispatch team was skeptical. "Another load board," they said. But Rover has a culture of embracing new technology, including satellite-controlled reefers and integrated fleet management, and Aman pushed his team to try it.

"The fact that Cargado is free helped a lot," Aman said. "If it's a new platform my guys don't want to use and I have to pay for it, I would have said, maybe later. But Cargado is free, and they could give it a shot.”

Once onboarded, the skepticism faded fast. "Once they started using Cargado, it was phenomenal," Aman said. “Cargado is more tech-savvy, and it’s easier to book without the whole hassle of emails and back-and-forth phone calls. It can be as simple as, We’re okay with the rate. Book it.”

Results‍

3x volume growth with a key broker

Before Cargado, one of Rover's broker relationships was stuck at 3-4 loads per year. "They were not a major customer," Aman said.

But that changed with Cargado. In just six months, Rover moved 10 loads with this broker—more than triple their typical annual volume and at higher rates that made better financial sense for Rover.

"When they come to us through Cargado, they have a better rate than they would on [Canada’s legacy load board]."

The admiration is mutual. The broker speaks highly of Rover—Cargado’s Blake Bolton recently shared with Aman, ”He talks about how much he loves your services.”

"It's all about service, and that's why we got to the place we did," Aman said. "We're not the type of carrier that can be bought. We're not going to cancel. That's our reputation."

4 new relationships with reliable brokers, for 25 total partners in 6 months

In their six months on Cargado, Rover matched with 25 different brokers. Four of them were brand new relationships with brokers Rover had never worked with before. For a carrier that already had an established book of business, finding new partners without cold outreach is a meaningful win.

For the Rover team, having dealt with fraud attempts on legacy load boards, the trust factor mattered. Unlike open marketplaces, Cargado vets every broker before they can post freight: The team meets with each broker (in person or on video) to understand their business, screens them against public authority databases, and continuously monitors performance and carrier feedback. For Rover, new relationships through Cargado come vetted and trusted, and they no longer have to worry about Gmail scammers.

Booking freight in 27 minutes instead of hours

Cargado's live bidding transformed how Rover books freight. Instead of emailing a rate, waiting hours for a response, and scrambling when a truck sits idle, Aman's team now negotiates in real time. Rover's median time from bid to match on Cargado is just 27 minutes.

"On my phone, they'll reply with $5,200. I'm like, okay, we could do $5,700 on this one—click. We're not really even talking to the person, but Cargado knows our max and the broker's minimum. If it matches, it matches. If not, it's understood. It's quick."

That speed matters when drivers are paid $50 an hour just to wait instead of drive. "The biggest benefit of Cargado is we save time," Aman said. "It's quicker to book a load than have drivers sit while we email customers."

Better rates on the same lanes

Aman said they earn more per load with Cargado.

"We realized we got a bit more on some loads in terms of rate than we would have," he said.

Rates that brokers had rejected for months were suddenly getting approved through Cargado. Aman recalled a lane from Taber, Alberta, to Louisiana that Rover had quoted many times. "We've always given the broker the rate that we need to make it work. It hadn't worked out on [other load boards] or through emails. All of a sudden, we get an email from Cargado—they approved our rate. How is this possible?"

It was a pattern Aman noticed across the platform. "With all the other platforms, there's so much back and forth—we can't do this, we can't do that. With Cargado, it's more like, We need this much, this is where we are, here you go. It's much easier for us, and we feel it's more reasonable, more fair rates."

Brokers on Cargado use Cargado Market Rates to post rates based on real carrier bids, not just their best guesses.

Proactive notifications bring the freight to them

With 106 tractors, 287 dry vans, 47 reefers, and four straight trucks spread across Western Canada and the U.S., Rover's team can't spend all day scanning load boards, and with Cargado, they don’t have to. The freight comes to them via notifications of load postings in Rover’s preferred service areas.

“The best part about Cargado is we don’t have to search the board unless we need to,” Aman said. “Cargado actually messages us when there’s freight available.”

Now, Aman says Rover’s equipment is better utilized than ever before.

"We get emails with a load from here to here, and if it works for us, we just click on it," Aman said. "Options come one after another. Instead of me looking at a certain location and trying to find something in that area, now I get a city and think, that's only so many miles away. We could deadhead there, but we would need this much. And it's good."

For a carrier with trucks spread across the map, Cargado’s alerts with a steady stream of options to pick from replace the endless searching—and make the process of matching faster and easier.

Aman’s advice: ‘It’s worth it’

For carriers considering Cargado, Aman's advice is simple: "Give it a shot. It's worth it. For us, it was one of those things where we feel like it's more fair. That broker we'd been doing three or four loads a year with—we'd talked to them in emails before, we'd bid on their loads before. And we've always given them the rate we need to make it work. But once it came through Cargado, it was approved. It was a shock. So it's worth it."

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About Rover Carrier

Rover Carrier Limited is a Calgary, Alberta-based trucking company operating nearly 100 power units, along with 287 dry vans, 47 reefers, and four straight trucks. Rover serves cross-border lanes from Western Canada (British Columbia to Manitoba) throughout the United States, from California and Texas to Florida and the Southern states. The company emphasizes technology adoption, service reliability, and long-term customer relationships.