On December 1, 2025, WiseTech moved 95% of CargoWise customers to per-transaction Value Pack (CVP) pricing, replacing the flat-fee Site Transaction License, and you cannot revert. Under CVP you pay an Automation Fee on every transaction: $19.95 per full import container, $9.95 per standalone customs entry, on top of base license and user costs. A forwarder running 200 containers and 150 entries a month faces roughly $5,482 per month, about $65,790 per year, in per-transaction fees alone, 25 to 40 percent above the old model per NuevaFlo’s 2026 breakdown. Operations in the 50-to-100-container range see 20 to 30 percent increases. The three realistic options: absorb the cost, switch platforms, or recover the lost margin by automating the ops hours around CargoWise rather than replacing it.
December 1, 2025. WiseTech Global moved 95% of its CargoWise customers to a new pricing model called the Value Pack, or CVP. The old flat-fee Site Transaction License is gone. You cannot go back.
For small forwarders, the math is worse.
What changed: flat fee to per-transaction
The STL model was predictable. Fixed monthly fee, regardless of job volume. Under CVP, you pay an Automation Fee every time CargoWise processes a transaction.
Per WiseTech’s published pricing:
- $19.95 per full import container
- $9.95 per standalone customs entry
These sit on top of your base license and user costs.
A forwarder running 200 ocean import containers and 150 customs entries per month is looking at roughly $5,482 per month, or $65,790 per year, in per-transaction fees alone. NuevaFlo’s 2026 pricing breakdown puts that at 25 to 40 percent above what the same operation paid under the old model.
Small operations in the 50 to 100 container range are seeing 20 to 30 percent increases.
WiseTech’s answer: pass it to the shipper
The official framing is that the Automation Fee is a disbursement, not a software cost. When configured correctly in CargoWise, it auto-posts to the customer invoice. The idea is that your P&L never sees it.
That works if you have pricing leverage. Putting a $19.95 line item labeled “TMS automation fee” on an invoice to a shipper you are trying to win or keep creates a conversation that did not exist before. Some shippers accept it. Others push back or walk. The forwarders absorbing the cost instead are watching it land directly in margin.
Three realistic options
Option 1: Switch TMS
Inquiry into alternatives went up after the pricing announcement. GoFreight, Magaya, and others saw the interest. Some competing platforms still run seat-based or flat-fee models.
The switch cost is real, though. A TMS migration for a 10 to 50 person operation typically takes six to eighteen months: data migration, retraining, reduced throughput while the team gets up to speed. You trade a known annual increase for a large one-time operational risk. If CargoWise was already failing your operation, switching makes sense. If it works and your team knows it, migrating to save $30,000 a year is often a worse trade than the spreadsheet makes it look.
Option 2: Stay and hire more staff
The logic here is that fewer automated transactions means lower Automation Fees. Do more by hand, pay less.
It does not hold up. A $20 per container software fee versus 15 to 30 minutes of staff time per container, plus benefits and management overhead. Manual entry also does not scale when volume grows.
Option 3: Stay on CargoWise and add an AI inbox layer
The third option: keep CargoWise and automate the part of the workflow it was never designed to handle, getting data from emails into the TMS.
What an AI layer on top of CargoWise actually means
An AI layer sits between your email inbox and CargoWise, handling the coordination work your ops team currently does by hand. It does not re-create CargoWise’s job management, billing, or customs filing.
Every inbound freight email contains structured data. Pre-alerts carry the MBL, container number, vessel, voyage, ETD, and ETA. Booking confirmations have the shipper, consignee, HTS code, and lane. ISF worksheets have the party entities and filing fields. Your team reads each one and types that data into the CargoWise record.
On a typical ocean import job, that process runs 15 to 30 minutes per email (illustrative, based on ops team feedback from active forwarding operations). Across 200 shipments a month with three to four emails per job, that is 150 to 250 hours of data entry every month before the actual freight work starts.
A TMS-agnostic AI operating system like TIO plugs into your inbox, reads each inbound message as it arrives, extracts the relevant fields, and pre-fills the CargoWise record for your team to review. The team checks and approves every write. Nothing posts to CargoWise without a human reviewing it first.
TIO handles the prep. Your team handles the judgment calls.
The Automation Fee you are paying CargoWise covers the system processing a job. TIO covers the 15 to 30 minutes it previously took to get that job into the system.
How to add a TIO inbox layer to your CargoWise workflow
No rip-and-replace. These steps are additive.
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Connect your inbox. TIO reads the distribution list where pre-alerts, booking confirmations, and arrival notices land. No TMS migration, no CargoWise configuration changes required.
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TIO reads and binds. As each email arrives, TIO identifies which shipment it belongs to using reference numbers, vessel details, and sender patterns. It binds the email to the open job.
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Review the pre-filled record. TIO extracts the relevant fields and surfaces a pre-filled record for your team. One review screen instead of 15 to 30 minutes of manual entry per email.
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Approve the write. Your team reviews the pre-filled fields, corrects anything flagged as low confidence, and saves the record to CargoWise. Every write is human-approved before it posts.
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Work exceptions, not inboxes. TIO flags which jobs have not received an expected update, pre-alert, or arrival notice. Your team works the exceptions instead of manually checking every open job.
The CargoWise workflow stays intact. Your team stays in control. The inbox-to-TMS prep time gets recovered.
The math
A 200-container-per-month operation is paying roughly $65,790 per year in CargoWise per-transaction fees under CVP, per WiseTech’s published pricing and industry analysis.
At 20 minutes of manual data entry per inbound freight email, with three to four emails per container job, that same team is spending an estimated 200 to 267 hours per month on data entry. At a fully loaded ops staff cost of $30 to $50 per hour (illustrative range, varies by market), that is $6,000 to $13,000 per month in recoverable labor, before any reduction in errors or faster job closes.
You were already paying that time cost. It just showed up as payroll instead of a software invoice.
FAQ
Does TIO replace CargoWise?
No. TIO sits between the inbox and the TMS. Your team continues using CargoWise exactly as they do today. TIO reads inbound emails, extracts the relevant fields, and pre-fills the CargoWise record for your team to review. The CargoWise workflow, billing, and customs filing stay unchanged.
Does TIO work if we stay on CargoWise at the new CVP pricing?
Yes. TIO is TMS-agnostic. It does not require switching platforms. If your team is staying on CargoWise, TIO adds an inbox automation layer on top of what you already have, recovering the ops time the CargoWise cost increase did not.
What does TIO actually do with the emails?
TIO reads each inbound freight email as it arrives, identifies the shipment it belongs to, and extracts the structured fields: parties, reference numbers, vessel details, dates, HTS codes. It pre-fills the corresponding CargoWise record and flags any low-confidence fields for your team to review. Your team approves every write. Nothing posts to CargoWise without a human reviewing it first.
How long does it take to see results?
The inbox-to-TMS prep time reduction starts as soon as TIO is reading your active inbox. Most of the recoverable time is on high-volume inbound emails, pre-alerts and arrival notices specifically, which are the most repetitive and the most consistent to automate.
Request a demo to see how TIO reduces manual prep time on your CargoWise workflow.
Frequently asked questions
Does TIO replace CargoWise?
No. TIO sits between the inbox and the TMS. Your team continues using CargoWise exactly as they do today. TIO reads inbound emails, extracts the relevant fields, and pre-fills the CargoWise record for your team to review. The CargoWise workflow, billing, and customs filing stay unchanged.
Does TIO work if we stay on CargoWise at the new CVP pricing?
Yes. TIO is TMS-agnostic. It does not require switching platforms. If your team is staying on CargoWise, TIO adds an inbox automation layer on top of what you already have, recovering the ops time the CargoWise cost increase did not.
What does TIO actually do with the emails?
TIO reads each inbound freight email as it arrives, identifies the shipment it belongs to, and extracts the structured fields: parties, reference numbers, vessel details, dates, HTS codes. It pre-fills the corresponding CargoWise record and flags any low-confidence fields for your team to review. Your team approves every write. Nothing posts to CargoWise without a human reviewing it first.
How long does it take to see results?
The inbox-to-TMS prep time reduction starts as soon as TIO is reading your active inbox. Most of the recoverable time is on high-volume inbound emails: pre-alerts and arrival notices, which are the most repetitive and the most consistent to automate.