How to read a carrier agreement.

Start past the headline discount

The base discount is what carriers want you to focus on. The bigger money sits in accessorials, minimums, earned-discount tiers, and dimensional terms.

The layers to check

• Base and service-level discounts by zone and weight.
• Accessorial pricing, caps, and waivers.
• Minimum charges and the DIM divisor.
• Earned-discount thresholds tied to your volume.

Read it against your data

Terms only matter relative to how you actually ship. Mapping each term to your real volume shows which ones are quietly costing you.