Spend is already too late.
Winning parcel teams know what a rate change or fee adjustment will cost them before the invoice arrives. They see the shifts, model the impact, and act while the outcome is still in play.
Carriers rewrote the playbook.
Negotiate rates. Audit invoices. Review the GRI once a year. Bring in a consultant when something looks off. It worked when carrier pricing held steady between negotiations. Three things changed.
Pricing is now a year-round operation.
15+ off-cycle changes by each major carrier in 2025. No announcements. No calls from your rep.
Your actual rate increase is double the announced rate.
They say 5.9%. After surcharges, accessorials, and mid-year adjustments, the real impact is often double the headline or more.
Parcel is a top-four expense. The playbook didn’t keep up.
U.S. shipping costs have risen by 40% in five years. The way most teams manage it hasn’t changed.
Control cost before it becomes spend.
Every tool you’ve looked at ends with your invoices. Every vendor ends with what you have already spent. That’s the whole problem. By the time you’re managing spend, the cost has already happened.
| Manage Spend | Cost Control With Sifted |
|---|---|
| Starts with the invoice | Starts with the cost drivers |
| Audits what already happened | See what’s changing upstream |
| Explains increases after they hit | Predicts exposure before it lands |
| Recovers leakage | Prevents leakage |
| Gives parcel teams reports | Gives the business answers |
| Treats parcel as a cost center | Turns parcel into a strategic function |
The cost of staying on the old playbook
Rising Costs
Parcel rates have risen nearly 40% since 2018. The annual 5.9% headline doesn’t explain the gap.
— TD Cowen AFS Freight Index
Billing Errors
22%
Of freight invoices contain errors. At $53.50 per error, that’s thousands per month going unnoticed.
— Institute of Finance & Management
Under Pressure
Logistics is the #1 target for cost reduction in 2026. The C-suite is watching your parcel line.
— Gartner CSCO Community Outlook Survey
The Opportunity
Average cost-per-pack reduction when companies move from auditing spend to controlling cost upstream.
— Sifted Data
How Winning Teams Run Parcel Now
If your recovery number is growing, the cycle is broken. Something in baseline, monitoring, or optimization failed. The goal isn’t a big refund check. It’s never needing one.
1. Baseline: Figure out what you’re actually paying per package. Not your negotiated rates. That’s the number you manage against.
2. Monitor: When a carrier makes a change, know about it that week. Not when the invoice shows up and see what it does to your costs.
3. Optimize: Once you know where the money’s going, do something about it. Fix the addresses. Right-size the boxes. Move volume to another carrier.
4. Measure: Is your cost per package going down? Is your audit recovery shrinking? A big recovery check feels like a win—but it means you leaked all year.
Sifted is Agentic AI that runs the cost control cycle for you.
Sifted isn’t a dashboard you log into. It’s a governance layer that continuously monitors your parcel spend so you don’t have to. Connect your carriers once. The AI does the rest.
Baseline
Connects to 18+ carriers. Pulls every invoice. Builds your cost profile automatically.
Monitor
Watches for carrier changes in the background and models the impact on your profile.
Optimize
Models scenarios before you act. Re-rates carrier proposals against your actual data.
Measure
Tracks cost-per-pack and recoveries continuously. Flags exactly where the cycle broke.
