Why a small desk usually ends up on spreadsheets

Not because spreadsheets are good, but because other software needs a quote. The large vendors in this market do not publish prices. You need a demo, a sales call, and then you wait two weeks for a price and a setup plan. A desk of three brokers has no time for that, so it keeps using its spreadsheet.

The second reason is size. Software made for a company with forty brokers expects a setup project, a data migration and a person whose job is to run the system. A small desk has none of these and will not add them just to buy a subscription.

What is different here, in three lines

The price is published. Every tier, every seat, monthly and annual, on the pricing page. You do not have to ask, and you do not need a sales call to see it.

Each extra user costs less. The second broker costs about half the price of the first, and the price keeps going down after that. You add users yourself, with no sales call. Per-user pricing usually hurts small desks the most, so our prices are designed for them.

You can look before the trial starts. An account is free and needs no card. It starts you on Browse, where you can search the world fleet register and use the live map. The rest of the product is shown but locked. Every paid plan has 7 free days, and they start only when you choose a plan, after you have seen it.

What a two or three person desk actually gets

All the basic chartering work is on the first paid plan. Higher plans add more features and more automation, but the basic work does not need them.

The world fleet register

Desk and above

101,900 ships with an IMO number (the ship's permanent ID), with their details and owners where known. Your desk can add private corrections on top of the shared data. Nobody else sees them.

Position lists from the circulars you already receive

Desk and above

Connect the mailbox you use now. Each circular (tonnage e-mail) is read when it arrives. Nothing goes on the board until a broker confirms the ship, because many ships share the same name.

Cargo enquiries and the match to tonnage

Desk and above

Cargo enquiries from the same mailbox, and a search for suitable ships by deadweight (carrying capacity), size class and region.

Fixtures (your deals)

Desk and above

The recap (deal summary), the terms and the record of each deal, in one place. The record stays even when the broker who did the deal leaves.

Sea distance, unmetered

Desk and above

Between any two points, with no daily limit.

If your desk also wants the voyage estimator, and laytime (time allowed in port) worked out from a signed statement of facts, move up one plan. There are no extra add-ons with a negotiated price.

When you should buy something else

In these four cases, a bigger vendor is the better choice.

You need it connected to a fleet system you already use. There is API access on the Enterprise plan. But if you need a deep two-way connection with an existing operations system, buy from the company that makes that system.

You need sale and purchase, or a clause library. Neither is built. This product records a fixture (the deal) and the time used under it. It does not write the charterparty (the contract) and it does not cover buying or selling ships.

You need your own ships' real speed and fuel use. Estimates here use typical figures for each size class, and every row that uses them says so. If your desk runs its own ships and has the real figures, software that stores them will give better estimates.

You need a market freight index. This records the deals your desk made. It does not publish market rates and it does not compare your rates with the market.

Try the free calculators first

Two calculations a broking desk does every week are free, need no account and run in your browser: the free TCE calculator, which works out a ship's earnings per day (time charter equivalent), and the laytime and demurrage calculator.

To compare what this kind of software costs in general, what ship chartering software costs lists the published prices in this market and explains what drives them.

When you can no longer trust the spreadsheet, see the best ship chartering software for small desks, or the comparisons with AXSMarine and ShipNext.