Conterminal vs CargoWise
CargoWise covers global forwarding. Conterminal covers the container after it arrives.
CargoWise handles customs, ocean booking, and forwarding back office. Conterminal handles what happens after discharge: terminal status, free-day and per-diem cost tracking, dispatch, delivery documents, and billing, on one system. This page lays out the differences so you can evaluate both accurately.
Context
What CargoWise does, and what Conterminal does.
CargoWise's drayage capability comes from acquisitions. Trinium, Profit Tools, Compcare, and GTG became CargoWise Landside. Rate quoting is DrayMaster, container exchange is MatchBox, and demurrage-and-detention auditing is a partner integration. These are separate products connected by integrations, each with its own contract, login, and data sync.
Conterminal keeps container tracking, cost exposure, dispatch, documents, quoting, and billing in one system with one data record per container. When the terminal, the rail ramp, the steamship line, and the forwarder's paperwork report different things about a container, Conterminal shows the conflict and which source it trusts, and dispatch, appointments, and invoicing all work from that same answer.
The practical difference is cost prevention. Free days expire, holds land, and empties accrue per diem whether or not a system is watching. Separate products report these events after they happen. A single system that computes the deadlines can put them in front of a dispatcher while there is still time to avoid the charge.
Scope
What each product is built for.
What CargoWise is built for
Multi-country customs filing, ocean booking, and international forwarding back office. If that is the job, CargoWise is the established product for it.
What Conterminal is built for
The container's landside operation: discharge, holds, last free days, drayage dispatch, delivery, empty return, and settlement, with ocean visibility included on the same record.
Side by side
The differences, in detail.
Platform shape
CargoWise
CargoWiseA suite plus acquired products — separate drayage TMS brands, a rate marketplace, an exchange platform, and partner tools, connected by integrations.
Conterminal
ConterminalOne system. Tracking, dispatch, documents, quoting, and billing share one container record, so there is no cross-product sync to maintain or break.
Demurrage & per diem
CargoWise
CargoWiseDetention-and-demurrage cost management comes through a partner integration that audits and disputes charges after they exist.
Conterminal
ConterminalLast free day and empty-return deadlines are columns on the container board. Demurrage and per-diem exposure is computed in days and dollars from the agreement terms configured for each container, before the charge is incurred.
Empty return verification
CargoWise
CargoWiseReturn status follows reported milestones and geofence events.
Conterminal
ConterminalA return is confirmed only when two independent signals agree: the physical gate-in and the interchange receipt (EIR). Until both exist, the container stays flagged and the missing evidence is named.
Vessel ETA
CargoWise
CargoWiseCarrier-published schedules and milestones.
Conterminal
ConterminalOne reconciled ETA from four sources — carrier schedule, terminal, berth window, and live AIS — ranked by reliability. Vessel identity is matched by MMSI and IMO number, not by name, which prevents same-name mixups.
Implementation
CargoWise
CargoWiseEnterprise implementations are commonly quoted in months, with training and certification programs sized to a very large module catalog.
Conterminal
ConterminalOnboarding is scoped to your terminals, lanes, and data sources. Tracking is useful from the first session; coverage is confirmed per rollout rather than promised universally.
Pricing model
CargoWise
CargoWiseThe CargoWise suite moved to per-transaction pricing in December 2025, which drew significant trade-press coverage from forwarders. Drayage TMS products are quoted separately, and buyers report module-by-module add-on pricing.
Conterminal
ConterminalPriced on the container work moving through the platform — not per seat, per module, or per partner. Each billable unit is defined in the proposal before it is quoted. Customers and partners who need to see a shared container do not need paid seats.
AI
CargoWise
CargoWiseOrder-intake automation and suite-level analytics.
Conterminal
ConterminalThree uses: monitoring that surfaces only actionable exceptions; document and credential reading that produces reviewable suggestions a person confirms; and a secured read-only connector that lets your team query shipments from ChatGPT or another assistant.
Customer visibility
CargoWise
CargoWiseCustomer portals with per-account logins.
Conterminal
ConterminalShareable tracking links that open without a login or seat, plus watchlists, configurable email alerts, and an operations view that shows deadlines and exceptions at sign-in.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is Conterminal a CargoWise alternative?
For the drayage operating system — container tracking, terminal cost deadlines, dispatch, delivery documents, and billing — yes. For multi-country customs filing and international forwarding back office, no; Conterminal does not do that work. Some operations run both: CargoWise for international paperwork, Conterminal for the containers.
Is Conterminal a Trinium alternative?
Yes. Trinium, now part of CargoWise Landside, is a mature drayage TMS, and Conterminal covers the same core functions: dispatch, driver management, customer billing, and container visibility. The main differences: Conterminal computes demurrage and per-diem exposure from your carrier terms instead of relying on a partner audit tool, requires two signals before marking an empty returned, and runs as one system rather than a portfolio of acquired products.
How is pricing different?
Conterminal is priced on container work moving through the platform, not per seat or per module, and every billable unit is defined before it is quoted. CargoWise moved its suite to per-transaction pricing in late 2025 and quotes its drayage products separately. When comparing, ask each vendor for the all-in number: base license, tracking, appointment tooling, integrations, support, implementation, and expected renewal.
Does Conterminal cover the ocean leg?
Yes for tracking: vessels are followed from sailing with an ETA reconciled from the carrier schedule, terminal, berth window, and AIS position. No for booking and customs: Conterminal does not book ocean freight or file customs entries.
Drayage carriers use the full TMS. Freight forwarders and BCOs use managed container visibility with cost deadlines their forwarding suite does not compute. Teams already on CargoWise keep it for international paperwork and run their containers here.
Referenced coverage
This comparison reflects publicly available information and our understanding of each product's positioning as of August 2026. Products evolve — verify current capabilities and pricing with each vendor.
Next step
Evaluate it on your own containers.
Send us a few container numbers and we'll set up tracking on your live operation, so you can compare results directly against your current system.