Maintaining and applying transportation rate structures in a freight, parcel, or carrier operation, you handle the daily clerical work of pricing shipments against tariffs, contracts, and customer-specific rate agreements.
A typical day tends to involve rate lookups, pricing calculation, and the steady cadence of cross-departmental coordination — pricing inbound shipment requests, supporting sales reps with quotes, applying contract rate amendments, reconciling pricing differences when actuals don't match expectations. Pricing accuracy and turnaround time are the operating measures.
The friction often lies in the complexity of transportation rate structures — tariff classifications, fuel surcharges, accessorial charges, dimensional pricing, and customer-specific contracts produce a dense pricing environment. Variance across employers is sharp: LTL carriers run formal tariff publications; truckload runs more contract-driven; parcel runs highly systematized.
This work tends to fit folks who enjoy structured rate work and find pleasure in the small puzzles of pricing-rule application. CSCMP and transportation-pricing credentials anchor advancement. The trade-off is the moving-target nature of fuel surcharges, capacity dynamics, and rate-update cycles that keep the desk constantly current.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Admin & Office roles →Maintaining and applying transportation rate structures in a freight, parcel, or carrier operation, you handle the daily clerical work of pricing shipments against tariffs, contracts, and customer-specific rate agreements.
Median pay for a Rate Clerk is about $47K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $36K to $65K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Reading Comprehension, Mathematics, Critical Thinking, Active Listening, and Time Management.
Most people in this role hold an associate's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to decline about 0.4% through 2034, with roughly 417,500 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Senior Freight Rate Analyst, Revising Clerk, and Yard Demurrage Clerk.
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