What file types do you accept?

PDF, JPEG, PNG, and TIFF. That covers everything — digitally-created PDFs, photos taken on a phone, fax-quality scans, and multi-page TIFFs. If it has readable text, CargoParse will get it.

What document types can you extract?

Bill of Lading, Proof of Delivery, Rate Confirmation, Carrier Invoice, Commercial Invoice, Lumper Receipt, and Warehouse Receipt. That covers the core freight paperwork stack — any of those can be uploaded and extracted immediately.

Do I need to install any software?

No. CargoParse runs entirely in your browser — nothing to download or configure. Upload a document, review the results, export. That's it.

Who can access my documents?

Only you and members of your organization. Documents are stored encrypted at rest in AWS S3 and are accessible only to your account. CargoParse staff do not access your documents unless required for support. Your documents are never sold to third parties or used to train AI models. See our sub-processors page for the services involved in processing.

Yes. Documents are stored encrypted at rest (AES-256) in AWS and in transit (TLS 1.2+). Your documents are never sold to third parties or used to train AI models. Processing involves our listed sub-processors (AWS, Anthropic). See our Privacy Policy and Sub-processors page for details.

How long are my documents stored?

Extraction results — the structured fields, line items, and search keys we pull from your documents — are kept permanently on every plan, including Free. They're only ever deleted if you delete them. Activity log entries (your audit trail of uploads, exports, deletions, etc.) are also permanent on every plan. Source files (the original PDFs, JPGs, PNGs, or TIFFs you upload) are kept for 90 days on Free; on every paid plan they're kept permanently. Paid plans can shorten retention via account preferences if you have a compliance reason — solo accounts manage this themselves; on team plans, only the Owner or Admin can change the team's window because it applies to every team member. The new window applies to every document already uploaded too, computed from each doc's original upload date (so a 90-day window deletes a 30-day-old doc in 60 days). The account interface previews how many documents a proposed change would queue for deletion before you commit. If you cancel a paid subscription, your extraction results are preserved indefinitely; new source-file uploads after cancellation use the Free 90-day window.

What's the difference between the plans?

Plans differ on document volume, team size, source-file retention, and automation. Volume: 20 docs/month on Free, 200 on Haul ($29/mo), 750 on Fleet ($79/mo), and 2000 on Terminal ($149/mo). Team: Free is solo-only; Haul supports 5 members, Fleet 10, Terminal 25. Automation and integrations — REST API access, webhooks, and email-to-upload — are paid-plan only; Haul gets 10 API keys at 30 req/min, Fleet 25 at 60 req/min, and Terminal 50 at 120 req/min. Retention: extraction results are permanent on every plan; source files are kept 90 days on Free and permanently on every paid plan. Core extraction, OCR, templates, exports, and email notifications work the same on every plan.

What happens when I hit my monthly limit?

Uploads are paused until your billing period resets. Your existing documents and exports are still fully accessible. You can upgrade your plan at any time to immediately increase your limit.

What if the extraction gets something wrong?

You can re-extract any document for free — it doesn't count as a new upload. On the document card click **Wrong type?** to pick the correct type from the dropdown, then **Re-extract as ...**. This is useful when CargoParse picked the wrong document type (e.g., classified a Rate Confirmation as a Bill of Lading), when you want to retry after a failed extraction, or when you just want a second pass on a document with many flagged fields. Each plan allows plenty of re-extractions per billing period.

Can I cancel anytime?

Yes. No contracts, no cancellation fees. From **Account → Profile** you can either cancel your subscription only (drop to the Free plan, keep your account + data + integrations) or fully delete your account. Cancellation keeps your subscription active until the end of the billing period you've already paid for. After cancellation your extracted data stays accessible indefinitely; new source-file uploads after that point use the Free 90-day window.

How accurate is the extraction?

Accuracy varies depending on document quality and format. Each extracted field includes a confidence score so you can see which fields may need review. You can edit any field directly in the app. If the extraction is off — wrong document type, too many missing fields — you can change the type and re-extract for free.

Do I need to set up templates before I can export?

No. CargoParse creates a Smart Template automatically after your first upload — it includes the most important fields for that document type plus any extra fields found in your document. You can export immediately. As you process more documents, CargoParse suggests new fields to add based on patterns it sees. You can also create custom templates with your own column names for your TMS.

Can I connect CargoParse to my TMS or other software?

Yes — via the REST API, webhooks, and CSV/Excel export. The API lets you submit documents and retrieve results programmatically. Webhooks push a structured payload to any HTTP endpoint the moment a document finishes. Export templates let you map field names to exactly the column names your TMS expects.

Yes, on paid plans (Haul, Fleet, Terminal). API keys can be created from the Account → Developer tab. The API supports the same upload and retrieval workflow as the web interface — submit a document, poll for results, get structured field data back. See the /developers page for the full endpoint reference and code examples.

Can I upload documents by email instead of uploading manually?

Yes, on paid plans. Each account gets a unique upload address (like upload-abc123@in.cargoparse.com). Forward or CC that address on any email with a PDF or image attachment and CargoParse will process it automatically — no browser visit needed.

Can I get extracted data sent to me automatically?

Yes. Paid plan users can enable "Attach export to emails" in Account → Notifications. When a document is completed or approved, the notification email includes the extracted data as an attachment in your preferred export format — Excel, CSV, JSON, or PDF. Forward it to your team or drop it into your TMS without logging in. Free plan users receive notification emails but without file attachments.

Why I Built CargoParse: Freight Documents Shouldn't Require a Data Entry Team

I'm not a freight broker. I'm a software developer. But I kept hearing the same frustration from people who work in logistics: they spend hours every day retyping data from Bills of Lading, rate confirmations, and carrier invoices into spreadsheets and TMS systems. Shipper name. Consignee address. PO number. Weight. Freight class. Over and over, document after document.

When I looked into it, I was surprised that nobody had built a good, affordable solution for small logistics companies. The tools that exist are either built for enterprises with six-figure budgets, or they're generic OCR products that can read text off a page but don't understand what a SCAC code is or where to find the PRO number on a BOL.

So I built CargoParse.

What it does

CargoParse reads freight documents and extracts structured data. You upload a BOL, rate confirmation, carrier invoice, or proof of delivery — as a PDF, a scan, or a photo from a phone — and get back the extracted fields, each with a confidence score.

Not just raw text pulled off the page. Structured, labeled fields: shipper name and address, consignee name and address, carrier, weight, PO numbers, dates, charges, line items. The data comes back organized and ready to review.

Every extracted field includes a confidence indicator. Green means the system is confident it read the field correctly. Yellow means it's worth a quick check. You can click into any field, verify it against the original document, fix anything that needs fixing, and export to Excel, CSV, or JSON.

The whole process is typically much faster than manual typing.

Why I built it this way

I made a few deliberate choices based on what I kept hearing from small logistics operators:

No setup required. You sign up, upload a document, and get results. No onboarding call, no integration project, no IT team needed. If you can attach a file to an email, you can use CargoParse.

Freight-specific, not generic. CargoParse supports Bills of Lading, Proofs of Delivery, Rate Confirmations, Carrier Invoices, Commercial Invoices, Lumper Receipts, and Warehouse Receipts. It knows what fields to look for on each document type because it was built specifically for these documents.

Phone photos work. A driver snaps a picture of a signed BOL at delivery. That photo goes straight into CargoParse and gets processed the same as a clean PDF. No scanner required.

Flexible export. You control how the data comes out. Export to Excel, CSV, or JSON. Build custom export templates that map extracted fields to match your spreadsheet or TMS layout. Set it up once and every export matches your format going forward. Check the how-to guide for a walkthrough of the export options.

A free tier that's actually useful. The free plan includes enough documents per month to try it with real work — not just a single test upload. No credit card needed. Paid plans are priced for small companies, not enterprise procurement departments.

Who this is for

CargoParse is for small freight brokers, carriers, and 3PLs who are still manually entering data from freight documents. If someone at your company spends part of their day typing fields from a BOL into a spreadsheet, this is built for you.

I'm not claiming to be a logistics expert. I'm a developer who saw a problem that technology could fix, and I built the tool to fix it. The people who actually use it every day know way more about freight than I do — and their feedback is what shapes what gets built next.

Try it with one of your own documents

The best way to see if CargoParse works for your paperwork is to upload a real document and look at the results. Sign up free — no credit card, no sales call. Upload a BOL or rate con you processed this week and see the extracted fields with confidence scores.

If it saves you time, keep going. If it doesn't, you haven't spent a dime.