Tender Rejections at 2.5x Last Year: SONAR's Case for Partner of Choice

Tender rejections hit 13.78% in the week of Oct. 6–12, roughly 2.5 times the 5.48% posted the same week last year, and SONAR's latest sitrep says shippers paying 18% more per mile should expect more than freight acceptance in return.

The report, Partner of Choice, lands as carriers decide which customers justify long-term commitments ahead of the 2027 bid season. Its core distinction is simple. Shipper of choice earns preference for the freight. Partner of choice earns investment in the relationship — drivers, equipment, surge capacity, network ideas and pricing flexibility.

Van contract rates (VCRPM1) stood at $2.73 per mile as of Sept. 30, up 18.2% year over year from $2.31. Higher rates should buy commitments, not just acceptance. That's the report's verdict, and it's hard to argue with at these levels.

What does the market data show?

The 2026 truckload market is being shaped by capacity, not a demand surge, according to SONAR. Tender volumes reached 11,202 in the Oct. 6–12 week, up about 8% from 10,364 a year ago — while rejections climbed roughly 150%.

Tightness is anything but even. For the same week, reefer rejections averaged 21.47% and flatbed 19.01%, against 11.05% for van. Origin markets tell a sharper story: Quincy, Illinois, sat at 48.38% and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at 38.46%, while inbound-heavy Lakeland, Florida, registered just 3.25% and Phoenix 3.55%.

That spread is the commercial point. Shippers with outbound freight in inbound-heavy markets hold structural value to carriers, and can trade it for priority on harder lanes. Network fit, the report argues, is an underused lever.

What changes between shipper and partner?

Shipper of choice is still the foundation. Efficient facilities, short dwell, predictable tenders and fair payment remain the price of entry. No carrier invests in a customer whose dock consumes driver hours.

But shipper of choice is an operational decision, made load by load on the dispatch board. Partner of choice is a strategic one, made in carrier planning meetings where drivers, trailers and dedicated fleets are allocated.

The sitrep frames it as a maturity curve:

• Transactional: "What is the rate on this lane?" Carriers accept freight when convenient and price for churn.
• Shipper of choice: "Do we want to haul this freight?" Carriers protect that freight in tight markets.
• Partner of choice: "Do we want to build our network around this customer?" Carriers commit assets, bring ideas unprompted and flag issues early.

The decisive shift, the report argues, comes when a carrier stops simply servicing a shipper's network and starts helping shape it.

SONAR identifies five attributes that define a partner: transparency, commitment, network fit, mutual problem solving and shared value.

What does partnership owe the shipper?

The street runs both ways, and the report is refreshingly blunt about it. Carriers that ask for long-term commitments owe shippers capacity, early warnings, market insight and fair pricing across the cycle.

What does this change for a freight team this quarter? Positioning, mostly. Contract repricing is largely done, but partner-of-choice standing is still being set. The report's timing argument: the window is now.

For context on why this matters, the full sitrep — which builds on SONAR's June 2026 Shipper of Choice report — includes a six-pillar bridge between the two frameworks, an analysis of why partnership pushes in 2018 and 2020–2022 faded and what may differ this cycle, and lane-level network-fit examples using the Headhaul Index (HAUL), Lane Score and contract rates.

It also covers where partnerships break down, with early warning signs and corrective actions, a six-question 1–5 self-assessment shippers can score with their carriers, and five practical actions to take before the 2027 bid season.

With rejections running 2.5x last year and Quincy shippers seeing nearly half their tenders refused, the carriers holding assets will keep choosing. Shippers deciding how much of themselves to put on the table have a short window before 2027 bids lock those choices in.