GoFreight customers report a 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees, and the cut any forwarder gets from freight management software depends on how much of its D&D bill is avoidable. For any platform, the savings come from earlier gate out visibility, better appointment scheduling, and automated free time tracking that flags high risk containers before charges accrue. The larger the fleet, the larger the D&D bill the software is set against, so the faster the payback.
This article walks through the ROI model forwarders can use to size the opportunity for their own book of business. It covers what D&D actually costs at each tier, which of those charges are avoidable, and the specific software capabilities that convert the theoretical savings into real ones.
Key Takeaways
Definition
Detention and demurrage are two adjacent charges that show up on the same invoice line but describe different things. Demurrage is what the ocean carrier or terminal charges when a full container sits at the port past its allotted free time. Detention is what the carrier charges when the container leaves the port but doesn't return empty within the agreed window.
For a full breakdown of the mechanics and how the charges accrue day by day, see Unraveling Demurrage and Detention Charges in the GoFreight glossary.
How the charges are set (varies by carrier, terminal, and equipment type):
The scale is large. The Federal Maritime Commission collects quarterly D&D data from nine ocean carriers, and reports that those carriers collected roughly $15.4 billion in detention and demurrage charges between April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2025 (FMC detention and demurrage data).
Average D&D exposure per container varies widely across a forwarder's book of business. Some containers pay zero. A handful pay thousands. The distribution is heavily skewed, which is why the savings opportunity concentrates in a small percentage of the fleet.
Carriers set D&D rates and forwarders have little leverage to negotiate them down. D&D is a workflow and data problem, which is exactly what freight software is designed to solve.
The four root causes:
Every one of these is addressable with structured shipment data plus alerts plus a single operational dashboard. That is the ROI mechanism.
Demurrage and detention software is the part of a TMS or freight management platform that watches each container against its free time. It pulls discharge, availability, gate out and empty return events from carriers and terminals, sets them against the free time in the contract, and alerts the team while there is still time to move the box. The better tools also schedule terminal appointments, coordinate drayage, and report D&D spend by carrier, terminal and trucker so the team can see where the charges come from.
Use this four step framework to size the opportunity for your own book of business. It works for a regional forwarder with 500 containers a year or an enterprise network handling 50,000.
The three tier rows are illustrative inputs for the formula. Replace them with your own figures.
| Forwarder Tier | Annual Container Volume | Estimated Baseline D&D | Avoidable Share | Software Impact | Estimated Annual Savings | Payback Period |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 50,000 plus | $2M to $5M | 60% | 50 to 70% | $600K to $2.1M | Annual cost divided by $50K to $175K a month |
| Mid market | 5,000 to 20,000 | $250K to $800K | 55% | 40 to 60% | $55K to $265K | Annual cost divided by $4,600 to $22,000 a month |
| Regional | 500 to 2,000 | $30K to $120K | 50% | 30 to 50% | $4,500 to $30K | Annual cost divided by $375 to $2,500 a month |
| GoFreight customer result (applied to any tier) | Any | Your own baseline | Not split out | 53% reduction in total D&D fees, as reported by GoFreight customers | 53% of baseline: $212,000 a year on a $400,000 baseline | Annual subscription cost divided by monthly savings |
The last row applies the result GoFreight customers report to the whole D&D bill. On the $400,000 mid market baseline used in the FAQ below, a 53% reduction is $212,000 a year, against roughly $110,000 from the generic model on the same baseline, because it is measured on total fees.
In this model, enterprise forwarders reach payback fastest because the savings are set against a larger D&D bill. Regional forwarders take longer to pay back, and the time the team saves on chasing containers matters more when the team is small.
Published results give a reality check on the model. They come from vendors, they measure different things, and they describe customers who acted on the alerts, so read them as the upper end of what a well run program achieves.
| Vendor | Published D&D result | Scope | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| GoFreight | 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees | Reported by GoFreight customers | Why GoFreight |
| Gnosis Freight | 81% average reduction in demurrage and 64% in detention within the first 12 months | Users of its D&D alarms | Gnosis Freight case study |
| 3G TMS (Descartes) | $400,000 in cost avoidance, and $0 detention and demurrage for one of PSA BDP's customers | One customer, PSA BDP | 3G TMS case study |
GoFreight customers report a 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees. The reduction comes from seeing every container's status early enough to act, and from making sure the right person gets the task when a box is at risk.
For ocean heavy operations, the biggest lever is container milestone data flowing through a purpose built platform. GoFreight Ocean Freight Management Software brings container status from ocean carriers, railroads, terminals and AIS into GoFreight, so the team can see the free time picture in one place.
Four capabilities do the heavy lifting on D&D reduction:
The savings do not arrive on day one. Here is the practical rollout order forwarders use to compress the timeline.
Ship Faster. Scale Smarter.
GoFreight customers report a 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees. See how container tracking and Smart To-Do Lists would work against your own D&D baseline.
GoFreight customers report a 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees. Gnosis Freight reports an 81% average reduction in demurrage and 64% in detention within the first 12 months for its users. Your own cut depends on how much of your bill is avoidable and how consistently the team acts on the alerts.
Three moves address the avoidable causes of demurrage. First, activate real time gate out alerts so the team learns the free time clock has started from the platform. Second, integrate terminal appointment scheduling directly into the shipment record to eliminate turned away visits. Third, deploy a per container free time countdown that escalates as the last free day approaches.
The avoidable share depends on your own invoices: sample 30 to 50 recent D&D invoices and tag each by root cause. The charges software cannot remove are driven by port congestion, weather, customer delays, or genuine operational constraints that software cannot eliminate. Avoidable charges cluster around late visibility, missed appointments, and free time overruns.
GoFreight brings container status from ocean carriers, railroads, terminals and AIS into GoFreight. Smart To-Do Lists then trigger the follow up tasks by shipment type and customer conditions, so operations sees exposure before charges accrue. GoFreight customers report a 53% reduction in detention and demurrage fees.
Payback equals the annual software cost divided by monthly D&D savings, so it depends on your baseline. In the sample scenarios above, monthly savings run from $50,000 to $175,000 for the enterprise tier (50,000 plus containers), $4,600 to $22,000 for the mid market tier (5,000 to 20,000 containers) and $375 to $2,500 for the regional tier (500 to 2,000 containers); divide your quoted annual cost by that figure.
Use the four step formula: pull 12 months of D&D history, tag which portion is avoidable, apply a software impact factor to the avoidable share, then divide annual TMS cost by monthly savings for payback. For a 5,000 container mid market forwarder with $400,000 annual D&D at 55 percent avoidable and 50 percent software impact, the savings work out to roughly $110,000 per year.
Rates are set in each carrier's and terminal's tariff and change often, so check the current tariff for your carrier and port. Demurrage is charged per day after free time expires for standard 20 ft or 40 ft dry containers and steps up the longer the container stays. Reefers and specialized equipment cost more than dry containers, and chassis usage during detention adds a separate daily fee at many US ports.
The information exists, but it is scattered across carrier portals, terminal websites, chassis pool systems, and email. Without a TMS pulling it into one operational view, the team cannot act on it in time. The technology gap is consolidation and alerting.
Three features match the three avoidable root causes. Real time gate out alerts act on visibility related charges. Terminal appointment integration acts on missed appointment charges. Free time countdown dashboards act on overrun charges. Deploying all three together covers every avoidable cause.
Container tracking software surfaces gate out, discharge, and last free day events in real time, so operations sees exposure the moment a container enters the risk window. Combined with automated alerts, appointment sync, and a single view across truckers and chassis pools, tracking software lets the team move the container before charges accrue.
It depends on volume, lanes and terminals. For scale, the nine ocean carriers that report to the Federal Maritime Commission collected roughly $15.4 billion in D&D between April 2020 and March 2025. In the illustrative enterprise scenario above (50,000 plus containers, $2 million to $5 million baseline, 60 percent avoidable), the annual savings opportunity is $600,000 to $2.1 million.
Yes, when missed appointments are a large share of your charges. Missed and turned away appointments are one of the three avoidable root causes, and each one can add a day of demurrage. Integrating terminal appointment systems directly into the shipment record removes the manual coordination gap where most misses happen.
Month 1 is baseline plus data connections. Month 2 turns on visibility and alerts. Month 3 layers in appointment integration. Month 4 activates free time countdowns. Month 5 automates exception handling. Month 6 measures and refines.
Both. The direct D&D spend line on the P&L drops immediately. Customer margin improves in parallel because avoided pass through charges keep customers happy and prevent margin erosion on fixed price shipments.