Dispatch dashboards, customer tracking portals, ETA engines, invoicing automation. Senior engineer on subscription. $4,999/mo.
- Scope
- Ship
- Iterate
monthly subscription
Who this is for
Ops director at a $10M to $100M logistics operator, or a 3PL tech lead, whose TMS handles the basics but cannot keep up with what the business actually needs. Dispatch still runs through WhatsApp threads and Excel files, customers call asking where their freight is, and invoicing lags behind actual delivery by two or three days.
The pain today
- TMS does what it was bought to do — nothing your business has grown to need
- Dispatch visibility gaps mean fleet allocation is guesswork, not data
- Customers chase you for tracking because the TMS has no customer-facing portal
- Invoice runs take days because paperwork moves from driver to office on paper
- TMS, accounting, and EDI integrations are fragile and nobody fully owns them
The outcome you get
- Custom logistics web app on subscription from $4,999/mo
- Dispatch dashboard, tracking portal, or invoicing tool live in 8 to 14 weeks
- Clean TMS and accounting integration — QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage
- ETA engine with proactive delay and delivery notifications to customers
- Integration architecture proven at bolttech across 40+ external providers
Where logistics operations lose money
Three places, consistently. First, dispatch visibility. Dispatchers cannot see current fleet status in real time, so load allocation defaults to whoever picks up the phone first. Second, customer visibility. Customers call asking where their freight is because the TMS has no public tracking surface — and each call costs someone time. Third, invoicing lag. Paperwork moves from driver to office by hand, then someone types it into the accounting system. The whole chain delays cash flow by two to four days on every shipment.
None of these problems require replacing the TMS. A focused custom app that layers on top of it — reading shipment data, writing delivery confirmations, posting invoices automatically — fixes all three. ROI on a well-scoped logistics app typically lands in 6 to 12 months through operational efficiency alone, before counting the customer experience improvements.
Custom logistics web app on subscription from $4,999/mo
The apps I build for logistics operators
Dispatch dashboards: real-time fleet status pulled from TMS and telematics, load allocation view, exception alerts when a driver falls behind schedule. Customer tracking portals: shipment status, document access, delivery history, invoice download — behind a login, scoped per customer account. ETA engines: position data from telematics plus traffic feeds plus historical lane performance, refined over time as the model sees more of your routes.
Proactive notifications: SMS and email on delay, delivery, and exception events, so customers know before they call. Invoicing automation: delivery confirmation in the driver app triggers an invoice post to accounting, eliminating the paper chain. Driver apps: delivery confirmation with signature capture, photo proof, document upload, and basic route guidance. Each of these layers on the TMS without replacing it — the TMS stays as the system of record for shipments.
I also build one thing many logistics operators underestimate: a clean internal API between systems. Instead of point-to-point integrations that break when one vendor releases an update, I put a thin abstraction layer in the middle. That pattern kept 99.9 percent uptime at bolttech across 40+ providers, and it transfers directly to TMS, telematics, and accounting integrations.
40+: Payment providers integrated.
TMS, accounting, and EDI integrations
Cargowise, MercuryGate, Turvo, Magaya, McLeod, Aljex, Rose Rocket, Samsara — each has API access at varying quality levels. For modern API-first platforms, direct integration. For legacy TMS with limited APIs, middleware (MuleSoft, Boomi) or file-based integration via EDI or CSV drops.
Accounting: QuickBooks, Xero, Sage, NetSuite. The integration pattern is straightforward: TMS is the system of record for shipments, the custom app reads and writes via API, and accounting gets invoices posted automatically after delivery confirmation.
EDI is still common in freight. I have worked with transaction sets 210, 214, 204, 997, and 990 — the standard freight set. For operators with five or more EDI partners, a dedicated gateway (Kleinschmidt, SPS Commerce, Actian) sits between partners and your internal systems. The custom app reads and writes through the gateway rather than directly, which keeps the EDI layer clean and auditable.
Telematics: Samsara, Geotab, Motive, Omnitracs — all have APIs for position, speed, engine status, and HOS data. For ELD-critical workflows, the vendor stays as the compliance system of record. The custom app reads from them; it does not replace them.
TMS vs custom app — knowing the boundary
A TMS like Rose Rocket, Turvo, or Samsara handles a lot. For operators under about $10M in revenue, configuration and native integrations often cover most needs. Custom engineering pays when the TMS is blocking a specific growth lever: a customer portal the TMS cannot provide, a workflow that does not map to the TMS data model, or an integration with a proprietary system the TMS vendor will not support.
There is also a WMS distinction worth naming. A TMS moves goods — carrier selection, dispatch, shipment tracking. A WMS stores goods — inventory counts, pick-and-pack, warehouse slotting. I build TMS-layer apps and integrations. For pure WMS work, I can scope the integration surfaces but would not build the WMS itself.
My target is mid-market logistics: operators where custom engineering materially changes ops efficiency or customer experience. That is typically the $10M to $100M revenue band, 50 to 500 drivers, 5 to 50 office staff.
Pricing and engagement
Standard subscription: $4,999/mo. Pro: $5,499/mo, used for large integration-heavy projects during the initial build phase. 14-day money-back guarantee, cancel anytime, 100 percent code ownership under Work Made for Hire.
For logistics operators with multiple office locations or 500+ drivers, hosting scales accordingly — typically $500 to $2,000/mo on AWS or Azure. You own the hosting account from day one.
The subscription model fits logistics well because custom software in this space grows organically. New integrations come up as you add carriers. New report types emerge after the first busy season. New ops flows appear when you expand to a new lane. Monthly iteration beats a fixed-scope project that is already outdated before launch.
Case: bolttech — the integration-heavy playbook
At bolttech, the $1B+ unicorn backed by Tokio Marine and MetLife, I led the Payment Service that integrated 40+ payment providers across Asia and Europe. The platform maintained 99.9 percent uptime with zero post-launch critical bugs while supporting 15+ new international markets. Stack: NestJS, React, MongoDB, Redis, TypeScript.
Logistics integration work runs on the same architecture. Many external systems, many edge cases, idempotency and retry logic on every write, a unified internal interface behind the providers so the rest of the application does not care which carrier, TMS, or telematics vendor is on the other end. The playbook transfers directly: TMS replaces payment gateway, accounting system replaces settlement ledger, telematics replaces fraud-signal provider. The pattern is the same. The discipline is the same.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Unified payment orchestration across Asia and Europe
Delivered the payment orchestration platform at bolttech, a $1B+ unicorn, with 40+ integrations across multiple regions.
Read the case studyFrequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
Yes. Cargowise, MercuryGate, Turvo, Magaya, McLeod, Aljex, Rose Rocket, Samsara — all have integration paths. For modern API-first TMS, direct integration typically takes 4 to 8 weeks. For legacy TMS with limited APIs, middleware or file-based integration via EDI or CSV. At bolttech I ran integration work across 40+ external providers using the same pattern: unified internal interface, aggressive testing, idempotency on every write.
My subscription starts at $4,999/mo. For context, most agencies quote $30,000 to $120,000 for a fixed-scope logistics app — before integrations, which add cost. The subscription model means you pay monthly and can cancel after the 14-day guarantee period. You own all code. For a dispatch dashboard plus TMS integration, expect 10 to 14 weeks to production on the Standard tier.
A TMS is a platform — it handles carrier selection, dispatch, and shipment records for an entire organization. A custom app is purpose-built for one workflow your TMS cannot do: a branded customer tracking portal, an automated invoicing flow, or a dispatch dashboard tuned to your specific fleet mix. The custom app reads from and writes to the TMS rather than replacing it.
Samsara, Geotab, Motive, and Omnitracs all have APIs for position, speed, engine status, and HOS data. For ELD-critical workflows, the vendor stays as the compliance system of record — the custom app reads from their API, never replacing them. This keeps DOT compliance clean and focuses custom development on the surfaces that actually add value.
EDI is still common in freight. I have worked with 210, 214, 204, 997, and 990 transaction sets. For operators with five or more EDI partners, a dedicated gateway (Kleinschmidt, SPS Commerce, Actian) sits between partners and internal systems, and the custom app reads and writes through the gateway. For operators just starting with EDI, simpler direct integrations work fine until partner count justifies a gateway.
Yes. Multi-tenant architecture means each customer sees only their own shipments, documents, and contacts. For customers with multiple office locations, I handle their internal hierarchy with role-based access. For large shippers that need API access into their own systems or white-label portal options, those features scope in naturally as the relationship develops.
Agencies hand the project to a team, then move on. I work directly with you, no account managers in between. One customer at a time by design, so logistics engagements do not sit in a queue. Fixed monthly price, you own all code, 14-day money-back guarantee. For operators who need ongoing iteration — new integrations, new report types each quarter — a subscription is typically cheaper than repeated fixed-scope agency projects.