Company registration and VAT status
We check the company register and an active VAT number. A company whose registration cannot be verified does not enter the base.
NewThe importer's dormant vigilance
Honest freight pricingfor imports from China.Without overpaying.
One enquiry reaches vetted forwarders. You come back with offers you can actually compare: sea, rail, air and courier side by side.
- 20+ years importing from China
- Free for the importer
- Reply within 24 h
- Vetted forwarders only
Start here
Three fields. Thirty seconds.
How it works
1
You describe the shipment once
Route, cargo dimensions, Incoterms rule and readiness date. The form walks you through it and will not let you send an enquiry that a forwarder cannot price.
2
We ask a limited set of forwarders
Only forwarders who actually run your route and mode, in a group kept deliberately small. Not an auction where a dozen companies race to the bottom.
3
You get the offers side by side
Broken down into freight, surcharges, terminal handling, customs and delivery, so you can see what each price actually covers, and what it does not.
4
You sign with whoever you choose
The contract of carriage is between you and the forwarder. We never sit in the payment chain, and the client stays theirs and yours.
Why go through us at all
Comparable, not just cheap
An offer missing customs clearance and delivery looks cheaper until those lines arrive later. We flag what is missing instead of ranking an incomplete quote first.
From the importer's side
20 years of bringing goods in from China as the company paying the invoice, not the one selling freight. We know where the cost hides because we once missed it ourselves.
Free for the importer
No fee for asking, no subscription, nothing added to the forwarder's rate. We are paid on the forwarder's side, and the price you see is the price they quoted.
What you actually get
Three offers for one shipment. The cheapest freight is not the cheapest delivery.
This is the comparison we send back once the offers are in: broken into cost lines and brought to the same scope. Below is the same shipment seen two ways.
Ningbo → Sopot · LCL, 12 CBM, 2,400 kg · FOB, compared on a door-to-door basisIllustrative example
| Cost line | Offer Acheapest | Offer B | Offer C |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ocean freightThe base rate, usually the only number an importer compares | PLN 4,600 | PLN 5,350 | PLN 5,780 |
| Freight alone | PLN 4,600 | PLN 5,350 | PLN 5,780 |
| Transit | 38-46 days | 36-42 days | 34-40 days |
This is how comparison usually looks
Looking only at the freight rate, Offer A wins, and that is the one most importers will pick. The rest of the cost turns up later, on separate invoices, over the following weeks.
Switch to the full cost and watch what happens to that ranking.
The amounts are illustrative and do not come from any particular forwarder. They show the structure of cost lines described in the article “What makes up the price of freight from China”. Real proportions depend on the route, the mode and the volume.
Partner vetting
Before your enquiry reaches anyone, that company clears six thresholds
Comparing offers only means something when every one of them comes from a company that can actually run the shipment. That is why we build the base more slowly than we could.
Freight forwarder liability cover
A current policy is required. It decides what happens if goods are lost or damaged while in transit.
Experience on the China-Poland lane
At least two years of documented work on this route. A forwarder who is strong within Europe is not automatically strong in the Far East.
Offers broken into cost lines
Quoting the price line by line is a condition of working with us: freight, surcharges, terminal handling, customs, delivery. A single lump sum does not go through.
Reply within 24 hours
Declared and enforced. A forwarder who repeatedly misses the window stops receiving enquiries.
No ownership ties to us
We hold no stake in any company in the base and none holds a stake in us. There is no offer we earn more on than another.
What disqualifies a forwarder
- no verifiable liability policy
- refusing to break the offer into cost lines
- adding charges that were not in the quote
- unresolved court disputes with clients over carriage
Vetting is done by hand, and the base stays closed to companies that do not meet the conditions, even when that means fewer offers to compare.
Terms for forwardersThe complacency effect
Your forwarder will not cut your rate on their own. Not because they are dishonest.
Freight rates out of China move in weekly and seasonal cycles - after Chinese New Year, when containers are in surplus, once the peak season is over, they can drop sharply. The rate you pay a trusted forwarder usually does not drop with them.
The reason is plain and there is no conspiracy in it: after a few shipments that went well, the importer stops asking, and the other side has no reason to move the rate down unprompted. That is an information gap, not fraud, which is why the cure is knowing the market rather than distrusting your forwarder.
- The same rate for over six months, although the market has moved
- An invoice with a single line reading “transport” instead of a breakdown
- No word about changes to BAF, THC or a seasonal surcharge
- One offer, with no alternative and no cheaper variant
What can it cost not to compare?
Move the sliders and see the scale. The model assumes 8–18% above the rate reachable on the market - a conservative range, not a promise of savings.
12
PLN 9,000
Estimated yearly overpayment
PLN 14,040
Range: PLN 8,640 – PLN 19,440 per year on a spend of PLN 108,000.
- Over three years
- PLN 42,120
- That equals
- 1.6 shipments
Indicative figures, calculated from the assumptions you entered. They are not an offer and not a forecast of savings - they only show the scale of the problem.
Services
The whole import from China, not just the freight
Freight is the most expensive piece of the puzzle, not the only one. Customs, supplier vetting and consolidation decide whether a saving on freight survives at all.
Transparency
What the price of freight from China is actually made of
An “all-in” quote is one number with seven different lines inside it. Until you can see them, you are not comparing prices, you are comparing roundings.
Main freight
Charged by: Carrier / shipping line
The base rate for carriage. The most volatile line in the whole breakdown: it can move by tens of percent in a few weeks. This is the number you compare first.
The most common mistake when comparing offers: putting a FOB price next to a DDP price. Those are two different services, not two prices for the same service. Before you compare the numbers, bring the offers to the same Incoterms rule.
The full cost breakdownProportions are illustrative, for an LCL shipment on DDP terms. The real split depends on route, mode and volume: with a full container the share of main freight grows, with a courier shipment most port lines disappear.
Tools
Do the maths yourself, before you ask anyone for a price
Four calculators answering the questions that come up most often before a first shipment. Every result is indicative and is not an offer.
Knowledge base
What importers normally learn the expensive way
Written from the importer's side. Summaries are in English; the full texts are in Polish, because they deal with Polish customs and VAT.
FAQ
The questions we get most often
The full list covers quotes, freight, customs clearance, data handling and how we work with forwarders.
Find out whether you are overpaying
The form takes a few minutes and costs nothing. Even if you stay with your current forwarder, you will know what the market is worth.
No obligation · reply within 24 h on business days