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SONAR Reviews & Product Details - Page 6

SONAR Overview

What is SONAR?

SONAR is the world’s leading freight forecasting platform, trusted by industry leaders to deliver unparalleled insights into the global freight economy. As one of the only solutions providing a complete and reliable view of every mode—trucking, rail, ocean, and air—SONAR empowers you to make smarter, faster decisions. With 93% of its data exclusive, SONAR goes beyond standard market tools, offering real-time intelligence derived from millions of freight tenders, ELDs, fuel transactions, shipping bills, and more. Gain access to the most comprehensive dataset available, allowing you to track rates, demand, capacity, weather, seasonality, and countless other market drivers. Whether you’re a broker, carrier, shipper, or supply chain professional, SONAR transforms complex data into actionable insights, helping you benchmark performance, manage risk, and outpace the competition. Stay ahead with SONAR’s cutting-edge tools and confidently navigate the ever-changing freight landscape. SONAR isn’t just a platform—it’s your competitive edge in the freight and logistics industry. Experience the power of real-time analysis and unlock unprecedented visibility into your supply chain like never before.

SONAR Details
Product Website
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SONAR Community
Languages Supported
English
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Product Description

SONAR delivers data and analysis you can trust across the entire global freight market - in real time. SONAR allows carriers, brokers/3PLs, shippers, financial institutions, intermodal, air cargo, maritime, and final mile participants benchmark, analyze, monitor and forecast the global supply chain. They do so by accessing SONAR 93% exclusive data to help power better business decisions

How do you position yourself against your competitors?

SONAR isn’t just a platform—it’s your competitive edge in the freight and logistics industry. SONAR transforms complex data into actionable insights, helping you benchmark performance, manage risk, and outpace the competition. Experience the power of real-time analysis and unlock unprecedented visibility into your supply chain like never before.


Seller Details
Seller
SONAR
Company Website
Year Founded
2017
HQ Location
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Twitter
@SONAR_FW
3,586 Twitter followers
LinkedIn® Page
www.linkedin.com
44 employees on LinkedIn®
Description

FreightWaves is a leading provider of freight market intelligence and analytics, offering a comprehensive platform that delivers real-time data, insights, and tools for transportation and logistics professionals. Their flagship product, Sonar, empowers users with advanced forecasting capabilities and market visibility to make informed decisions in the supply chain. FreightWaves aims to enhance transparency and efficiency in the freight industry through innovative technology and data-driven solutions.


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Overview Provided by:

Recent SONAR Reviews

Verified User
U
Verified UserMid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
4.5 out of 5
"Market Insights at your fingertips"
The amount of data, the different types of data, and the quality of the data are unmatched in the marketplace.
Verified User
E
Verified UserMid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
3.5 out of 5
"Helpful platform with great industry insights, if you know how to use them."
Sonar provides insights that others in the marketplace either don’t have access to or don’t produce in a meaningful way. Their ability to pull data...
Gregory G.
GG
Gregory G.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"Excellent Customer Service and great data for strategic business decisions."
The service that we receive is 10/10 good!
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SONAR Media

SONAR Demo - SONAR - Market Dashboard
A lane level management dashboard that shows the current spot rate (van, reefer, and flatbed) and contract rate with high and low values in a lane along with a historic chart view and multiple other market analytic data points such as origin and destination capacity conditions. The spot rate is ...
SONAR Demo - SONAR - US Summary Chart
SONAR provides different visuals to view our data. This chart displays our Outbound Tender Volume data sets, over the last few years. Our OTVI data set is all about the demand in the market. Our tendered data updates daily, and can help you be proactive in making the best decisions for your compa...
SONAR Demo - SONAR - Container Atlas
The Container Atlas dashboard allows users to get access to ocean market data collected from key industry providers. This data can help make more informed and profitable decisions while using granular carrier capacity and service metrics.
SONAR Demo - Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI)
SCI is our RFP tool that collects paid contract rates from freight shipper invoices, valued at $80 billion. This along with our TRAC spot rates and some of our scoring metrics in SCI helps provide insights into the contracted freight market.
SONAR Demo - Critical Events
SONAR's Critical Events (powered by WeatherOptics) is your trusted intelligence center during severe weather, natural disasters, fires or controlled power outages, allowing you to react smarter to events across the globe.
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115 SONAR Reviews

4.5 out of 5
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115 SONAR Reviews
4.5 out of 5
115 SONAR Reviews
4.5 out of 5

SONAR Pros and Cons

How are these determined?Information
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Pros
Cons

Overall Review Sentiment for SONARQuestion

Time to Implement
<1 day
>12 months
Return on Investment
<6 months
48+ months
Ease of Setup
0 (Difficult)
10 (Easy)
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G2 reviews are authentic and verified.
AS
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

Single place for many data points needed to understand the freight marketplace and upstream macroeconomic drivers. Ability to create a variety of views, comparisons between different metrics, save and share views. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

The inability to customize colors, line/point thickness, have more control over the look and feel can be frustrating. The tool is currently very slow and sometimes will time out. Some elements of the UI are clunky and non-intuitive. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

My main problem to solve is in understanding the short- and long-term market outlook and the various indicators that illustrate where we've been, where we are now and where we could go. I do this with FW-proprietary metrics (e.g. OTVI, NTI, OTRI) and the various supply-chain specific and macro-economic metrics. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Steven C.
SC
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

Amount of data. Historing datacurrent data and predictions for future. I really like comparing, OTRI, OTVI, for both reefers and vans. Rates are also accurate, which is very helpful for bidding. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

Search engine could be a bit better in regards of text predicting.

Also it would be great if i could eneter Origin, Destination and select markers for that lane to reviw. Now i need to Enetr both of those, than go on my custom page and search for those markets Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

Data. amount of data found on SONAR is just remarkable. It really help putting puzzle peaces together and getting whole picture in regards of specific lane or Lanes uploaded via M+ Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

TB
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

Ease of Use and data driven analytics that can be used to make informative decisions. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

NOt knowingthe specifics behind some of the data; how does my freight charachertics fit the overall sonar data. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

Market intelligence on rates and demand and supply headwinds or opportunities Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

LM
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

I love the sheer volume of information that is available. We're able to predict any changes in the market and prepare for them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

I wish it was a little more user friendly, it takes quite a bit of time and commitment to learn what Sonar is capable of and learn the jargon. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

Sonar provides insights into changes that are coming in the market. If we know an area will be in demand, we can take more freight out of that market. If we see that a market is tightening, we can be proactive and ensure our carrier sales team gets coverage in advance to mitigate losses. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad
UT
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about SONAR?

The immediacy of data & the sheer volume of data availability across business segments is great! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

I don't always know where or how to find what I'm looking for and it is not easy to display it in a manner that I want. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

The data available on SONAR provides a valuable source against which we can "reality-check" or benchmark our pricing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Transportation/Trucking/Railroad
UT
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

I love that SONAR shows more recent rates, allowing me to see trends as they begin and not after they have already happened. Other competitors products can be delayed as much as a month in showing trends. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

My only requests for the team at SONAR to consider are the following: Improve the logic of the suggestion when searching for a location to be more forgiving in the case of typos and misspellings, as well as greater insight into how fuel is being calculated by the shippers and carriers in a market or lane. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

SONAR allows us to watch trends more closely as they develop and gives us more confidence in our pricing, especially when we have quick turnarounds for large lane files. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Mike D.
MD
VP, Brokerage
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about SONAR?

The market insight in terms of truck/load ratio and the hot spots within a given market. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

I wish there was a flatbed option under the quoting feature in Sonar Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

It's helping myself and our team members get better insight when it comes to pricing and is helping our CPR's buy better Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

LT
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

Everything rocks!

Modern design, easy to go around Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

Sometimes not the fastest thing in the world Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

RFPs, Spot Rates Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Marko S.
MS
President
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

I like most of the features, OTVI and OTRI are chart we use the most and heat map. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

For a small trucking company like us a little too pricy. I wouldn't say I like the fact that you no longer take data from DAT which is the largest in USA. Truckstop instead... Some charts like Driver Revenue per week and news widget are no longer available. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

I wouldn't say it solves my problem, but it helps me understand the market and helps me see some data that are available only on Sonar. Because a lot of drivers today don't understand the market and why prices are dropping, so with a couple of screenshots from Sonar and a detailed email it helps me explain market conditions to my drivers and, hopefully, reduce turnover in the company, which is essential at these times Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Logistics and Supply Chain
UL
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: Seller invite
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about SONAR?

Ability to customize views/pages with different data as needed. The biggest upside is the ability to draw actionable insights from the data visualization. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about SONAR?

Extreme cost to be able to access the data to perform regression/sensitivity analysis. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is SONAR solving and how is that benefiting you?

ability to see historical trends and data next to other relevant data. Allows me to visually see correlation. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.