Across global logistics, that panacea, in the form of digital booking and payments solutions, is increasingly under pressure to deliver.
Freightos CEO Zvi Schreiber said during his company’s third-quarter 2025 earnings call Monday (Nov. 17) that this year has been challenging for the logistics industry. Global trade is up, but trade with the U.S. is down.
“Our results show how freight rate volatility is accelerating the industry’s shift toward digital solutions that provide transparency and agility,” Schreiber said in a Monday press release. “While we’re seeing some enterprise customers pace their solutions purchases in the current macro environment, our multimodal strategy is gaining traction, with some major freight forwarders already moving from air-only to global multimodal deployments.”
At its core, Freightos is a digital booking and payment platform for the international freight industry, a market historically dominated by relationships, phone calls and opaque pricing. The company’s platform sits at the intersection of carriers, freight forwarders, and importers and exporters worldwide.
In this quarter, the company reported that gross booking value (GBV) jumped 54% year over year to $336 million. Transactions on the Freightos platform increased to a record 429,000, the 23rd consecutive quarter of record transactions, growing 27% year over year.
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As the company continues to lean into what it sees as the freight sector’s digital appetite, executives said payments represent one of its next growth frontiers. Visa and Transcard are now powering embedded payments and working capital solutions on WebCargo by Freightos.
Read also: Freightos Shields Shippers From Trade Turmoil With Digital Platform
Navigating Macro Headwinds Across the Freight Ecosystems
Freightos’ results are best viewed in the broader context of the logistics and supply chain digitalization trend. The global freight forwarding market is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, yet many booking and payment workflows remain offline and manual.
Executives stressed to investors that conversion from legacy practices remains a hurdle, despite the fact that ongoing trade volatility has increased demand for agile tools.
The company believes “industry uncertainty has acted as a tailwind for platform revenue and a headwind for solutions revenue,” Freightos Chief Financial Officer Pablo Pinillos said in the release.
But competition is intensifying. Larger players (traditional freight forwarders and global logistics providers) are investing in digital offerings; pure-play digital logistics platforms are raising capital; carriers themselves are exploring direct distribution. Freightos must win share in a still-fragmented market and convert that share into robust monetization.
One of Freightos’ core strengths is its platform scale and momentum. Twenty-three straight quarters of record transactions suggest that inertia is being overcome. The upward trend in gross margins implies operational leverage is kicking in. The transition from air-only to multimodal bookings broadens the total addressable market. Finally, the Solutions business (SaaS + data) could provide higher-margin revenue and more predictable recurring income.
Yet critical risks remain. The company still incurs losses, and profitability is not yet in sight. The company must also navigate the transition from transaction-achievement to value-creation, ensuring that increased bookings translate into deeper adoption, higher average revenue per user and loyalty, rather than being a volume chase.
That’s where payments could play into the company’s roadmap. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Embedded Finance Grows Up: How Online Marketplaces Can Retain Customers and Boost Revenues” found that marketplaces that offer embedded finance said it delivers measurable results in customer loyalty, retention and revenue growth.
See also: Embedded Finance and the Great Supply Chain Reset
Freightos’ strategy to treat payments not as a side feature but as the next evolution of its platform is a pivotal moment in freight-tech. By combining booking, settlement and financing within a single ecosystem, Freightos aims to shift the platform’s value proposition, deepen its network effect, and capture more of the commercial value.
It signals a broader strategy from a quote-and-book marketplace to a full-stack, freight-commerce platform (booking, execution, settlement, financing).
By embedding virtual card rails and working capital features (for example, enabling forwarders to settle with airlines while giving them flexible credit terms), Freightos and its partners aim to unlock a long-standing friction point in air cargo and freight settlement.
On the platform-owner side, Freightos stands to benefit beyond just incremental revenue. By owning the payment layer, Freightos collects richer data, like shipment value, settlement timing and working capital flows, that can drive analytics and risk models, potentially insurance- or financing-adjacent services.
It also raises the barrier for switching. Once the forwarder or carrier uses Freightos for booking and payment, moving away gains complexity.
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