Comparison
Carrier411 compared
Carrier411 is the long-standing carrier monitoring service for brokers, and it is good at what it does. This page lays out what it covers, who can use it, the one thing about it that surprises people most, and where we differ. Where they are stronger, we say so.
| Capability | Freight Radar HQ | Carrier411 |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Public lookup and carrier records. Contact us to onboard monitoring and compliance workflows. | Accounts for brokers and shippers |
| Account required to look up a carrier | No. Search and carrier records are public. | Yes |
| Open to trucking companies | Yes. Carriers can look themselves up and reply to reviews. | No. Carrier accounts are not permitted |
| FMCSA authority, census, and insurance | Yes | Yes |
| Inspections, violations, and crash data | Not currently | Yes |
| Historical FMCSA data depth | Change history since we began tracking | Historical data since 2005 |
| Carriers sharing a phone number or address | Yes | Yes |
| Community reports on carriers | Reviews requiring proof of a transaction, with a carrier right of reply | FreightGuard reports |
| Timestamped compliance record | Available through onboarding | Due diligence certificates |
Carrier411 details are taken from its own public marketing pages. If anything here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Where Carrier411 is stronger
- Data depth. Inspections, violations, crashes, and FMCSA history going back to 2005. We do not have that today.
- Incumbency. By their account, 97 of the top 100 brokers use it. Its FreightGuard corpus is large and widely read.
- Integrations. Certified integrations with major TMS platforms and a web services interface.
Where we differ
- The lookup is free and public. No account, no login, no CAPTCHA.
- Both sides of the market. Carriers can look themselves up and see what brokers see.
- Reviews need proof. Every review requires a transaction document, and the carrier gets a full right of reply.
The part that surprises people
Carrier411 does not serve carriers. Its site states directly that it is not a service for trucking companies and that it does not permit accounts for trucking companies, dispatch services, attorneys, compliance services, authority services, or staffing agencies.
There is a defensible reason for that: a fraud-detection tool loses value if the people it screens can study it. The trade-off is that a carrier with a FreightGuard report against it often cannot read the full report, and frequently discovers the problem only when brokers go quiet. Carriers describe getting a few hundred characters to reply and no way to escalate.
We took the opposite position, which has its own trade-off. Our reviews require the reviewer to upload proof of an actual transaction, a moderator redacts personal and commercial details before anything publishes, and the carrier gets a reply that appears next to the review. That is slower and produces fewer reports. We think a smaller corpus that a carrier can answer is worth more to a broker than a larger one they have to mentally discount.
Questions
What is Carrier411?
Carrier411 is a carrier monitoring service for freight brokers and shippers. It consolidates FMCSA data feeds and adds monitoring, due diligence certificates, fraud alert search, and FreightGuard reports. Its own site states that more than 3,000 brokers and shippers use it, including 97 of the top 100 brokers by net income.
Can a trucking company get a Carrier411 account?
No. Carrier411 states plainly that it is not a service for trucking companies and does not allow accounts for trucking companies, dispatch services, attorneys and law firms, business consultants, compliance services, authority services, staffing agencies, or outsourcing services. This is a deliberate design choice on their part, not an oversight.
How do I see what a FreightGuard report says about my company?
If you are a carrier, this is genuinely difficult, because the platform hosting those reports does not serve carrier accounts. Carriers commonly report learning about a report only when brokers stop offering them freight, and being limited to a short response. Our reviews work differently: a carrier gets a full right of reply that publishes alongside the review.
Is this a Carrier411 replacement?
For some jobs, yes. For others, no, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. If you need inspection, violation, and crash data or FMCSA history going back to 2005, Carrier411 has data we do not. If you need a free public lookup, cross-entity fraud signals, and a timestamped vetting record, that is what we built.
Try the free lookup
No account and no trial to start. Search any DOT or MC number and see authority, fleet, safety rating, and how many other carriers share its phone number.