ITS Dispatch is for carriers. Keelway is for brokers.
ITS Dispatch is Truckstop's TMS — built for owner-operators and small asset-based carriers who need IFTA, driver settlements, and dispatch. It has a free entry tier for new MCs, which is great if you're a new MC. It is not built around the broker job-to-be-done: triaging the 40 carrier email replies on every posted load. Keelway is. $400/month flat, unlimited users, AI carrier-email triage native. Here's the honest side-by-side.
What ITS Dispatch is, honestly
ITS Dispatch is the TMS arm of Truckstop, the load board company. It is built around the asset-based carrier and the owner-operator: the person whose week is dispatching drivers, filing IFTA returns, cutting driver settlements, generating fuel reports, and pulling loads off the Truckstop board. For that buyer, ITS Dispatch is a credible and reasonably priced answer — especially the free entry tier, which is genuinely useful for a brand-new MC running their first few months.
Where ITS Dispatch is weaker is on the brokerage side. Customer billing, carrier confirmations, broker-side rate management, and — most importantly — inbound carrier email all feel layered onto a carrier-first product. There is no inbox AI. There is no rate extraction from carrier reply emails. There is no per-reply FMCSA trust scoring. Brokers who try to run a pure brokerage on ITS Dispatch tend to outgrow it once carrier-email volume gets serious.
Side-by-side: ITS Dispatch vs Keelway TMS
| ITS Dispatch | Keelway TMS | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Owner-operators, small carriers | SMB freight brokerages (3-30 users) |
| Pricing | Free entry tier; paid ~$70-$140/user/mo | $400/mo flat — unlimited users |
| 10-user shop monthly cost | ~$700-$1,400/mo | $400/mo |
| AI carrier email triage | No | Yes — core feature |
| Carrier rate extraction | No | Yes — >95% accuracy |
| FMCSA trust scoring | Carrier lookup only | Continuous, per-reply scoring |
| IFTA / driver settlements | Yes (their strength) | No (not the buyer) |
| Broker-side workflows | Secondary, shallow | Native, the whole product |
| SMB self-serve onboarding | Yes, but carrier-shaped | Yes — live in <1 day |
Sources: truckstop.com/its-dispatch product pages, third-party pricing aggregators, customer reviews (May 2026)
What ITS Dispatch is
ITS Dispatch is Truckstop's in-house TMS, sold alongside its load board. The product audience is unambiguously the asset-based carrier and the owner-operator. The free entry tier is aimed at brand-new motor carriers who need a single-user system to enter loads, generate basic paperwork, and start filing IFTA. Paid tiers in the roughly $70-$140 per user per month band add multi-user, document management, accounting hooks (QuickBooks etc.), and deeper reporting.
Where ITS Dispatch wins
For a carrier or owner-operator, ITS Dispatch has real strengths and Keelway does not pretend to compete on them:
- IFTA fuel tax reporting. ITS Dispatch generates quarterly IFTA returns from fuel purchase and trip data. For an asset-based fleet, that alone justifies a TMS.
- Driver settlements. Per-load and per-mile settlement calculations, deductions, advances, and printable driver statements are first-class.
- Dispatch for owned trucks. Assigning a load to a driver, tracking the truck, and closing the load out the way a carrier needs it.
- Truckstop load board integration. If you live in the Truckstop ecosystem already, ITS Dispatch is the path of least resistance.
- The free tier really is free. For a single-user new MC running low volume, the free tier is a serious value proposition. Keelway is $400/month from day one — we are not the answer for a one-truck operation.
Where Keelway wins
For a pure freight brokerage — three or more people, no owned trucks, 50-300 loads per month — the comparison flips:
- Inbox AI is the core product. Keelway reads every inbound carrier reply, parses the offered rate from the body, scores the carrier against FMCSA on every reply (not just at onboarding), and ranks the top five offers inside Gmail. ITS Dispatch has none of this; it was not designed to.
- Pricing that doesn't scale against you. ITS Dispatch's per-user pricing model means a 10-person shop pays $700-$1,400/month before load board fees. Keelway is $400/month flat, regardless of headcount, with no setup and no contract.
- Broker-first workflows. Customer rate management, margin protection, carrier confirmation generation, and the day-to-day of covering loads — these are the whole product at Keelway, not a side panel.
- Continuous trust scoring. ITS Dispatch lets you look up a carrier's FMCSA record. Keelway scores every inbound reply automatically and flags identity drift, insurance lapses, and authority changes between when you posted the load and when the carrier replied.
The bottom line
ITS Dispatch and Keelway are not really competitors — they serve different buyers. ITS Dispatch is the right tool for the owner-operator and the small asset-based carrier; it has IFTA, settlements, dispatch, and a genuinely free entry tier that makes sense for a new MC. Keelway is the right tool for the pure freight brokerage that does not own trucks and whose biggest operational problem is the carrier email firehose. If you are running a brokerage and currently squeezing ITS Dispatch to do broker work, you will feel the upgrade to Keelway in the first week — and at $400/mo flat versus $700-$1,400/mo on ITS Dispatch's per-user math, you'll probably pay less while you're at it.
Frequently asked questions
What is ITS Dispatch?+
ITS Dispatch is a TMS owned by Truckstop, designed primarily for asset-based carriers and owner-operators. Its core workflows are driver dispatch, IFTA fuel tax reporting, settlements, and load entry. It ships with a free entry tier intended for brand-new motor carriers (typically a single-user, limited-load offering) and paid tiers that scale up from there. It is bundled tightly with the Truckstop load board ecosystem.
How much does ITS Dispatch cost?+
ITS Dispatch publishes a free entry plan for new MCs, then paid tiers in the roughly $70-$140 per user per month range depending on features (multi-user, document management, accounting integrations, advanced reporting). A larger brokerage with 5-10 users can land between $350 and $1,400/month, often with Truckstop load board fees stacked on top. Keelway is $400/month flat — unlimited users, no per-seat math, no setup.
Is ITS Dispatch really free?+
There is a genuine free tier, but it's narrowly scoped for new motor carriers — typically a single user with limited load volume and the heavier features (multi-user, document management, integrations, advanced reporting) gated to paid plans. For a multi-person brokerage running real volume, the free tier is not the actual cost. Once you scale users and turn on features, you are on a paid plan in the $70-$140/user/mo band.
Does ITS Dispatch have broker workflows?+
Some, but they are secondary. ITS Dispatch was built around carrier-side dispatch — driver assignment, IFTA, fuel, settlements, ELD-adjacent reporting. Broker functionality (customer billing, carrier confirmations, basic load tendering) is present but shallower than a broker-first TMS. If your day is built around posting loads, fielding carrier replies, and booking capacity, you'll feel the difference in the first week.
Does ITS Dispatch have AI carrier email triage?+
No. ITS Dispatch does not parse inbound carrier emails, does not extract offered rates from quote replies, does not score carriers per-reply against FMCSA, and does not surface ranked offers inside Gmail or Outlook. Its strengths are operational carrier paperwork (IFTA, settlements, dispatch), not broker inbox automation. Keelway is built around carrier-email triage as the core product.
How do I switch from ITS Dispatch to Keelway?+
Export your carriers, customers, and historical loads as CSV from ITS Dispatch — the platform supports standard data export. Keelway accepts those CSVs directly and a dedicated migration contact stays with your team until you're running production loads. Most brokerages are live on Keelway in under a business day. You can keep ITS Dispatch running in parallel during the cutover; we don't require a hard switch.
When should I pick ITS Dispatch over Keelway?+
Pick ITS Dispatch if you are an asset-based carrier or owner-operator who needs IFTA, driver settlements, dispatch, and tight integration with the Truckstop load board — and you don't have a brokerage side. Keelway does not chase that segment. If you are a pure freight brokerage covering 50-300 loads/month and drowning in carrier email, Keelway is the right answer.
Migration in under a day. $400/mo flat.
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