Buy Rate Rules — Quick Quote Agent

Buy rate rules let you automatically adjust the buy rate returned by DAT based on live market conditions. When a quote is generated, the agent fetches real-time market data for the lane and applies any matching rules in priority order before presenting the final rate.

Data Sources

Rules are triggered by two DAT market signals:

Load-to-Truck Ratio (L/T)

The number of loads posted divided by the number of trucks available in a market. A higher ratio means tighter capacity (more loads than trucks); a lower ratio means looser capacity.

• Example: An L/T ratio of 3.5 means there are 3.5 loads for every available truck.

Market Conditions Index (MCI)

A DAT-calculated index (0–100) summarizing overall market tightness. Higher scores indicate tighter, more expensive markets.

• Example: An MCI score of 72 reflects a tight market.

Both signals can be evaluated at the origin or destination, and in the inbound or outbound direction — giving you four data points per lane.

Rule Conditions

Each rule defines a condition that must be true for the adjustment to fire.

Comparison Operators

Condition Fields

• Location — origin or destination

• Direction — outbound (loads leaving the market) or inbound (loads entering the market)

• Threshold — the value to compare against

• Threshold High — upper bound when using the "between" operator

• Transport type (optional) — restrict the rule to a specific equipment type (e.g., van, reefer, flatbed)

Example condition: "Destination outbound L/T ratio is greater than 3.0"

Adjustments

When a condition is met, one of three adjustment types is applied to the buy rate:

Percentage Markup / Markdown

Increases or decreases the rate by a percentage of the current buy rate.

• Positive value → markup. Example: +5 adds 5%.

• Negative value → markdown. Example: 3 subtracts 3%.

If origin L/T > 4.0 → increase buy rate by 8%

Flat Dollar Markup / Markdown

Adds or subtracts a fixed dollar amount from the current buy rate.

• Positive value → markup. Example: +150 adds $150.

• Negative value → markdown. Example: 75 subtracts $75.

If destination MCI ≥ 80 → add $200 to buy rate

Range Percentile

Sets the buy rate to a specific position within the DAT quote's low–high band, regardless of where the current rate sits. 0 = the low end of the range, 100 = the high end, 50 = the midpoint.

This adjustment always uses the original low/high band from the DAT quote — it is not affected by earlier rules in the chain.

If origin outbound L/T > 5.0 → set buy rate to the 80th percentile of the DAT range

Rule Priority & Chaining

Rules are assigned a priority (lower number = runs first). All enabled rules are evaluated in priority order, and each adjustment applies on top of the previous result — so the output of rule 1 becomes the input to rule 2, and so on.

Exception: Range Percentile adjustments always reset to a fixed point in the original DAT band, regardless of prior rule adjustments.

Example Rule Setup

In this example, a lane with an origin outbound L/T of 3.5 and destination MCI of 78 would trigger rules 1 and 2. The buy rate first gets a 5% increase, then an additional $150.

Notes

• Rules can be enabled or disabled individually without deleting them.

• Each rule has a name for easy identification in audit logs.

• The agent records the condition value, before/after rates, and which rules fired for every quote — giving you full visibility into how the final buy rate was reached.

• DAT market data is fetched at quote time and cached for 6 hours.