What to look for in the best 3PL software | Shipium

Third-party logistics (3PL) providers face growing pressure from retail clients, consumers, and market dynamics to deliver smarter fulfillment, improved cost efficiency, and consistent on-time delivery. Legacy systems, designed for simpler, more static networks, are no longer sufficient to meet these demands.

This guide explains what to expect from the best 3PL software and how platforms like Shipium set a new standard for modern fulfillment.

Key highlights:

• 3PL software is the technology used by third-party logistics providers to manage routing, shipping, inventory, billing, and fulfillment across multiple clients and systems.
• Modern supply chain workflows demand cost efficiency and real-time adaptability to environmental changes — 3PL requirements that legacy systems cannot meet.
• Predictive analytics, intelligent routing, flexible rule setting, automated billing, and centralized visibility are must-have capabilities for 3PL software solutions.
• Shipium helps 3PLs onboard new customers in hours, reduce shipping costs, and improve SLA performance with accurate delivery predictions — enabling them to scale faster, win more business, and protect margins.

What is 3PL software?

Third-party logistics (3PL) software refers to technology platforms that help logistics providers manage the movement, storage, and fulfillment of goods on behalf of their clients. These systems often include tools for:

• Carrier and rate management
• Inventory tracking across multiple nodes
• Order routing 
• Cartonization optimization for packages
• Customer-specific billing, business rules, and service-level agreements (SLAs)
• Integration with warehouse and transportation systems — and ecommerce platforms

Keep learning: A guide to third-party logistics companies

Benefits of using 3PL software solutions

The business case for 3PL software solutions is increasingly tied to margin protection, revenue acceleration, and customer experience. Here’s what top-tier platforms provide to enterprises:

• Enhanced visibility: Access real-time operational data across fulfillment, carrier performance, and inventory movement. This level of control enables teams to detect issues early, maintain SLA compliance, and respond quickly to macro-environmental changes.
• Improved cost control: Automate routine tasks and optimize shipping decisions to reduce unnecessary expenses. Automation minimizes manual errors, optimizes parcels for cost and delivery efficiency, and ensures more consistent, margin-protecting choices at scale.
• Stronger customer relationships: Keep clients satisfied by offering branded service levels and accurate delivery promises powered by time-in-transit modeling. Transparent billing, performance reporting, and proactive alerts also help 3PLs build trust and retain high-value customers.

3PL systems: Selection criteria and top features

Modern 3PL logistics operations require more than just basic routing logic from their shipping tech stack. Today’s fulfillment landscape is highly complex, with rising customer expectations and volatile conditions setting new standards for third-party logistics.

According to Green Mountain, top priorities for $1B+ shippers include faster order cycle times, carrier diversification, and budget stability — none of which can be addressed with legacy technology. 

For logistics leaders, the most effective platforms speak directly to the core responsibilities of a 3PL: 

• Winning new business
• Executing and scaling fulfillment operations
• Controlling financial performance

By organizing your logistics software evaluation across these three pillars, you ensure that each team in your organization (e.g., sales, operations, finance) has the tools to deliver value without creating bottlenecks. Let’s break down the must-have features for a 3PL system across each category.

1. Features for winning more businesses

To win new customers, 3PL leaders must demonstrate measurable cost savings and service improvements during the sales process. The most effective 3PLs showcase their logistics advantages using technology that enables fast, data-backed simulations and differentiated offerings built around customer service needs.

The ability to simulate shipping outcomes using a prospect’s actual order data, such as reducing reliance on air or express methods without sacrificing transit times, gives sales teams a concrete way to prove value to potential customers. 3PL software solutions that support this innovation must provide:

• Machine learning-powered transit time predictions that outperform static SLAs
• Simulation tools that don’t require spreadsheets or weeks of manual prep
• Exact delivery promises, powered by predictive models and integrated with client systems like order management system (OMS), warehouse management software (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) 

Keep learning: Is your 3PL ready to attain its projected market share?

2. Tech components to help you operate and scale your business

Sustainable growth in 3PL fulfillment depends on a provider’s ability to handle operational complexity while controlling margins, especially in environments where customer needs, order volumes, and network configurations vary. The best 3PL software features to address these challenges are:

• Universal rules engine: Set up and manage rules for carrier selection, service downgrades, origin assignment, and shipment timing based on dynamic inputs, such as delivery dates, client SLAs, or contractual thresholds.
• Automated carrier selection: Use ML-backed logic to select the most cost-effective courier to meet promised delivery dates. 

3. Financial control features

Maintaining healthy margins and generating more revenue as a 3PL demands tight integration between operational execution, financial oversight, and billing. As 3PLs grow, manual reconciliation and disconnected data introduce risk, delay, and revenue leakage.

The best 3PL software ensures finance and operations teams can monitor performance, apply markup strategies accurately, and automate customer billing without losing control. These platforms include:

• Automated invoice reconciliation: Ingest and compare carrier invoices against execution data to detect discrepancies and validate costs at the shipment level.
• Customer-specific billing automation: Apply configurable markups by client, zone, or service type, and generate accurate invoices tied directly to shipment execution and business rules.
• Real-time margin visibility: Track buy/sell spreads by client, carrier, or method to identify underperforming services or opportunities for pricing adjustment.
• Integrated financial and operational reporting: Connect execution data to billing outcomes to ensure contract compliance and support ongoing profitability analysis.

That’s the case with Shipium’s billing management software, which is purpose-built to eliminate the manual, error-prone processes that typically slow down reconciliation and threaten margin integrity. By automating invoice ingestion and linking it to performance data, our platform ensures billing accuracy at scale.

Top 3PL logistics software solutions

There are different types of 3PL logistics software solutions. Some are built for warehouse management, others for transportation or supply chain planning, and a few are for end-to-end fulfillment execution. 

Let’s review the leading 3PL technology providers and how they align with different business needs, helping you identify the platform that best fits your operational model and growth strategy.

How to choose between different software for 3PL companies

Selecting the best 3PL software for your operation comes down to evaluating how well a solution handles complexity at scale and aligns with your company’s efficiency goals. Consider these key factors:

• Speed of customer onboarding: Can your team deploy new client rules in hours? Or do you wait on tickets?
• Flexibility of fulfillment logic: Does your system support SLA-based routing and branded service levels?
• Cost optimization capability: Can your platform simulate outcomes or automate intelligent downgrades?
• Carrier management: Can you onboard new carriers quickly and track performance centrally?
• Operational independence: Do your operators control the system or depend on external vendors?
• Centralized visibility: Can you access real-time insights across clients, carriers, and fulfillment nodes from a single platform?

3PL platform trends to watch out for

Technology is transforming how 3PLs operate, scale, and serve customers. According to McKinsey, 93% of shippers plan to increase technology investments by 2026. 3PLs that fail to modernize risk losing businesses to more agile, tech-enabled competitors.

Key shipping technology trends influencing the future of 3PL platforms include:

AI and ML-driven decision making

Modern software for 3PL companies relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning to optimize fulfillment workflows. From delivery date predictions to intelligent service downgrades, AI ensures better decision-making at scale. 

These tools also support data-rich simulations, helping 3PLs assess new network strategies and carrier mix changes before deploying them.

Simulation tools for planning and growth

Simulation capabilities in a 3PL system allow companies to test routing logic, carrier additions, or pricing strategies in a virtual environment. This process de-risks decision-making and accelerates customer onboarding by proving value before execution.

Cloud-native, API-first systems architecture

Modern logistics platforms are shifting away from on-premise systems in favor of cloud-native, API-first architectures. This approach enables real-time data exchange, modular scalability, and faster 3PL software integrations with client systems. 

The best 3PL software stack should be designed to be infrastructure-light but integration-heavy, capable of supporting rapid deployments and dynamic rule changes across multiple locations and partners.

Modernize your tech stack with Shipium’s ecommerce 3PL software

With Shipium’s ecommerce 3PL software, you can stay agile in a competitive environment. Capabilities that set our platform apart include:

• New customer onboarding in just 2 hours, not weeks
• Dynamic time-in-transit modeling with 99.1% on-time delivery accuracy
• Pre-integrated carrier network covering 99.2% of North America
• Simulation and billing tools that prove and protect value
• Comprehensive integrations with leading logistics platforms

Case in point: Shipium has helped 3PLs and logistics service providers (LSPs) achieve:

• 40% YoY shipping margin improvement
• 24% lift in sales win rates for teams using Simulation

Book a demo to see why Shipium is the best 3PL software for streamlining operations, improving delivery performance, and helping your business scale.

Frequently asked questions

How much does third-party logistics software cost?

The cost of third-party logistics software can vary based on the platform’s features, scalability, and level of support. Key pricing factors often include:

• Number of users
• Shipment volume
• Integration requirements
• Complexity of your fulfillment network

What are the common challenges that 3PL cloud software helps my company overcome?

With faster deployment, real-time data access, and built-in scalability, 3PL cloud software equips logistics businesses to adapt quickly and operate more efficiently. Common challenges these platforms help overcome include:

• Long onboarding cycles that delay revenue and erode client confidence
• Poor SLA performance visibility, which makes it challenging to manage carrier reliability
• Manual reconciliation and billing processes that drain resources and introduce errors
• Carrier limitations that restrict flexibility and inflate costs
• Lack of differentiation in competitive requests for proposals (RFPs), making it harder to win new business

Does Shipium’s 3PL shipping solutions support multiple carriers?

Yes. Shipium’s expansive, pre-integrated carrier network helps 3PLs respond quickly to market conditions, support diverse client needs, and continuously optimize for speed and cost, without the overhead typically required to manage a multi-carrier strategy. With Shipium, adding a new carrier takes hours, not months. 

Our 3PL shipping solutions also centrally manage surcharges, service levels, and rates across all carriers, eliminating the need for manual rate maintenance or API updates.