Who Has the Leverage Right Now? SONAR’s Pricing Power Index Has the Answer

Every week, SONAR’s Research team distills the freight market down to a single number: the Pricing Power Index (PPI). It’s a quick answer to the question that shapes procurement strategy, bid timing, and carrier negotiations alike — is pricing power sitting with carriers, or with shippers, right now? The index isn’t a gut-check or a narrative built after the fact. It’s a direct-weighted, data-driven composite of eight SONAR metrics — tender rejections, accepted volume, rail volume, ocean TEU bookings, spot rates, van contract rates, the spot/contract spread, and intermodal contract rates — each ranked against five years of its own weekly history and combined into a single 0–100 score. A reading of 50 marks a historically balanced market.