SCOTUS 9-0 · Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II · May 14, 2026
Comparison

CarrierCrusher vs. Carrier Assure

Carrier Assure is an A-F peer-cohort letter grade at $149/mo. CarrierCrusher is a litigation-weighted score with a post-Caribe Transport Decision Record at $349/mo.

No login required for the free scorecard.

The category gap

Both grade carriers. Only one is the discovery artifact.

Carrier Assure is a real scorer — the closest analog to a CAB- style peer-cohort grade on the broker side. Six inputs feed an A-F letter grade recalculated daily: business stability, DOT performance vs. similar-sized peers, fraud / double-broker reports, project44 tracking reliability, related- entity (chameleon) signals, and community reviews. Distribution runs through Descartes MyCarrierPortal, which is meaningful broker-desk reach.

CarrierCrusher is a litigation-weighted scorer with a different output: a 0-100 litigation-weighted CarrierCrusherScore (with a one-click Real-Exposure lens), paired with a per-tender Decision Record (CLEARED / MONITOR / REVIEW / DO NOT TENDER) built to be the discoverable artifact when a plaintiff lawyer subpoenas your vetting file after Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II (SCOTUS 9-0, May 14, 2026). Closed-loop cure stack ships with it.

Both can be the right answer. The rest of this page is about when.

Carrier Assure
A-F peer-cohort letter grade

Six-input algorithm (Business Stability, DOT Performance, Reports, Tracking, Related Entities, Reviews) recalculated daily into an A-F grade. Peer-normalized against similar-sized carriers. Distributed through Descartes MyCarrierPortal; integrated with project44 tracking and partners including Zurich Resilience, RMIS, and GenLogs.

CarrierCrusher
Litigation-weighted score + Decision Record

A locked engine that ingests FMCSA SMS, NHTSA, OFAC, FARS every 24h, runs peer-cohort percentiles, and produces a Decision Record (CLEARED / MONITOR / REVIEW / DO NOT TENDER) with hard stops, reasoning, and a court-discoverable audit trail. Get-to-Green Roadmap closes the loop on the carrier side.

Side-by-side

Carrier Assure facts come from its public pages (pricing, how-it- works, partner integrations). CarrierCrusher facts come from the locked engine and shipped product.

Carrier AssureCarrierCrusher
Category
Broker-side A-F letter grade + community reports
Litigation-weighted FMCSA score + per-tender Decision Record
Score model
A / B / C / D / F letter grade vs. similar-size peer cohort
0-100 litigation-weighted CarrierCrusherScore, one-click Real-Exposure lens, peer-cohort percentiles
Score inputs
Business Stability, DOT Performance, Reports (fraud / double-broker), Tracking (project44), Related Entities, Reviews
FMCSA SMS, NHTSA, OFAC, FARS — direct federal APIs; litigation-weighted scoring; chameleon match on phone / address / officer / VIN
Refresh cadence
Daily recompute
Every 24 hours from federal feeds
Post-Montgomery decision artifact
Letter grade in the report; no per-tender decision record built for discovery
Yes — append-only Decision Record per tender, time-stamped, court-discoverable; persists to Defense File
Closed-loop cure engine
Carriers can dispute or rebut; no per-violation remediation roadmap
Yes — Get-to-Green Roadmap: the same engine that rejects also hands the carrier a violation-specific fix plan
Insurer-side lens
Broker-vetting focus; partners with Zurich Resilience Solutions on the insurance side
Insurer Stability Score + Underwriter Lens — score an insurer's book by carrier risk quality (rate-adequacy, expected-loss)
Chameleon / reincarnation detection
Yes — Related Entities input (connections across addresses, phone numbers, emails, equipment)
Yes — shared phone / address / officer / VIN matching across DOT numbers
Distribution
Embedded in Descartes MyCarrierPortal; partner network includes project44, RMIS, GenLogs, Zurich
Direct (carriercrusher.ai) + free public scorecard at /lookup; TMS-certified webhook on the broker tier
Source basis
FMCSA data + project44 tracking + user-submitted reports + community reviews
Federal records only for the score itself — derived from FMCSA / NHTSA / OFAC / FARS, not user-submitted claims about other parties
Pricing
Individual: Free · Premium: $149/mo (1 account) · Enterprise: Contact Us
$349/mo (Broker · Defense File tier) — Tender + DNT Reinstate + Audit Trail bundled

Carrier Assure pricing per carrierassure.com/pricing; scoring inputs and daily recompute per carrierassure.com/how-it-works; Descartes MyCarrierPortal partnership per mycarrierportal.com/partners/carrier-assure. CarrierCrusher pricing reflects the Broker · Defense File tier in src/lib/billing.plans.ts.

When Carrier Assure is the right answer

You want a simple A-F grade that the broker desk already reads.

If your workflow runs inside Descartes MyCarrierPortal and the grade already lives there, Carrier Assure is the path of least friction. A peer-normalized letter grade is a real output — CAB does the same shape on the insurance side — and "A or B gets the load, D or F gets a phone call" is a clean policy your dispatch team can execute today.

If your freight is routine, your tender volume is modest, and project44 tracking + community reviews + a daily-refreshed grade answer the questions you need answered — the $149/mo Premium tier is fair for the job. We're not going to pretend otherwise.

  • Already standardized on Descartes MyCarrierPortal as the vetting front door
  • Comfortable anchoring decisions on a peer-cohort letter grade + community reviews
  • No shipper / insurance requirement for a per-tender, court-discoverable decision artifact
  • project44 tracking reliability is a primary signal you already weight heavily
When you need more than a letter grade

You tender freight a plaintiff lawyer would notice.

Since Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II (SCOTUS 9-0, May 14, 2026), every broker carries discoverable negligent- selection exposure on every load. The defense bar's first subpoena asks for your vetting documentation for the date of loss. "We pulled an A-F grade on the date of tender" is not the same artifact as a per-tender Decision Record with the reasoning, the source rows, the hard-stop logic, and the policy version stamped into it.

If you tender high-value or hazmat loads, work with shippers whose insurance carrier requires documented vetting at the per-load level, or sit on the insurer side and need to price the book by carrier-risk-quality — the difference between an A-F grade and a litigation-weighted score with a Decision Record stops being a category preference and starts being the shape of your audit trail.

  • Post-Montgomery defensibility. Per-tender Decision Record + persistent Defense File built for discovery, not just a daily grade snapshot.
  • Insurer Stability Score. Underwriter Lens that flips the question: which insurers are writing your cohort, and what does their book actually look like? No letter-grade product surfaces this.
  • Closed-loop Get-to-Green Roadmap. Violation- specific fix plan for the carrier you didn't tender today — so they become the carrier you can tender next quarter. Letter grades stop at "F."
  • Real-Exposure lens. An FMCSA-aligned default for the underwriter, one click to the litigation view for defense counsel — the same carrier, both realities.
  • Driver Risk Facility. Per-driver and per-VIN crash / inspection history rolled up into the carrier score — not just the carrier-level peer cohort.

See the score for the carrier you're worried about.

Free public scorecard — no login. If you already have a Carrier Assure grade for the same USDOT, put the two outputs next to each other. The category gap is the answer.