> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.owlery.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Spot Savings
> How Owlery measures spot savings and how to read the Spot Loads dashboard.
**Where to find it:** `Analytics → Metrics Overview → Operations Tab`
Analytics data refreshes on a schedule, not instantly. Under the dashboard title you'll see when the data was last updated and when the next refresh is due. If a change you just made in Owlery isn't showing yet, check there first.
Spot savings measures how much you saved by tendering below the **midpoint** of the comparable bids you received on a quote.
For the rules shared across every dashboard — spend, dates, and the common filters — see [Dashboard Basics](/shippers/dashboard-basics).
*Midpoint* means the **median bid**: line every comparable bid up from cheapest to most expensive and take the one in the middle. It is not the halfway point between your cheapest and most expensive bid — that figure gets pulled around by a single unusual quote, and Owlery doesn't use it.
*Comparable* means bids on the same side of the LTL / non-LTL line as the rate you tendered. See [Which Bids Get Compared](#which-bids-get-compared).
## What Counts as a Spot Load
A spot load is one you put out to bid. Loads moved on a [contract rate](/shippers/contract-rates-overview) are excluded, because there was no bidding process and so nothing to compare against.
## Which Bids Get Compared
A single quote can come back with bids across more than one mode. An LTL rate and a truckload rate are not two prices for the same thing, so Owlery splits each quote's bids into two groups, **LTL** and **non-LTL**, and measures savings inside the group you tendered from:
* Tender an LTL rate, and the midpoint is the midpoint of the **LTL bids only**.
* Tender a non-LTL rate, and the midpoint is the midpoint of the **non-LTL bids only**.
Bids from the other group are still visible in your bid table and your exports. They just don't set the benchmark.
**Within that group, every bid counts toward the midpoint, including the one you tendered** — the midpoint describes the whole comparable field, not the field minus your winner.
Mixing the two groups would credit your bidding event for a load planning decision. For the worked numbers on why, see [Comparing Like With Like](/shippers/spot-savings-methodology#comparing-like-with-like).
## How Spot Savings Is Calculated
Spot savings is the **midpoint of the comparable bids you received** minus the **rate you tendered**. With an even number of comparable bids, Owlery averages the two middle bids.
### A Worked Example
A quote that received five FTL bids, tendered FTL — so the comparable group is the non-LTL bids:
| Carrier | Bid |
| - | - |
| Carrier A | **\$950** — tendered |
| Carrier B | \$955 |
| Carrier C | **\$1,100** — midpoint |
| Carrier D | \$1,200 |
| Carrier E | \$2,400 |
The middle bid of the five is \$1,100. You tendered \$950. Spot savings on this load is **\$150**, or about 13.6% below the midpoint of the comparable market you saw.
### Why the Midpoint
The midpoint estimates what the load would have cost without a competitive bidding process. Owlery uses it in preference to the second-cheapest bid, the average, or the most expensive bid — the full reasoning, with a worked comparison of all four benchmarks, is on [Why Owlery Uses the Midpoint](/shippers/spot-savings-methodology).
Spot savings is a benchmark, not an accounting figure. It measures the value of running a competitive event against the comparable market you saw on that quote. It isn't money that appears anywhere in your ledger, and it isn't a comparison against a budget, a contract rate, a market index, or what the same load would have cost in another mode.
## The Summary Tiles
| Tile | What it shows |
| - | - |
| **Loads** | How many loads fall inside your date range. |
| **Avg Bids per Spot Load** | How many carriers responded to a typical quote. |
| **Total Spot Savings** | Spot savings added up across every spot load in your date range. |
| **Avg Spot Savings per Load** | Total spot savings divided by the number of spot loads. |
| **Avg Spot Savings (25th percentile)** | The same average, benchmarked against the 25th-percentile comparable bid instead of the midpoint — a deliberately conservative view. |
| **Avg Spot Savings (75th percentile)** | The same average, benchmarked against the 75th-percentile comparable bid — a deliberately generous one. |
**Avg Bids per Spot Load** is the one to watch alongside the savings figures. Spot savings depends entirely on carriers competing for your freight — more bids means a wider spread and a more meaningful midpoint. When this number falls, savings usually fall with it.
**Avg Bids per Spot Load** counts every bid on the quote, both groups. The savings figures use only the comparable group. On a quote that drew bids across both modes, the bid count will be higher than the number of bids that actually set the benchmark.
### The Percentile Tiles
These two don't describe how savings varied from load to load. They re-run the whole calculation against a different benchmark: instead of the middle bid, take the bid a quarter of the way up the comparable field — or three quarters of the way up — and average across your loads exactly as before. The LTL / non-LTL split applies here too.
What you get is a range around the headline figure. The 25th-percentile number is what your savings look like under a stingy assumption about what you'd otherwise have paid; the 75th-percentile number is what they look like under a generous one. The midpoint sits between them by design.
Reading all three tells you how much the answer depends on that assumption. Sitting close together means the benchmark choice barely matters and the headline number is on solid ground. Spread far apart means your bid fields are wide, and the figure leans more heavily on that middle assumption than it does on a tight day.
## The Charts
### Bids per Spot Load
A stacked bar per week showing what share of that week's loads drew each number of bids. Each color is a bid count, so a bar that is mostly dark green means most loads that week attracted seven or more carriers.
Watch for red, which is a single bid. A load with only one bid cannot produce savings — see [When Savings Show as \$0](#when-savings-show-as-0).
### Spot Savings
Two series drawn on one chart:
* **Total Spot Savings** (green bars): the dollars saved that week. This moves with load volume, so a short bar can mean a quiet week rather than a bad one.
* **Average Spot Savings** (blue line): the dollars saved on a typical load. This is the better line to trend, because volume doesn't distort it.
The first and last points on both weekly charts almost always cover **partial weeks** clipped by the edge of your date range. A dip at either end is usually your date filter, not a real change.
## The Load Tables
Under the charts are two tables. They cover the same loads and differ in what a single row means.
| Table | One row is | Use it for |
| - | - | - |
| **Bids per Spot Load** | one spot load | Load-level figures — cost, bid count, and the spot savings Owlery calculated. |
| **Spot Loads with all Bids** | one bid | Seeing the field behind a load — carrier name and bid amount for every bid received, across both groups. Scroll right for the full set of columns, or download it. |
Either one exports. Click the **⋯** at the top right of the table and pick CSV or Excel.
When you export **Spot Loads with all Bids**, the load-level columns repeat on every row belonging to the same load. A load that drew 17 bids appears as 17 rows, each carrying that same load's cost and savings. Summing that column would count the same savings 17 times over. Use **Bids per Spot Load** for anything you plan to total.
## Measure It Your Own Way
The midpoint of the comparable field is what Owlery reports because it's the benchmark we'd defend — see [Why Owlery Uses the Midpoint](/shippers/spot-savings-methodology). It isn't the only defensible one, and it doesn't know your lanes the way you do.
So the bids are yours to take. The export carries the full field, both groups, so you can measure against the second-cheapest bid, trim the top and bottom off each field, weight by lane or by volume, cut the modes more finely than LTL versus everything else, or set the whole thing against your contract rates. If you land somewhere different and it holds up on your freight, we'd like to hear about it.
## When Savings Show as \$0
The ordinary reason a load shows no savings is that **only one comparable carrier bid**. With a single bid in the group you tendered from, that bid is also the midpoint, so the midpoint and the rate you tendered are the same number. A week where every load drew one comparable bid will show \$0 total savings.
This can happen on a quote that looks busy. Six bids where five were non-LTL and you tendered the only LTL rate is a one-bid comparison, and it will report \$0.
That doesn't mean anything is broken, but it is worth chasing: it points to a carrier coverage gap in that mode on that lane rather than a pricing problem.
## Common Questions
Check the **Average Spot Savings** line before worrying. Total savings moves with how many loads you shipped, so a quiet week produces a short bar even when every load performed well.
It means you tendered below the middle of the comparable bids you received. Whether a cheaper rate existed somewhere in the wider market is a different question, and this dashboard can't answer it.
Because it's a different kind of saving. Spot savings sizes what competitive bidding was worth with mode held constant; mode conversion is a load planning decision, and folding the two together would make both harder to read. The truckload bids are in your export if you want to size the conversion separately.
Check how the field split. If all but one of those bids sat on the other side of the LTL / non-LTL line, only one bid was comparable, and a single comparable bid is its own midpoint.
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