Best Load Planning Software in 2026: 6 Tools, Picked by What You're Loading

The best load planning software in 2026 costs between $28 and $139 a month for most teams, and the right pick depends on what you're loading. SourceForge's 2026 list ranks 51 tools as if they all solve one problem, and they don't. A carton, a pallet, a sea container and a road case each need different software. We make one of the tools on that list (we're fifth), so weigh this accordingly. Every price below came off the vendor's own page on October 7, 2026, except Cube-IQ, which doesn't publish one. We picked ourselves for one job out of six.

Road cases and tour gear: Truck Packer, $28 a month

Source: Truck Packer pricing

This one's ours. Truck Packer is built for gear where nothing repeats: a guitar vault, an amp trunk, a drum riser, each with its own name and a place it has to come off the truck. Pro is $28 a month for one user, or about $252 a year with the 25 percent annual discount, with a 7-day trial that unlocks every feature. You get AutoPack, a weight view, a shareable pack and a loadout checklist. The case library has 565 Gator cases with published specs, and you can drag in a Flex pull sheet instead of typing dimensions.

Crew view of a real 59-case bus trailer pack: title block, top and side diagrams, and the checklist the load crew works from.

The crew view is the reason to pick it. It turns the 3D pack into a top and side diagram with a numbered checklist, named the way the cases are stenciled, and the share link opens on a phone from a QR code. A loader who has never seen your gear can work from it at the top of the ramp.

Mixed pallets on a multi-stop truck: EasyCargo, $79 a month per user

Source: EasyCargo pricing

EasyCargo is the friendliest general freight tool we looked at. It's $79 per user per month with no commitment, $799 per user for the year, or $9.70 for a one-day ticket sold in packs of ten. The trial is 10 days of the full version with no credit card. It checks axle weight against the legal limits and sorts cargo into priority groups by destination, which is what a multi-drop truck needs. It imports from Excel and shares a plan by public link.

Sea containers from an Excel packing list: Cargo-Planner, $99 a month

Source: Cargo-Planner pricing

Cargo-Planner is the freight forwarder's pick. Lite is $99 a month for one user, or $59 a month billed yearly, and it covers sea, road and air equipment, palletization and Excel import, in 18 or more languages. Read the tier line closely though: Lite has no interactive 3D. That starts at Standard, which is $139 a month ($99 billed yearly) for five users and adds public link sharing. The full aircraft and vessel loaders, the API and single sign-on sit in Enterprise, which is quoted.

One planner on a small budget: Goodloading, 28 euros a month

Source: Goodloading price list, effective April 30, 2026

Goodloading is the cheapest tool here that still does real work. One user is 28 euros a month or 280 euros for the year, and a 7-day trial costs 4 euros. It accounts for axle load, permissible total weight and centre of gravity, takes multiple loading and unloading stops, and sends the plan as a link or a PDF with a loading animation. If you load pallets onto one truck a few times a week, start here.

Cartons at checkout, through an API: 3DBinPacking, $39 a month

Source: 3DBinPacking pricing

3DBinPacking charges per calculation. The smallest plan is $39 a month for 1,000 calculations and the largest is $2,999 for 2,000,000, with a 14-day trial and no credit card. It answers questions like which box an order ships in and how many fit on a pallet, fast enough to run inside a shopping cart. This is the pick for an online store or a fulfillment center, and the wrong one for a person planning a truck by hand.

A warehouse tied to a WMS: Cube-IQ, by quote, last listed at $2,500 a year

Source: MagicLogic, Cube-IQ

Cube-IQ sits first on SourceForge's list, and it earns that for big operations. It handles containers, trucks, pallets and mixed palletization with axle weight math, runs on the desktop or the web, and connects to warehouse and transportation management systems. MagicLogic doesn't publish a price, and the page sends you to a demo. The last public figure we can find is $2,500 a year in EasyCargo's eleven-tool comparison, updated in January 2026.

Five seats cost 765 euros to $2,797 a year

Source: Truck Packer math from the four price pages linked above.

Sticker prices stop being comparable once a second person needs to open the plan. Goodloading is 765 euros a year for five users. Cargo-Planner Standard includes five users at $99 a month billed yearly, which is $1,188. EasyCargo is $799 per user with 30 percent off for three or more, so five seats come to about $2,797. Truck Packer Business is quoted, which is the same opacity we just pointed out in Cube-IQ, and it's fair to hold us to it. Count the builder, the crew chief and the driver before you compare anything.

Truck Packer is the wrong pick for 5 of these 6 jobs

Source: Truck Packer, from the comparison above.

We don't load aircraft or vessels, we don't run in 18 languages, and we don't pick a carton size at checkout. If you ship 400 identical cartons out of a WMS, buy one of the other five and you'll be happier. If your load is a rig of road cases that comes off the truck in a set order, that's the one job we built for.

Loading road cases? Log in to Truck Packer and build the pack.