Not a sales machine
No cold-call campaigns, no "just checking in" emails every Tuesday, no demo that runs on a script. We answer the phone, and we know what a tipper's dog clutch is.
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Our story
Built by an operator. Not by a software company.
Cartage Core started with a decade in Hawke's Bay cartage and one docket pile too many. We built the TMS we always wanted — the one that treats the yard like the yard, not like a logistics textbook.
Where it started
The week that broke the whiteboard
There's a week every cartage operator has: the client changes the site at 6am, two trucks break down, the quarry sends the wrong invoice, and the office is still reconstructing Monday's dockets on Thursday. We lived that week more than once, running tipper trucks out of Hawke's Bay for the better part of a decade.
Every software option we looked at was written by people who had clearly never stood on a weighbridge. The demos were slick. The pricing was enterprise. The features were built for logistics companies with fleet managers, not for a yard where the dispatcher is also the owner, also the mechanic's boss, and also the one who answers the phone at 6:30am.
So we built the other thing. A TMS that assumes the person using it is busy, wet, covered in dust, and about to get a call about a truck that's stuck at a pit gate. Everything in Cartage Core exists because a real day in a real yard demanded it — and nothing exists just to fill a feature list.
"We didn't set out to build a company. We set out to stop losing a week of every month to paper."
What we believe
- The load record is the truth. If the docket photo, the tonnage and the GPS stamp all agree, nobody can argue with the invoice — not the client, not the quarry, not us.
- The yard is the product. Software that doesn't survive a dust storm and a dead zone isn't software. It's a screensaver.
- Honesty over hype. We don't invent customer logos, testimonials or volume claims. This site shows placeholders where real proof will go — because real proof is worth waiting for.
- Per truck, per month, no tricks. You pay for the trucks that worked. Subcontractors included. Cancel any time. That's how we'd want to be sold to.
New Zealand and Australia
Built for both sides of the Tasman
Cartage Core was built in Hawke's Bay, and New Zealand is where it runs today — quarry runs out of Napier and Hastings, civil work through the Bay, aggregate carted for roading contractors across the North Island. The rate structures, the FAF arguments and the month-end docket hunt it was designed around are all New Zealand problems first.
They are not only New Zealand problems. Tipper and aggregate operators in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia run the same shape of business: material bought by the tonne and sold by the tonne, trucks and subcontractors billed by load, hour or day, and a weighbridge ticket sitting between the two. The platform is built for both markets — rates and fuel adjustment are configured per operation rather than hard-coded to one country, vehicle documents and inspection dates are tracked as dates you set rather than a fixed New Zealand list, and the driver app works the same in a Queensland quarry as it does in a Hawke's Bay one.
If you are running tippers in Australia and want to see how it handles your rate card, book a demo — we will set it up against your real material prices and cartage rates, not a generic sample.
The tagline
From pre-check to paid — without a single piece of paper.
That's the whole promise. Every module exists to make it true.
See howStraight talk
What we're not
Equally important, we think.
Not an enterprise suite
No modules for things your yard doesn't do. No implementation project, no consultants, no six-figure licence. If you run 3–50 trucks, we're sized for you.
Not a data hostage-taker
Your records are yours. Export any time, leave any time, month to month. We earn the renewal, every month.
Book a demo
Talk to someone who's run a yard
The demo is a conversation, not a presentation. Bring your questions — including the hard ones.
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