SeaRates Shut Down: How to Keep Tracking Your Containers

What happened to SeaRates

SeaRates was a marketplace and freight-booking platform that offered quotes, ERP, tracking, rate management and white-label products, as FreightWaves described it. DP World bought it in 2020. On August 27, 2026, DP World told FreightWaves that it was discontinuing the platform and was "no longer using the SeaRates business globally." The website was still running that day, with no notice on it.

By November 11, 2026 that had changed. The home page, the container tracking page and the sign-in page all redirected to dpworld.com, and tracking.searates.com and docs.searates.com, the addresses we tried for its tracking API and documentation, no longer resolved.

Your shipments are not affected

A tracking site does not move or hold cargo. Each shipping line keeps the record of the containers it carries, and a tracker reads that record and shows it. Losing SeaRates means losing a screen and, if you had an account, the list saved in it. The containers, their Bills of Lading and their status with the line are where they were.

Step 1: rebuild your list from your own documents

With the sign-in page redirecting, a list saved at SeaRates is out of reach. Every number in it is also on paperwork you already hold:

• The Bill of Lading or sea waybill: its own number, and usually the container numbers under it
• The booking confirmation: the booking number the line issued before the Bill of Lading existed
• The arrival notice: the container numbers, the vessel and the port of discharge
• Emails from your forwarder or supplier, which often quote all three

Put them in one spreadsheet, one row for each number, and note which kind of number each is. A booking number and a Bill of Lading number can look alike, and a line answers each of them differently.

Step 2: check each container number

A container number is four letters, six digits and a final check digit, worked out from the first ten characters under ISO 6346. One mistyped character almost always breaks that sum, which is why a number copied by hand so often comes back as not found. Run each number through a check digit calculator before you track it. Ours is on this site and needs no sign-up.

Step 3: find the line that carries each one

A tracker has to ask the right shipping line. On a Bill of Lading the line is named at the top, and the number often begins with the line's four-letter SCAC. On a container, the first four letters are the owner code registered with the BIC. It usually points to the line, as MSCU points to MSC, but a leased container carries the leasing company's code. When the two disagree, the line on your booking confirmation or master Bill of Lading is the operating carrier, and that is the one to ask. A house Bill of Lading from a forwarder names the forwarder, not the line.

Step 4: choose where to track

There are three honest answers, and they suit different teams.

• The line's own website. Every major line has a tracking page at no charge. It works well for a few containers on one or two lines, and badly for forty containers on nine.
• A multi-carrier workspace. One list for every line, shared with your team. CargoScope is one, Terminal49 and ShipsGo are others, and each is priced differently.
• An API. If SeaRates' data fed your own software or website, you need a provider that sells an API, such as Terminal49, Vizion or ShipsGo. CargoScope has no public API.

On November 11, 2026, Terminal49's pricing page listed a Free plan for up to 10 active containers at a time and 3 users, and ShipsGo sold credits, one for each shipment, with three given to a new account. CargoScope publishes its plans and starts tracking with a card-backed 30-day trial. It has no free plan. Whichever you pick, coverage varies by line, so test it with your own numbers first.

If you choose CargoScope

Two things keep the move short. After you create a workspace, the page where you add your card can look up one container, Bill of Lading or booking number before you add it, so you see the route, the vessel and the estimated arrival the line reports for a shipment of your own. Enter the number on our home page before you sign up and the lookup starts on its own. It is for new workspaces, CargoScope runs a limited number of them each day, and it is not offered for every shipping line.

Then, in New shipment, Bulk import takes the spreadsheet from step 1 as a CSV or TSV file or as pasted rows. It checks every row before anything starts, skips numbers the workspace already tracks, and uses one tracking credit for each row that starts. From there the team works from one list, with milestone emails and shipments at risk flagged.

What no tracker replaces

Tracking was one part of SeaRates. For freight quotes and booking you need a forwarder or a rate marketplace, and for a tracking page on your own website or a data feed you need a provider that sells one. CargoScope does none of those: it tracks ocean containers, with rail legs when the carrier reports them.