Comparison
The spreadsheet alternative for produce importers
Almost every importer under a certain size runs on a spreadsheet and an inbox, and for a long while that is the right call. This page is about the point where it stops being one — and it is not the point people expect.
Free while in beta, then €10 a container · No commitment · No card required
- Carriers supported
- 435
- Shipments tracked
- 249
- Built for
- Fresh produce
The spreadsheet is not the problem. The typing is.
A sheet is the fastest tool ever built for answering a question nobody anticipated, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. The trouble starts one step earlier, with how the numbers get into it.
We measured that. On the packing lists produce importers actually receive, the median citrus list carries 77 values a person has to key and the median avocado list 158. And of 205 shipments whose packing list declared a box-count total, 59 — 29% — did not reconcile against it. Not because anyone was careless. Because 158 numbers typed by hand at the end of a Tuesday is a rate, not an event.
A spreadsheet cannot catch that, and it is not supposed to. It has no idea what the file said, because a person stood between the file and the cell.
The same week, both ways
One row per thing you actually do. The left column is not a caricature — it is where the numbers on this page came from.
| The job | Spreadsheet and inbox | Trackberry |
|---|---|---|
| Getting the numbers in | Somebody keys 158 values off an avocado packing list, then does it again for the next container. | The supplier's file arrives by email and is read. You check it against the original rather than retyping it. |
| Does the total add up | It does until it does not, and 29% of the time it does not. | The mismatch is flagged when the file lands, not when the customer counts the pallets. |
| Screen real estate | Two monitors, forty columns, and you are still scrolling sideways to find the ETA. | One browser tab. Pick the columns you want; they stay picked. |
| An ETA moves | You find out next time you ring the forwarder. | The arrival changes on its own, and the ones that drifted are flagged. |
| Two people at once |
One of you is now working in final_v3_USE_THIS.xlsx.
|
One record. Both of you are looking at it. |
| Finding the phytosanitary certificate | Search your inbox, then a colleague's, then ask the forwarder to resend it. | One click on the container it belongs to. |
| Who changed this | Somebody sorted one column without the others. You will find out in March. | An audit log: what changed, who changed it, when. |
| Reading it at the terminal | On a phone. Technically. | Same page, smaller screen. |
| When the person who built it leaves | Nobody touches the macro. It becomes load-bearing. | Nothing happens. |
| What it costs | Nothing, plus twenty to thirty minutes a container, forever. | Nothing while in beta. No card, no commitment. |
Somebody else is fixing the other half
We are not the only ones who think the spreadsheet is the incumbent. Beacon's pitch is that your spreadsheet should update itself, and it means the tracking columns: keep the sheet, keep your layout, and let the vessel and the ETA fill themselves in. That is a real answer to a real half of this problem, and it is not the half that takes twenty minutes a container. The columns that take the time are the ones copied out of the grower's packing list.
How Trackberry and Beacon compare , including when they are the better buy.
Where the spreadsheet still wins
Longer than on any other page here, because this one is true more often. Keep the sheet for these — most of our customers do.
- Answering a question nobody anticipated. Nothing beats a sheet for that, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- Your own margin maths, your own commissions, your own way of splitting a container across three buyers. That is your business logic and it belongs in your tool.
- Volumes low enough that the typing is minutes a week rather than hours. Below that line the spreadsheet is simply correct.
- Working offline, on a plane, with no account and nobody's permission.
- You already have structured data from your suppliers and nothing needs reading. If EDI solved this for you, it is solved.
What actually changes
Not the analysis. The step before it.
The typing stops
Packing lists, bills of lading, invoices, phytosanitary certificates and EUR1s read out of the inbox and filed against the container. Every extracted value is shown next to the document it came from, so checking a line takes seconds.
The arithmetic is checked for you
Declared totals against line items, references against the transport document. The 29% that do not reconcile surface on arrival of the file rather than on arrival of the cargo.
The sheet keeps its job
Exports come out in a form your spreadsheet or your ERP can take. It stops being where data is typed and stays where it is analysed.
Nothing depends on one person
No macro only one colleague understands, no file named after the week it was made. The record is the same one for everybody.
What it costs
Both numbers here are public, which makes this one of the few comparisons on the site you could settle on price alone. It is also the one where price matters least.
Spreadsheet and inbox
£18.10 per user / month
Microsoft 365 Business Standard, the cheapest plan carrying the Excel desktop app, at annual commitment and excluding VAT. Business Basic at £5.40 is web and mobile only. The licence is the small number: the twenty to thirty minutes a container is the one that compounds.
Trackberry
Free in beta, then €10 / container
No card and no commitment while we are in beta. €10 per container once the beta ends — you pay for containers that ship, not for seats or a monthly subscription. ERP integration is a one-off from €2,000 plus maintenance from €50 a month, quoted against the system you already run. All prices exclude VAT.
Questions buyers ask
- Our spreadsheet works. Why change it?
- For most of what it does, do not. It is the fastest way to answer a question you did not anticipate, and nothing we build will beat it at that. What it cannot do is read a supplier's packing list, notice that the box count does not reconcile, or tell you an ETA moved while you were not looking — and those are the three things that cost money.
- Can we keep the spreadsheet as well?
- Most people do, and it is the sensible answer. Trackberry exports what it extracts, so the sheet stops being the place data is typed and becomes the place it is analysed — which is what a spreadsheet is genuinely good at.
- What actually breaks first?
- Two people editing at once, and the moment the person who built it goes on holiday. Both are survivable. The one that is not is a mistyped quantity nobody catches until the customer rejects the delivery.
- Where does the 29% come from?
- Our own August 2026 analysis of packing lists produce importers actually receive: of 205 shipments whose packing list declared a box-count total, 59 did not reconcile against it. The measurements are published as a CSV you can check — linked at the foot of this page.
- How long does moving over take?
- Forward one shipment's documents. There is no migration, because the history builds from the files and container numbers you already receive. Keep the spreadsheet running alongside for a season if you want to — plenty do.
See every comparison — including the ones where somebody else is the better buy.
Sources
Every claim on this page about another company comes from what that company publishes about itself, and each is dated. If something here is out of date or wrong, tell us at hello@trackberry.com and we will correct it.
Send us your worst packing list
Not a demo dataset — the actual file that took somebody twenty minutes last week. You will see what comes back against the container it belongs to.