Improving Transparency & Payments – Uber Freight
Improving the user experience for Shippers and Carriers through a pricing plan mechanism, payment transparency, and a management dashboard.
Case study
Role - UX&UI Designer
Mobile, desktop system & support dashboard
We set out to make pricing more transparent, payments more reliable, and support teams more empowered — creating a better experience for everyone on the platform. Great logistics means more than moving goods — it means building trust between every person involved.
Personas
To design a solution that truly meets user needs, we focused on understanding the perspectives of three key personas in the Uber Freight ecosystem.
Each plays a critical role: Shippers who need transparent pricing, Carriers who seek reliable payments, and Customer Success agents who ensure smooth operations.
Their goals, frustrations, and insights guided every design decision we made.
Shippers are SMBs using Uber Freight’s TMS to manage weekly or monthly shipments from factories to stores. They struggle with cost unpredictability, making financial planning difficult.
“Unexpected additional costs have put my business in trouble.”
34 years old
Operations Manager at an Organic Ice Cream Factory
San Francisco
Andrea Missoni
Carriers are the users of the Uber Freight app, typically truck drivers who transport goods for shippers. They rely on the app for consistent trips and earnings, but face challenges with payment delays and unpredictable job availability.
“They are bad and very disorganized. Took 60 days to pay our last invoice.”
48 years old
Truck Driver for Uber Freight
California
Sam Kane
We created a dashboard for the Customer Success team to evaluate the quality of our value proposition, both for shippers and carriers
“I need to good data overview, to meet all customers’ and business’ needs.”
31 years old
Uber Freight Customer Support
Chicago
Nathan Raynolds
The Problem
Hidden Costs Disrupt Financial Planning
Unpredictable fuel surcharges and accessorial fees like detention, layovers, and TONU make it extremely difficult for manufacturers to forecast shipping expenses.
$ 30–35 B
Total Fuel Surcharges
Based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) diesel price index.
$ 4–5 B
Total Accessorial Charges
Based on a report by AFS Logistics
30-60%
Average Increase in Shipping Costs
Based on the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) diesel price index.
Worse, a study found that 60% of shippers were unaware of these additional charges until after delivery — damaging financial planning, delaying payments to carriers, and straining trust across the industry.
Goals
To create a more predictable, transparent, and trustworthy shipping experience across Uber Freight, we focused on three main goals:
Increase Pricing Transparency
Provide predictable pricing so shippers can plan ahead and avoid delivery-day cost surprises.
Ensure Reliable Payments
Simplify billing and speed up payments to reduce disputes and build carrier trust.
Strengthen Support Operations
Minimize billing issues to ease support workload and strengthen user relationships.
Challenges & Solutions
Shippers
Shippers faced major challenges forecasting shipping costs due to unexpected accessorial charges and unpredictable rates.
1.
Challenge: Unreliable payment timelines and unexpected accessorial charges caused financial stress for carriers, leading to disputes and lack of trust.
Our Solution: We simplified the billing flow and enabled faster payout timelines through PayGuard plans.
Objective
Enable shippers to better forecast costs with upfront, transparent pricing plans.
Core Offering
Three flexible pricing models (Base Rate, PayGuard Fixed, PayGuard Premium) catering to different budgeting and risk needs.
Impact for Users
More predictable budgets, fewer financial surprises, and stronger confidence at booking.
UX Approach
Make cost selection easy and intuitive, building trust through clear, simplified choices.
Inspiration: Structuring Pricing for Clarity and Trust
We drew inspiration from the travel industry, where complex pricing is made simple and intuitive.
This flight booking UI presents fare options using icons, price hierarchy, and highlights like "Recommended" labels to guide user choices.
Similarly, our Pay Guard plans were structured to offer clarity, easy comparison, and stronger user confidence when booking shipments.
Integrating Pay Guard into the Booking Flow
To make cost planning simple and stress-free, we introduced Pay Guard directly into the shipment booking process.
Users can easily compare pricing options through a clean, card-based layout that highlights key benefits and costs.
We added a "Most Popular" tag to guide decisions intuitively, while keeping the overall experience consistent with Uber Freight’s familiar design system.
The first page for scheduling a trip – which type of truck is needed, on which dates, the origin (departure location), and the destination (arrival location).
We decided to place our feature on the first page, right after selecting the cargo type, origin, destination, and dates. Below, the routes will be displayed, allowing the user to complete the process and see the price. On the second page, the user will review the trip details and confirm the price again.
We will use the black lines taken from Uber's design system.
The second page is where the price for the trip is received, approved, and thereby the trip is scheduled
This improved shippers' ability to plan budgets confidently and reduced post-delivery disputes.
Carriers faced uncertainty around payment timelines, making it harder to plan cash flow and trust load offers.
2.
Carriers
Challenge: Payment delays from shippers created distrust among carriers, making them hesitant to accept loads. These delays often stemmed from unexpected additional charges billed to shippers.
Our Solution: We introduced the PayGuard feature in the carriers' app, clearly tagging insured shipments and the level of coverage. This gave carriers peace of mind about payment reliability and helped rebuild trust in the platform.
Objective
Enable carriers to prioritize secure shipments and ensure faster, more reliable payments.
Core Offering
The PayGuard Tag — clearly marking loads that offer guaranteed payment terms and faster payout processing.
Impact for Users
More predictable income, reduced financial uncertainty, and greater confidence when accepting shipments.
UX Approach
Simplify load selection with upfront payment visibility, empowering carriers to make faster, more informed decisions.
To avoid payment delay situations, we added a 'sort' option in the Uber Freight app for drivers, so they can see which shippers use the PayGuard feature to avoid accessorial charges, ensuring that carriers get paid on time
The PayGuard tagging feature gave carriers greater confidence in payment reliability and improved their overall booking experience.
3.
Customer Success
Customer Success teams faced limited visibility into user issues and product data, making it harder to support users effectively and collaborate with other teams.
Challenge: Customer Success teams struggled to collect relevant data, identify PayGuard-related issues, and hand over insights efficiently to the support team.
Our Solution: We built a dashboard that tracks PayGuard activity, highlights unusual cases, allows custom sorting, and offers AI-powered access to detailed graphs and insights.
Objective
Give the Customer Success team real-time visibility into PayGuard operations to resolve payment and shipment issues faster.
Core Offering
A live dashboard that tracks delays, disputes, and user adoption trends, with smart filtering and AI-powered insights.
Impact for Users
Faster support response times, improved trust among shippers and carriers, and fewer escalations due to billing confusion.
UX Approach
Make monitoring intuitive with clean visuals, customizable views, and actionable reporting — turning data into smarter, faster decisions.