7 Container Tracking Sites Compared: Free Limits, Alerts and Prices

Most people meet container tracking the same way. Someone sends a container number, you paste it into a search box, and you get a list of events. Any of the sites below can do that for a major carrier.

The differences appear after the first lookup. Does the site keep checking the shipment for you? Does it tell you when the ETA moves, or do you have to come back and look? How many shipments can you follow before you pay, and what does paying cost?

This comparison covers six widely used tracking sites and Shipzy. Competitor details come from each company's public pages and were checked in October 2026. Plans and limits change, so confirm them on the linked pages before you decide.

Quick comparison

Site	Free use	Paid from	Carrier coverage	Email alerts
Carrier's own website	Unlimited lookups	Free	That carrier only	Varies by carrier, usually needs an account
Track-Trace	Unlimited lookups	Free	169 companies (forwards you to the carrier)	Not advertised
SeaRates	1 shipment a month, 5 when registered	$29/month	180+ carriers	Yes, email or SMS
ShipsGo	3 credits at signup	About $2 per shipment	130+ shipping lines	Yes, including ETA changes
FindTEU	10 shipments a month	€25/month	Major lines, "93% of global traffic"	Yes, ETA and status changes
Terminal49	10 active containers	Quote or pay-as-you-go	33+ shipping lines, 1,300+ terminals	Dashboard and API focused
Tradlinx	Free trial	$13.90/month	50+ carriers	Yes, status notifications and digest
Shipzy	Lookups plus 3 saved shipments	€20/month	13 carrier brands, about 80% of capacity	Yes: schedule changes, pre-arrival, arrival, demurrage, detention, daily digest

The carrier's own website

Start here if you ship with one line. Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd and the others publish tracking on their own sites, and that data is the source every other tool reads from.

The limit is obvious once you use a second carrier. Each site has its own layout, its own event names and its own login. Notifications, where they exist, are set up carrier by carrier. Nothing gives you one list of everything on the water.

Good for: checking a single shipment, and for confirming what a third-party tool shows.

Track-Trace

Track-Trace is one of the oldest tracking pages on the web and still one of the most visited. It lists 169 container companies. You type a number, it reads the first four letters to pick the company, and it opens that company's tracking result, either directly or inside a frame with a few extra tools. It also covers Bills of Lading, air cargo and post.

It is a router more than a tracker. You see what the carrier's site shows, in the carrier's format. The page promotes a "track-trace+" option for storing shipments in one place, but it does not advertise schedule-change emails.

Good for: a fast, free lookup when you do not know which carrier site to open.

Less suited to: following many shipments over several weeks, because the checking is still manual.

SeaRates

SeaRates is a freight marketplace owned by DP World, and its tracking tool is one of the most searched. It covers more than 180 carriers, detects the carrier for you and shows the route on a map.

Free use is small: one shipment a month without an account and five with one. Paid tracking plans start at $29 a month for up to 50 shipments, with higher tiers above that. Status updates can be sent by email or SMS.

Good for: broad carrier coverage, including smaller lines, and a map view.

Less suited to: regular free use. Five shipments a month runs out quickly.

ShipsGo

ShipsGo sells tracking by the credit. Adding a shipment costs one credit, and after that you can check it as often as you like. A Bill of Lading with several containers still uses one credit. New accounts get three free credits, and volume packs work out at roughly $2 a shipment. Credits last a year.

Coverage is more than 130 shipping lines, plus air cargo. ShipsGo emails you each time a shipment's ETA changes, and its notifications are not capped.

Good for: irregular shippers who do not want a monthly bill.

Less suited to: steady volume. At about $2 each, 30 shipments a month costs around $60.

FindTEU

FindTEU has the most generous free plan in this group: 10 shipments a month with automatic carrier detection, one dashboard, automatic updates and email notifications when an ETA or container status changes. The Business plan is €25 a month for 50 shipments and adds bulk import, CSV export, booking-number tracking and an API with webhooks. Unused shipments do not roll over.

FindTEU names the major lines it supports rather than quoting a large carrier count, and says they cover 93% of global traffic.

Good for: small importers who want a free dashboard with alerts, and developers who want an API at a low fixed price.

Less suited to: shipments with smaller regional carriers outside its list.

Terminal49

Terminal49 is built around North American imports. Besides carrier events from 33+ shipping lines, it reads data from more than 1,300 terminals, which lets it show holds and Last Free Day deadlines from both the terminal and the carrier. The free plan covers 10 active containers and three users. Paid plans add API access, webhooks, rail tracking and predictive ETAs, mostly on annual contracts.

Good for: US and Canadian importers who need terminal-level detail, and teams building on a tracking API.

Less suited to: trade lanes that never touch North America, where the terminal data adds less.

Tradlinx

Tradlinx is a subscription tracker with low entry prices. Essentials is listed at $13.90 a month and includes port-to-port tracking, shipment notes, status notifications and an email digest. Professional, at $24 a month, adds door-to-door tracking, a shareable tracking URL, live tracking for your own website and data insights. There is a free trial and a custom Enterprise plan.

Good for: small teams that want a full dashboard at a low monthly price.

Less suited to: anyone who needs a permanent free plan.

Shipzy

Shipzy tracking works with a container number, a Bill of Lading number or a booking reference. It reads directly from carrier systems. Today that means 13 carrier brands, among them MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Yang Ming and ZIM, which together operate about 80% of global container capacity. Which carriers you can use depends on your plan, so check the pricing page for the current split.

That is a shorter carrier list than SeaRates or ShipsGo. If you ship with a small regional line, check whether Shipzy supports it before relying on it.

My Shipments and email alerts

A lookup is free. The more useful step is to save the shipment. Saved shipments go into My Shipments, and Shipzy rechecks them with the carrier once a day. When something changes, you get an email. You do not have to open the dashboard to find out.

You can switch each alert on or off:

• Schedule change alerts. Sent when the ETA moves earlier or later, when the time of a milestone such as departure or discharge changes, or when an event is added or removed. The email shows the old value, the new value and the size of the shift. Changes found in the same check arrive in one message.
• Pre-arrival alert. A reminder in the last days before the estimated arrival, so you can arrange customs clearance and transport.
• Arrival notification. Sent when the shipment arrives at its destination.
• Demurrage watch. Sent when a container has sat at the port for three days or more after discharge.
• Detention watch. Sent when a container has not been returned five days or more after pickup.
• Daily status report. One digest of all your active shipments.

Demurrage and detention watch are part of the Pro plan. For background on those charges, see how demurrage and detention costs build up.

Other tracking features

• Shareable tracking link. Send a customer a link to one shipment. They do not need an account.
• Bulk import and CSV export. Paste or upload a list of references, and export your shipment list to a spreadsheet.
• Team workspaces. Share shipments with colleagues as viewer, editor or admin.
• Delay history. See how your saved shipments performed by carrier and by lane: how many were delayed and by how long.
• 90-day archive of completed shipments on Pro.
• Embedded tracking widget. Forwarders can put Shipzy tracking on their own website. See how the widget works.

What the other sites do not have

A tracking result on Shipzy also shows freight forwarders at the destination port, and you can send one a quote request for clearance or delivery from the same page. The forwarders come from Shipzy's directory. None of the other sites in this comparison connects tracking to a forwarder directory.

Shipzy also has an ocean schedule search, which helps when a delay alert means you need to look at the next sailing.

Price

The free plan saves three shipments and includes schedule-change and arrival emails. Pro is €20 a month for 30 saved shipments, more carriers, the 90-day archive and the demurrage and detention watch. Higher volumes are arranged directly.

Where Shipzy is weaker

• It checks saved shipments once a day. If you need updates within the hour, a tool with webhooks such as Terminal49 or FindTEU fits better.
• It has no public tracking API yet.
• It does not read US terminal systems, so it does not show holds or Last Free Day the way Terminal49 does.
• Its carrier list is shorter than the aggregator sites.

Which one should you use?

You track a container now and then. Use the carrier's site or Track-Trace. Nothing to sign up for.

You follow a few shipments and want to be told when they change. FindTEU's free plan (10 a month) and Shipzy's free plan (3 saved, with alerts) both do this without payment. Choose Shipzy if you also want help finding a forwarder at destination.

You follow 20 to 50 shipments a month. Compare fixed-price plans: Tradlinx at $13.90 or $24, Shipzy Pro at €20, FindTEU Business at €25, SeaRates at $29. Check that your carriers are covered and that the alerts you need are included. Demurrage and detention alerts are the ones most often left out of entry plans.

Your volume is irregular. ShipsGo's credits avoid a monthly fee.

You import into the US or Canada and pay for missed free days. Terminal49's terminal data is the reason to pick it.

You are a freight forwarder. Look at what your customers see. A shareable link or a tracking box on your own site saves "where is my container" emails. Tradlinx Professional and Shipzy both offer a website widget.

For enterprise visibility platforms such as FourKites, Portcast and GoComet, see our earlier ocean visibility platform comparison.

Frequently asked questions

Which container tracking site is free? Carrier websites and Track-Trace are free for unlimited single lookups. For saved shipments, FindTEU allows 10 a month, Terminal49 allows 10 active containers, SeaRates allows 5 a month for registered users, and Shipzy allows 3 saved shipments with email alerts.

Which sites email me when the ETA changes? ShipsGo, FindTEU, SeaRates, Tradlinx and Shipzy all send email notifications. Shipzy's schedule-change email covers ETA shifts and changed milestone times, such as a later departure, and shows the old and new values.

Can I track with a Bill of Lading number instead of a container number? Yes on most of these sites, including Track-Trace, ShipsGo and Shipzy. The master Bill of Lading from the ocean carrier is the one that works. A forwarder's house Bill of Lading usually does not.

Why do two tracking sites show different information for the same container? They read the carrier's data at different times and through different channels. If a result looks old, our tracking troubleshooting checklist explains what to check.

Does any tracking site warn about demurrage and detention? Terminal49 shows Last Free Day for North American terminals. Shipzy Pro sends demurrage and detention watch emails based on how long a container has been at the port or out of the terminal. Tradlinx offers demurrage and detention management on its Enterprise plan.