OpenTug
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The first digital booking platform to connect shippers to barge and terminal operators.
We supercharge logistics by simplifying finding and booking barges, terminals, and storage. OpenTug delivers barges, ships, terminals, and storage facilities with an elegant interface to interact with global trade. The manual world of inland/coastal shipping and waterfront storage has never connected to the digital shipping solutions of today. OpenTug solves that by letting any barge company, ship
04/03/2026
🌊 Recent news in inland & coastal maritime
Season openers, infrastructure milestones, and a major policy shift are all hitting at once:
✔️ A 60-day Jones Act waiver has opened U.S. coastal energy routes to foreign vessels, drawing strong pushback from inland operators over supply chain stability and long-term impact
✔️ The Port of Virginia completed a 55-ft channel expansion, positioning itself to handle the largest vessels calling the East Coast
✔️ The Soo Locks opened for the 2026 season, kicking off Great Lakes cargo movement as spring demand begins to build
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04/01/2026
OpenTug is hiring!
We’re looking for a full-time junior to mid-level full stack engineer to join our Seattle team.
You’ll work across all layers of BargeOS™, contributing to a fast-moving product in a uniquely complex industry.
If you’re interested in making a meaningful impact at a startup focused on transforming barge logistics, we’d like to hear from you!
Apply here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H04DyXb0
03/25/2026
There is a hidden cost structure in barge logistics.
Most freight discussions focus on rate negotiations, but some of the biggest cost drivers sit inside operational workflows.
Across many inland logistics teams we see the same friction points:
• Tracking and planning happening in spreadsheets
• Limited visibility into barge utilization and cycle times
• Dedicated programs constrained by operational capacity
• Freight invoices validated manually
• Demurrage exposure identified too late
When those processes become digitized and connected, several things start to happen:
âś” Teams manage more volume with the same people
âś” Idle or buffer capacity drops
âś” Freight strategies become easier to execute consistently
âś” Invoice validation and demurrage attribution improve
The result goes beyond operational convenience exposing structural cost improvement across entire logistics portfolios.
Explore our invoice intelligence tools here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H04tLvh0
03/19/2026
Planning decisions in marine logistics aren’t made with a lack of data, they’re made with too many disconnected signals.
✔️ Refinery schedules
✔️ Equipment availability
✔️ Cleaning requirements
✔️ Contract terms
Most teams are still stitching those together across spreadsheets and inboxes, then making high-stakes calls on incomplete context.
That’s why we developed Signal Optimization as a part of BargeOS Commercial Planning Module to bring those inputs into a single planning workflow. Now teams can compare options and assign the right asset with more clarity.
Signal Optimization is now in beta.
Read our full press release here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H04nFsz0
OpenTug Introduces Signal Optimization to Help Marine Logistics Teams Plan Smarter /PRNewswire/ -- OpenTug today announced Signal Optimization, a new BargeOS capability designed to help marine logistics teams plan demand by matching the right...
03/16/2026
The agricultural supply chain is shaped by forces far beyond the farm.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2026, a few factors are becoming impossible to ignore from trade policy shifts to climate volatility affecting waterways and export logistics.
In our latest blog, we break down "five forces likely to impact agricultural supply chains this year", including:
• Trade policy and global market dynamics
• Climate volatility and waterway reliability
• Infrastructure and freight capacity constraints
• Changing global demand patterns
• The growing role of digital visibility in logistics
Understanding the macro forces shaping the system helps logistics teams make better operational decisions on the ground.
Read the full breakdown:
https://na2.hubs.ly/H04jWpy0
How Small Automation Wins Add Up in Barge Operations
Some of the most impactful process improvements don’t look impressive at first glance.
In barge operations, a dispatcher might read dozens of emails a day, traffic reports, voyage updates, statements of fact, then manually enter that information into their system. Each task is small but critical to successful operations. Together, they consume hours and introduce errors.
At OpenTug, we treat those small pains like big problems. That philosophy led to BargeOS Autopilot, which automatically extracts operational data from emails and updates voyages without manual entry.
What started as a scrappy solution to a narrow problem became one of our most valuable workflows. Customers got hours back each day, errors dropped, and focus shifted from data entry to decision-making.
The same idea applies on the financial side of operations. Invoices, statements, and supporting documents still arrive through email and PDFs, often requiring teams to manually pull details into spreadsheets before validating charges against contracts and voyage activity.
We’re applying the same automation mindset there too by ingesting invoices directly into BargeOS and reconciling them against the underlying voyage events and contract terms. Instead of re-calculating freight and demurrage by hand months later, teams can see how invoices line up with the operational data that generated them.
This approach shows up across the product. We’re constantly looking for repetitive, high-frequency tasks that drain attention and replacing them with automation that works quietly in the background.
In complex operations, progress isn’t always flashy. Sometimes it’s just removing friction, one small win at a time, until the entire day feels lighter.
Read how our engineer team approaches tasks like these here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H044-Rg0
02/19/2026
The maritime industry moves more than 80% of global trade, yet it's still often running on phone calls, spreadsheets, and gut instinct.
That gap between how critical maritime logistics is and how underserved it is by technology is exactly what OpenTug was built to close.
“The data we’re capturing doesn’t exist anywhere else. That’s a foundation you can build a lot on.”
We sat down with our Director of Engineering for a candid conversation on what it actually takes to build software for this industry: why domain expertise is non-negotiable, what “quality” means when bad data leads to bad decisions, and how a logistics professional's daily frustrations became one of BargeOS’s most-used features.
Read the full Q&A: https://na2.hubs.ly/H03NqHN0
02/09/2026
We’ll be in New Orleans this week for the Mississippi Valley Trade & Transport Conference and we can’t wait to connect!
If you’re going, give us a shout! At OpenTug, we always value learning more about what people are dealing with on the rivers right now.
02/04/2026
We spent some time with our Director of Engineering, Guille, talking through how OpenTug actually gets built.
Beyond the roadmap, we discussed the day-to-day decisions that come from working directly with customers and seeing where operations break under pressure.
The Q&A covers why data quality matters so much in maritime logistics, how engineers stay close to real workflows (and customers), and what that changes about the software
Read the full interview here: https://na2.hubs.ly/H03sbfT0
01/22/2026
January is National Mentoring Month.
If a new hire asked you, “How do barges actually work?”, what would you say first?
We put together Barge 101: The Absolute Basics as a plain-language guide for newcomers entering inland logistics today.
Share it with the analyst, intern, or ops hire you’re mentoring!
https://na2.hubs.ly/H03bGzd0
01/09/2026
đź“Š This week in inland & coastal maritime
New data and market signals continue to underscore how critical U.S. waterways are to global trade and energy flows:
• A new study quantifies the Lower Mississippi Ship Channel’s $226.5B annual economic impact, reinforcing why reliability and dredging matter far beyond the riverbanks. https://na2.hubs.ly/H02ZWyQ0
• Soybean barge basis levels remain steady to firm, reflecting resilient export demand into the Gulf despite freight and waterway pressures. https://na2.hubs.ly/H02ZQMg0
• MARAD will assume oversight of deepwater ports, a regulatory shift aimed at streamlining approvals for critical offshore energy and trade infrastructure. https://na2.hubs.ly/H02ZVKS0
• The U.S. hit a historic milestone, becoming the first nation to export over 100 million metric tons of LNG in a single year, reshaping global energy logistics and tanker demand. https://na2.hubs.ly/H02ZW8K0
Together, these developments highlight how infrastructure, policy, and market fundamentals intersect to shape the next phase of maritime trade.
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Seattle, WA
98112