From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. A freight rate (historically and in ship chartering simply freight) is a price at which a certain cargo is delivered from one point to another.The price depends on the form of the cargo, the mode of transport (truck, ship, train, aircraft), the weight of the cargo, and the distance to the delivery destination.o a 100 car train, each carrying 100 tons, over a distance of 1000 miles, would cost $100,000. In ship chartering, freight is the price which a charterer pays a shipowner for the use of a ship in a voyage charter.