No setup fee. No weekly minimum. No percentage of your detention, your layover or your fuel surcharge. No contract holding you here if it stops working. This page explains exactly what you pay and, just as importantly, what you do not.
Open any rate confirmation and you will find several dollar figures on it. The linehaul is the money for moving the freight. Everything else on that page is money for something that went wrong, or money to cover your fuel. We take a percentage of the first one and nothing at all of the rest.
The base rate the broker pays to move the load from pickup to delivery. This is the number our seven percent is calculated against, every single time, with no exceptions and no sliding scale as your volume changes.
Detention is compensation for your time being wasted at a dock. Layover is compensation for a night you did not plan. TONU is compensation for a load that evaporated. None of that is freight we found you, so none of it is ours.
These are the fee structures carriers most often tell us they were on before they called. Nothing here is a swipe at any particular company. It is simply how the money tends to be arranged.
| Prime Route Freight | Typical % dispatcher | Leased to a carrier | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Headline fee | 7% of linehaul | 8% to 10% of invoice | 25% to 30% of gross |
| Fee on detention & layover | None | Usually charged | Usually retained |
| Fee on fuel surcharge | None | Often charged | Retained |
| Weekly minimum | None | $200 to $350 common | Not applicable |
| Setup or onboarding fee | None | $0 to $500 | None |
| Charged on a week you sit | No | Yes, via the minimum | No, but you earn nothing |
| Contract term | None | 30 to 90 days notice | 12 months typical |
| Who owns the authority | You do | You do | The carrier does |
| Who approves the rate | You do, every load | Varies | The carrier does |
| Choose your own factoring | Yes | Sometimes restricted | No |
Middle and right columns describe common market arrangements as reported to us by carriers, for orientation only. Terms vary widely between companies.
Some services quote a low percentage and then price the useful parts separately. Paperwork is an add on. After hours support is an add on. Every carrier on our desk gets the same service for the same seven percent.
Boards plus our direct broker list, worked against your equipment and your preferred lanes.
Every load benchmarked and argued before it reaches you for approval.
Carrier packets completed and submitted on your behalf, however many it takes.
Read line by line before you sign, with accessorial terms written in.
Broker updates handled at our desk so your phone stays quiet while you drive.
Loads sequenced to cut deadhead and land you home when you asked to be home.
BOLs and PODs chased, checked and pushed to your factoring company.
Broker credit checked before booking, aged invoices chased until they clear.
No surprises here either. The mechanics are deliberately boring, which is how billing should be.
Weekly, in arrears. We invoice every Monday for the loads delivered the week before. You are never paying in advance for freight that has not moved.
Calculated from the rate confirmations. Your invoice itemises every load, its linehaul, and the seven percent against it. You can check our arithmetic against your own paperwork in about two minutes.
Paid however suits you. ACH, card or through your factoring company as a deduction. If your factor handles it, you never touch the transaction.
A week with no loads is a week with no invoice. If we did not find you freight, there is nothing to bill. This is the part most carriers double check, so we will say it plainly twice.
Not on your account without you agreeing to it in writing first. There is no volume tier that quietly moves you, no fuel adjustment, and no busy season rate. Seven percent is what you were quoted and seven percent is what you pay.
That is fine and more common than you might think. Plenty of carriers book their own dedicated freight Monday and Tuesday and use us to fill the back half of the week. You pay seven percent on the loads we book and nothing on the ones you found yourself.
No. Use whoever you already use, or none at all. We do not take a referral commission from a factor, which means we have no reason to push you toward one. If you are shopping for factoring we are happy to tell you what our carriers report about theirs.
We check broker credit before we book, which prevents most of it. When one does go bad, we chase it with you and we do not invoice our fee on a load that was never paid. We are not going to profit from a load that cost you money.
No. Tell us you are done, we finish out any load already booked and dispatched, we invoice for that, and that is the end of it. No notice period, no exit fee, no holding your paperwork.
Tell us what you grossed and what came off the top, and we will tell you straight whether we would have done better. Sometimes the answer is no, and we will say so.
