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MileCaptain

Truck dispatch fees: 5% of gross, and nothing when you don't haul

This is the entire pricing model, on one page, with the math shown. No setup fee, no monthly minimum, no term contract, no admin charges hiding in the paperwork. Three percentage tiers based on how established your operation is, applied to gross load revenue, charged only on loads you actually haul. If you read nothing else: an empty week costs you zero, and every fee is visible on the rate con before you confirm the load.

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THE FEE IS VISIBLE BEFORE YOU SAY YES

BOARD 02QUICK ANSWERS FIRST

Quick answers about dispatch pricing

Across the industry, typically 5% to 12% of gross, or flat weekly fees of a few hundred dollars. Here: 7% of gross for a new authority under 6 months, 5% standard for one truck with 6+ months of authority, 4% for fleets of 2 or more trucks (limited time). No setup fee, no minimums, no contract.

BOARD 03THE THREE RATES

The three rates, and exactly who pays which

Your tier comes from two facts: how old your authority is and how many trucks you run. Equipment type never changes the fee. A reefer and a 26 ft box truck with the same authority age pay the same rate, because the work of dispatching them well is the same work.

7%

New authority

MC UNDER 6 MONTHS, ANY EQUIPMENT, ONE TRUCK

New MCs are more work per load: extra broker verification, packet setup from zero, more declined tenders to route around, and more coaching through first-time paperwork. The 7% covers that heavier lift. At your 6-month mark you move to 5% automatically; you don't have to ask, and we don't conveniently forget.

5%

Standard

ONE TRUCK, AUTHORITY 6+ MONTHS, ANY EQUIPMENT

The core rate. Load sourcing, negotiation, broker calls, packets, check calls, detention claims, deadhead planning and the weekly report, all inside it. Most dispatch services price this work at 8 to 12 percent. We hold 5% because the desk runs lean and the model is volume with carriers who stay.

4%

Fleet

2 OR MORE TRUCKS UNDER ONE AUTHORITY

A limited-time rate. Multiple trucks share setup work (one packet set, one authority, one point of contact), so the per-truck cost drops and we pass the difference through. The rate applies to every truck on the account, and it holds for accounts opened while the offer runs.

Said plainly for the avoidance of fine print: the percentage applies to gross load revenue as written on the rate confirmation. Not net after fuel. Not gross plus mystery fees. The number on the rate con times your tier, and you see both before you say yes.

Apply at my tier
BOARD 04FEE ON THE LOG

Put a real week through the math

Below is an EXAMPLE five-load week. Type over any day's gross with your own numbers, pick your tier, and the stub does the arithmetic. Not a projection and not a promise, just the fee model with your inputs in it.

FEE ON THE LOG · EDIT ANY DAYEXAMPLE

  1. MON
    LOAD GROSS
  2. TUE
    LOAD GROSS
  3. WED
    LOAD GROSS
  4. THU
    LOAD GROSS
  5. FRI
    LOAD GROSS

Your tier

WEEK GROSS
$6,000
FEE 5%
-$300
YOU KEEP
$5,700

Fee applies to gross load revenue on hauled loads only. Empty week = $0 fee.

Want to compare percentage dispatch against a flat weekly fee, or against the hours self-dispatch costs you? The dispatcher fee calculator and the dispatch ROI calculator run both comparisons free, no email required. Dispatcher fee calculator · Dispatch ROI calculator

BOARD 05WHERE THE 5% GOES

Where the percentage actually goes

  1. 1Search & screenbelow your floor? gone
  2. 2Counter the brokerlane data in hand
  3. 3Rate con to youyour yes or no
  4. 4Packet & pickupsetup, confirmations
  5. 5Check callsdetention if held
  6. 6POD & reportsame day, Friday

A fee you can't picture is a fee you'll resent, so here's the work inside a single 5% charge on an EXAMPLE $1,400 load ($70). Before you ever saw the rate con, the desk had searched your lanes, rejected the loads under your floor, called on two candidates, and countered the broker up from the posted number. After your yes: setup paperwork to the broker, pickup confirmation, a check call mid-leg, delivery confirmation, POD chased and forwarded the same day, and the load logged on your Friday report. If the receiver had held you, add a detention claim with timestamps.

Call it an hour or two of phone-and-paperwork per load, done by someone with the lane data open and nothing else on their plate. That's what you're renting: not a magic rate button, but a professional hour that would otherwise come out of your 14-hour window at the worst possible time. Whether that trade is worth 5 cents on the dollar is a math question, not a faith question, and your weekly report answers it every Friday.

BOARD 05THREE WEEKS, ONE MODEL

The fee at three example weeks

Same model, three different weeks, so you can see how the percentage behaves when the week does. All numbers EXAMPLE; the middle column is roughly a steady single-truck week, the left a rough one, the right a strong one.

SLOW WEEK · EXAMPLE

GROSS
$3,200
FEE 5%
-$160
YOU KEEP
$3,040

A flat $400 desk would have taken 12.5% of this week.

STEADY WEEK · EXAMPLE

GROSS
$6,000
FEE 5%
-$300
YOU KEEP
$5,700

The typical case the 5% rate is built around.

STRONG WEEK · EXAMPLE

GROSS
$9,500
FEE 5%
-$475
YOU KEEP
$9,025

The fee grew because the revenue did. That's the deal.

Notice what's missing: no week where you owe money on freight that didn't move. A percentage fee can't go underwater on you, and that single property is worth more to a one-truck business than any discount.

BOARD 06INCLUDED & NEVER CHARGED

Included in the fee, and never charged for

One list, so there's no 'that's extra' conversation later. Everything here is inside the percentage:

  • Load sourcing on the major boards plus direct brokers and shippers
  • Rate negotiation on every load, with counters backed by lane data
  • Carrier packet setup with every broker we book, including updates
  • All broker calls: tenders, check calls, delivery confirmations
  • Detention and layover claims, filed with timestamps per the rate con
  • Deadhead planning and reload booking before you deliver
  • HOS-aware week planning around your 11, 14, 70 and your home time
  • Weekly earnings report, one page, every Friday
  • Document chase: rate cons, BOLs and PODs collected and forwarded (to your factor too)

NEVER ON YOUR INVOICE

  • Setup or onboarding fees
  • Monthly minimums or 'slow week' charges
  • Cancellation or early exit fees (month to month, 30 days notice)
  • Charges on loads you found yourself and just ran
  • Any fee on a week you didn't haul
BOARD 07PERCENT VS FLAT, HONESTLY

Is a percentage fee better than a flat weekly fee?

Honest answer: it depends on your revenue, and you should do this math before signing with anyone, including us. A flat fee (commonly a few hundred dollars a week across the industry) is effectively a falling percentage as your gross rises: strong weeks make flat fees cheap. A percentage is the reverse: it's cheapest exactly when you're struggling, and it scales up only when the desk actually delivers revenue.

The crossover is simple arithmetic: divide the flat fee by your realistic weekly gross. If a flat desk wants $400 and you reliably gross $10,000, that's an effective 4% and flat wins on price. If you gross $5,000, that same $400 is 8%, and it's still $400 on the week a breakdown parks you. Percentage pricing puts the risk of a bad week on us, which is where we think it belongs: a desk that gets paid flat money for an empty truck has a weak reason to fill it.

The other thing to price is alignment. A percentage desk earns more only by getting you better-paying freight, which is the behavior you want to buy. Just watch for percentage desks stacking extras on top (setup fees, software fees, per-packet charges); at that point the headline percent is marketing, not a price. Our answer to that problem is the list above.

Related reading while you price the whole operation: what an ELD really costs · what factoring costs and buys · how the dispatch process works end to end

EFFECTIVE FEE AS % OF THE WEEKEXAMPLE

WEEK GROSS $3,000

13.3% flat $400
5% here

WEEK GROSS $5,000

8.0% flat $400
5% here

WEEK GROSS $8,000

5.0% flat $400
5% here

WEEK GROSS $12,000

3.3% flat $400
5% here
A flat $400/week fee costs more than 5% on any week under $8,000 gross, and the same $400 on a week you don't haul.
BOARD 08SHOP EVERYONE WITH THIS

Five fee questions to ask any dispatcher, including us

Print this list and use it on everyone you shop. The answers should be fast and boring; hesitation on any of these is your answer.

  1. 01Is the percentage on gross exactly as the rate con reads, and can I audit it weekly?
  2. 02What costs extra? Setup, software, packets, claims, cancellations, anything?
  3. 03What happens on a week I don't haul: zero, or a minimum?
  4. 04How long is the commitment and what does leaving cost?
  5. 05Do I see every rate con and confirm every load before it's booked?

Our answers, in order: yes and yes; nothing; zero; month to month, 30 days notice, nothing; always. Hold everyone else to the same five lines.

When paying a dispatch fee is the wrong move

A fee page should also tell you when not to pay it. If you run dedicated contract freight with no spot exposure, a dispatcher adds little; your loads are already planned. If you genuinely enjoy working the boards, have the hours free, and your numbers beat the market, keep self-dispatching and check back when your time gets scarce. And if a week of our service doesn't out-earn its fee against your own baseline, your Friday report will show it in plain figures: take that report and go. Pricing you can leave is the only pricing worth trusting.

BOARD 09THE REST OF THE FEE QUESTIONS

No. Filing detention and layover claims is part of the service. Recovered detention is load revenue, so your tier percentage applies to it like the rest of the rate con, but there's no filing charge and no cut beyond the normal fee.

The rate is on this page. The proof is on your Friday report.

Apply in about 2 minutes. We answer nights and weekends.

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