How truck dispatch works here, with nothing left vague
Most carriers who've never used a dispatch service hold back for the same reason: they can't see inside the machine. Fair. So this page is the machine, opened up: the exact onboarding steps, a first week walked through day by day and labeled as the hypothetical it is, the fee mentioned where it applies (7% new MC, 5% standard, 4% fleets), and a plain list of things we will never ask you for. Read it, then apply or don't, but you won't be guessing.
RATE CON · 07:00
LOAD 001 · DAY 2
$1,310
YOUR YES
A first week, day by day
HYPOTHETICAL · EXAMPLE ONLY
HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE: one owner-operator, dry van, own authority 14 months old, home base Memphis, wants weekends home. Not a promise of rates or volumes; a walkthrough of the process working normally.
- MON
Setup call, 20 minutes
Lanes out of Memphis, floor rate set, home-by-Friday pattern on file. Documents emailed an hour later. Broker packets start going out that afternoon. The dispatcher's last question is the one you'll hear all week: how many hours do you have left today? Answer: full clock tomorrow.
- TUE
First rate con
Memphis to Nashville, pickup 07:00, with the rate and miles on the con. It fits a full 11-hour drive clock with slack, so it was offered; you confirm from your phone. We handle the broker's setup and the check call while you drive.
- WED
The re-plan you didn't do
Receiver runs 2 hours late. Detention gets filed per the rate con, and your Thursday 06:00 pickup moves to 09:00 so your 10 consecutive hours off duty stay intact (49 CFR 395.3(a)(1)). You hear about the fix, not the problem.
- THU
Reload before delivery
While you run Thursday's leg, Friday's load home is negotiated and confirmed: delivers 80 minutes from your driveway. That one was shopped Wednesday night, which is the point of someone working your board while you sleep.
- FRI
Home, report, restart
Delivered, POD sent same day, home by 19:00. Your weekly report lands: loads, miles, gross, fee, your number. Your 34-hour restart runs at home over the weekend, and Monday's pickup is already waiting on your yes.
New rate con from your dispatcher
RATE CONFIRMATIONEXAMPLE
MEMPHIS, TN -> NASHVILLE, TN
MILES
212
RATE
$684
PICKUP
TUE 07:00
Fits your clock: full 11 after your break
Declining costs nothing.
That's the service at its most ordinary, which is the only honest way to show it. Bad weeks exist: slow markets, breakdowns, brokers who hold freight. The process doesn't change; the numbers do, and your Friday report never dresses them up. Notice also what the week never contained: a call begging you to stretch your window, a load booked before you saw it, or a login request for anything of yours. The boring version is the entire product.
The onboarding walkaround
Six points, like a pre-trip around the truck. Tap each one for what happens and how long it usually takes. None of it requires a signature before you see your first rate con, and none of it costs anything until a load moves.
01 · APPLY
The application takes about 2 minutes: truck, authority, contact. No documents needed yet, nothing is signed, and submitting costs nothing.
TYPICAL TIMING: 2 MINUTES, TODAY
CDL carrier with your own authority? Your drug & alcohol program must exist before you drive: how a DOT consortium covers it, or go straight to consortium pricing (partner link; we may earn a referral fee, your price doesn't change: disclosure). Non-CDL trucks are not under DOT testing. New MC? The new authority page covers your first months in detail.
The one question we ask at every check-in
"How many hours do you have left?" Five words, asked every day, and the whole service hangs on them. Your answer (what remains on your 11-hour driving limit, your 14-hour window and your 60/70 cycle) is the raw material every plan is cut from. We don't pull it from your ELD, because your log is your legal record and your answer is the same one you'd give at a scale. The habit has a side effect drivers tell us they like: you always know your own clock, because somebody asks.
It also keeps the incentives straight. A desk that plans from your stated hours can never quietly plan past them, and a driver who reports a thin clock gets a lighter day, not an argument. The rule we run by sits in 49 CFR 395.3; the discipline of asking is just how a plan stays legal when the day stops cooperating.
"HOW MANY HOURS DO YOU HAVE LEFT?"
EXAMPLE · 49 CFR 395.3 · checked 2026-10-05
What we never ask for
A dispatch service runs on trust, and trust is mostly about the asks you refuse. Put these in writing, keep them forever:
- Your ELD login
- Never. Not read-only, not 'just for check calls'. Your hours come from you, the same numbers you'd show an inspector. Your log is your legal record and we have no business inside it.
- Your FMCSA or broker portal credentials
- Your authority is yours. Packets are set up with your documents, visible to you, never through your logins.
- A log edit, ever
- If a plan went wrong, the plan was wrong. We re-plan the freight; we never ask you to re-write the day. Falsifying a record of duty status is a federal violation (49 CFR 395.8(e)) and a firing offense in both directions.
- Driving past your hours
- No load on this desk is worth your license. If it can't deliver inside your 11 and your 14, it gets re-timed or declined before you ever see it.
- Blanket authority to book for you
- Even if you'd give it, we don't want it. The confirmation step is your protection and our discipline: the rate con goes to you, and your yes is the only thing that books a load.
Where the money flows, exactly
Carriers new to dispatch often assume the dispatcher sits in the money path. Here, we don't. The broker pays you (or your factoring company, if you factor; the NOA handles that routing), at the rate on the confirmation you approved. Invoicing the broker is handled as part of the paperwork flow, with the rate con, BOL and POD attached, so there's no payment mystery for anyone to untangle later.
Our fee bills separately, weekly, itemized per hauled load, and it reconciles against the same rate cons you approved. No percentage held back from broker checks, no escrow, no deposits. If the week didn't move freight, the invoice doesn't exist. The pricing page has every tier and the editable week-math if you want to pressure-test it before applying. Dispatch pricing, in full · running dispatch and factoring together · how we plan dispatch around HOS
What changes after month one
The process on this page is the permanent process; what changes with time is how little of it you notice. By month two your dispatcher knows which docks burn your window and which brokers pay detention without a fight, your packet list has settled onto the brokers who repeat, and the Friday report has enough history to show lane patterns instead of single weeks. Setup never happens twice, the fee tier only moves in your favor (7% steps down to 5% at your authority's 6-month mark), and the confirmation step never goes away no matter how long you stay. The machine gets quieter. It never gets automatic.
Process questions, answered
See the first rate con before you commit to anything
Apply in about 2 minutes. No setup fee, no contract, and every single load waits on your yes before anything is booked.
Send my applicationPREFER THE PHONE? DISPATCH DESK: MON-SUN, 24/7