Home / Services / Dry van dispatch
Dry van dispatch
Dry van has more loads than any other trailer type and more competition for every one of them. Winning here is about planning three loads ahead and having the discipline to say no.
or $300/week flat
The market
Why dry van pays what it pays
Dry van is the entry point for almost every new authority in the country, which means supply of trucks is permanently high. Brokers know it. Posted rates on a Monday morning in a soft market are an opening bid, not a price, and a carrier who takes the first number posted will run the whole year below market.
The other structural problem is geography. Dry van freight flows heavily out of the Midwest and Southeast and into the coasts, so it is easy to end up somewhere with plenty of trucks and no outbound. Every mile you deadhead out of a soft market is a mile that lowers your real rate per mile on the load you just delivered.
How we run a dry van truck
- Book to the region, not the load. We check outbound density at your delivery point before we accept the inbound. A $2.60 load into a dead market is worse than a $2.35 load into a live one.
- Counter everything. Every posted rate gets a counter, every time. It costs nothing, and a broker who won't move on a Tuesday will often move on a Thursday afternoon.
- Rate floor is a hard floor. You tell us your all-in number. We do not "just this once" you below it, and we do not sit you for four days pretending the market will turn.
- Drop and hook where we can get it. Live load and live unload can eat six hours of your clock. Drop trailer freight pays a little less per mile and often more per day.
- Detention gets filed. Dry van shippers are the worst offenders for sitting trucks. We log arrival times from your check-in and file the claim, and we chase it.
Who this suits
Owner-operators with a 53' van running regional or OTR under their own authority, and small fleets of two to ten trucks who want lane planning across the fleet instead of one truck at a time. If you're running under someone else's authority or on a lease-on program, dispatch usually isn't what you need — talk to us anyway and we'll tell you straight.
Answers
Dry van dispatch — questions
How much does dry van dispatch cost?
We charge 6% of gross linehaul revenue, or $300 per truck per week on a flat rate. You can switch between the two models any Monday. The percentage is charged on linehaul only — not on fuel surcharge, not on detention or accessorials, and never on loads you booked yourself. There is no setup fee and no contract.
How many loads a week should I expect on dry van?
Most single-truck dry van operators running OTR book three to five loads a week depending on average length of haul. Regional runs with shorter hauls will be higher. We plan the next load before you deliver the current one so the truck isn't sitting while we search.
Will you force me to take a load I don't want?
No. Every load comes to you with the lane, miles, rate, rate per mile, appointment windows and the broker's name, and you accept or decline. Forced dispatch is written out of our agreement. You hold the authority and the liability, so the decision has to be yours.
Can you dispatch me if I only run certain states?
Yes. Lane restrictions, states you won't enter, cities you avoid and home time patterns all go into your profile at onboarding, and we book inside them. Restricting your lanes will affect how much freight is available to you, and we'll tell you upfront if the restrictions make the economics difficult.
Want to see what's moving in your lanes this week?
Send your MC number and your usual lanes. We'll pull live loads you could run and show you the rates before you commit to anything.