What actually costs a one-truck business money
It is not that you cannot find loads. You can. There are thousands on the board right now. The problem is that finding loads and driving a truck are two full-time jobs, and one of them always suffers.
You cannot make forty calls and drive eleven hours
A load posted at $2.10 a mile often goes for $2.45 if someone calls back four times. From the driver's seat you take the first rate that is good enough, because the other choice is not driving. That gap is the whole reason to use a dispatcher. If it is smaller than our fee, we will tell you.
You cannot see your empty miles until the month is over
A $2,400 load into a quiet area loses to an $1,800 load into a busy one. With one truck you feel it three days later, when it is already too late to change.
You have never worked out your real cost per mile
Not the number from when diesel was $3. Fuel, insurance, repairs, truck payment, tyres, and empty miles. The number that tells you if a load makes money or slowly loses it. We build yours in week one, before we book you anything.
Nobody chases the money brokers hold back
A broker pays you $180 short and calls it an adjustment. Most drivers let it go, because chasing it means an hour on the phone they do not have. Over a year that is thousands of dollars you already earned.
“I went on my own so nobody could tell me what to haul.”
That is fair. Most owner-operators left a company for exactly that reason. A dispatch service that takes control back is not an improvement. So here is what stays yours, in writing, from day one.
Where one truck can get to
Three drivers who came to us small. We did not find them magic loads. We priced their lanes correctly and stopped them buying trucks faster than their profit could carry.
Carrier A
since 2023Carrier B
since 2023Carrier C
since 2024When you should not hire a dispatch service
If you already run a steady lane at a rate you negotiated yourself, with a broker who pays in three weeks and a load back you never have to think about, then you do not need us. We will say so on the call.
Same if you haul flatbed, step deck, hotshot, or power only. We do reefer and dry van only. A dispatcher covering six kinds of trailer is guessing on five of them. We would rather send you to someone who runs your trailer every day.
And if you do not have your own authority yet, get that first. We work under your MC number as your agent, so we cannot book loads for you until it is active.
Bring your numbers to a free call →Is your authority less than twelve months old? Read why we charge new carriers more. Want to check the numbers first? Run your cost per mile.