Truck Dispatch Services for Owner-Operators

A truck dispatcher finds and books freight for owner-operators and small fleets. We search load boards, negotiate rates with brokers and shippers, handle rate confirmations and paperwork, coordinate pickup and delivery schedules, and keep you loaded with the best-paying freight available for your equipment and preferred lanes. You keep your own MC authority and your own insurance — a dispatcher works on your behalf, not in place of you.

A dispatcher works for the carrier. A freight broker works for the shipper. Brokers are licensed intermediaries — the FMCSA requires broker operating authority and a $75,000 BMC-84 surety bond — and they earn the margin between what the shipper pays and what they pay you. A dispatcher never takes title to the freight and never sits between you and your money: you invoice the broker, you get paid, and you pay the dispatcher a fee for finding and negotiating the load. That is exactly why a dispatcher can push a broker for more money and a broker cannot.

Semi truck dispatch is 6% of gross load revenue per load, or $250 per week flat. Box truck and hotshot dispatch is 8% per load, or $350 per week flat. Fleet pricing for 3 or more trucks is quoted at custom volume rates. There are no setup fees, no hidden charges and no long-term contracts, and you can switch between percentage and flat rate at any time.

Do the division. Our semi flat rate is $250 a week against a 6% fee, so the two cost exactly the same at $4,167 of gross revenue in a week ($250 divided by 0.06) — about $18,060 a month. Box truck and hotshot break even at $4,375 a week ($350 divided by 0.08), about $18,960 a month. Gross less than that and the percentage costs you less; gross more and the flat rate does. You can move between the two plans as your weeks change.

Judge the dollars, not the headline percentage. A 10% fee on $5,000 of weekly gross is $500 a week — run that same multiplication on any quote you are given and compare like with like. For reference, our semi rate is 6% or $250 a week flat, and box truck and hotshot is 8% or $350. What should concern you more than a point or two of fee is what sits underneath it: setup charges, per-load admin fees, forced dispatch and exclusivity clauses routinely cost more than the difference in percentage.

Ours is charged on gross load revenue — the figure on the rate confirmation, before your fuel, tolls and maintenance come out. Other services calculate differently, and on a single load the gap between gross and net is real money, so ask any dispatch service to put the basis of the fee in writing before you sign. The agreement governs, not the sales call.

On the percentage plan, no: 6% of nothing is nothing, and you pay only when we book a load for you. The flat weekly rate is a subscription that buys unlimited loads at a fixed cost, so if you already know the truck will be parked — home time, a major repair, surgery — tell your dispatcher and move to the percentage plan for that stretch. Switching between plans is free and there is no penalty either way.

No. There is no setup fee, no onboarding fee, no monthly minimum, no technology fee and no cancellation penalty. The dispatch fee covers load searching, rate negotiation, rate confirmations and paperwork, broker setup and packet handling, and dispatch support.

Forced dispatch means the dispatcher assigns a load and you are expected to take it — decline and you face a penalty, or the good freight quietly stops coming your way. Avoid it by asking one direct question before you sign: can I turn down a load with no consequence, and is that written into the agreement? We do not force dispatch. Loads reach you as offers with the rate, the lane and the pickup window attached, and saying no costs you nothing.

Yes. You need active MC (Motor Carrier) operating authority to work with us. If your authority is still in process at the FMCSA, we can walk you through the remaining steps and be ready to dispatch the day it goes active — new-authority carriers are a large part of who we work with.

Most carriers are set up and receiving load offers within 24 hours. To start we need your MC authority number, your certificate of insurance, a W-9, your equipment details, and the lanes and home-time schedule you want to run. Once that is in hand your dispatcher begins searching immediately and calls you with the first offers.

No. We work month to month with no long-term contract, no exclusivity clause and no cancellation penalty. We would rather earn the next week than trap you in the last one, so you can stop at any time.

Self-dispatching genuinely makes sense if you already have direct broker or shipper relationships, run a dedicated lane, and would rather spend the phone hours than pay the fee. Be clear about what a load board subscription does and does not do: it lists freight, but it does not call the broker, negotiate the rate, run the broker credit check, or chase the carrier packet. The FMCSA caps you at 11 hours of driving inside a 14-hour window, so every hour you spend booking after shutdown comes out of your rest, not your day.

The honest test is arithmetic, not opinion: a dispatch service is worth it when the extra revenue per mile it negotiates, plus the loads you would not have found, exceeds the fee — and when the hours it returns to you are worth something. Work it out with your own gross and your own miles rather than a promised average. Our dispatch ROI calculator does the comparison with the numbers off your last settlement statement.

We work major load boards (DAT, Truckstop.com), direct broker relationships built over years, and shipper contacts. What a lane pays depends on equipment, season, direction and fuel — as a dated reference point, DAT put the national dry van spot average at $3.00 per mile including fuel as of July 2026. We negotiate every load against your cost per mile rather than against a headline national rate.

Ask for the numbers. A dispatcher who is actually negotiating can tell you what the load was first offered at and what it booked at, and will send you the rate confirmation before you commit. If every load lands at exactly the posted rate, nobody is negotiating on your behalf. Keep your own yardstick too — know your cost per mile and check every offer against it.

Dispatch happens by phone and email, so physical proximity matters far less than lane knowledge. A dispatcher two states away who runs your corridor every day will out-earn one down the road who does not. What is worth checking is whether the service knows your regional freight — produce out of the Southeast, oilfield out of Texas, drayage in southern California — and whether you can reach a named human after hours. We dispatch across all 48 contiguous states.

We dispatch all major equipment types: dry van, reefer (refrigerated), flatbed, step deck, power only, hotshot, box truck, and heavy haul/RGN. Your dispatcher specializes in your trailer type, because the operating strategy is not the same — deadhead management drives dry van, appointment and temperature compliance drive reefer, and permits and tarping drive flatbed and step deck.

We dispatch across all 48 contiguous United States. Whether you run regional, OTR (over-the-road) or dedicated lanes, we look for freight that matches the operating area you told us you want and gets you home when you said you needed to be there.

Yes. We handle rate confirmations, check the load details before you accept, deal with brokers on problems that come up in transit, and coordinate with your factoring company or handle invoicing. The point is to take the administrative load off the truck so your time is spent driving.