Average pay structure for brokers

Just wondering if anyone would throw out some honest pay structures, curious how shafted I'm being by my current company or if this is just typical. For starters, base pay seems like a total excuse for companies to rip off their brokers, since even my first week I would have been paid more had I simply had a higher commission cut and no base pay.

My pay: $400 base pay + 12% commission on the spread per load. As you establish yourself, say moving $40,000 a week consistently, they will bump you up to 15% of the spread.

What I noticed: at 12%, if I pull in $200 in commission for the week, my total pay will be (400+200) = $600. HOWEVER, were I paid a higher broker percent and zero base pay, I would be able to match 600 at just 36% of the spread. If I were getting 50% of the spread, I'd pull in $800, 200$ more than base pay + 12%. 200$ is a pretty mediocre week, depends on the range of what I'm brokering loads for, usually between 88-92% of what I have in it (which shows that I don't have that great of customers). On a good week, where I might pull in up to 800$ in commission, I'd make incredible money if I were getting a legitimate commission rate. Scratchin my head as to how I can move 2,000,000$ in freight, make my company 300,000$ and still just float as I pay bills, student loans, etc.

 

running the accounts, dealing with loads of headaches 24/7. I bust my ### just to get pinched on both ends whenever anything goes wrong (customer refuses detention for a 12 hour wait, driver demands 200% more than what the detention is worth, etc.)

 

I mean there are people in the office who confirm what PPDCT is saying, they've all been in the industry for 20+ years and worked for JB Hunt, etc. and talk occasionally about how ganked we're all getting, but I just wish I had something concrete rather than hearsay.

 

Yea I did cold call these customers, but little of my income is from direct shippers. The direct shippers I've hounded down either have low volume, 1-2 loads per week (which I move), or are big enough that I end up receiving an email from corporate telling me to back off because it's a corporate account.

 

The customers I make my money with are clearly other brokers, but I've done well to find the ones who have access to direct accounts. I have two customers who produce at a plant and ship/pay for the load directly, but they only move one or two loads a week. I get their ratecons and find trucks, but even that has been tough lately and I've had to push up my payment to absolute maximum. The direct shippers are literally worthless to me, I got them because I thought that's where the money is but they aren't large enough, and the large ones are too large for me to buy up all their freight. Difficult finding the sweet spot.

Gross profit a week, last week was $4700, which is out of $41100 total. It was a good week comparatively. I made $564 commission and $400 base pay, exceptionally good for me. This money comes from people I met on truckstop and DAT, other brokers. I've been through about 50 of them and stuck with 2-3 who are the closest to big shippers.