Should I buy a New truck and flatbed??

Well

Lets say
75 cpm driver (one driver is basically 1 direction a week, 1.5 if a hustler but i genuinely dont know how team pay usually works)
50 cpm fuel (it SHOULD be better, but this gets us in the ballpark)
100cpm - for 3 loads a month is 36 a year, assuming you just bought brand new equipment at 300k (may as well go big or home eh?) And lets just say its a 3 year payoff, that should also give you your truck/trailer repair budget and only gets better assuming you buy a better budget specced truckand trailer. Miles seattle to say corbin ky are about 2700 so 100k miles a year, 1$ a mile

1st year authority seems to be about 25k insurance, and probably near 10k of misc setup, and ongoing costs per year so thats about 33 cpm
Call it 33 cpm taxes

So 33+33+100+50+75 = 2.91$ a mile in costs, lets say youre doing this not to undercut the market per se, but for YOU, you can run at cost.

in this scenario, so long as your backhaul never goes below 2.91 a mile, you are employing a driver, paying them reasonably well, and buying a brand new truck and trailer every 3 years and getting your product hauled for $7900 a load

If you want to get your product hauled "for free" your backhaul cant make less than 5.82

Is this realistic? Yes except for the backhaul numbers, from my past experience, the pacific northwest doesnt have decent paying freight to run back east. Though you should be able to do near the lower rate if you look long and hard enough.

 

Tell us more. What are you paying for these trips currently? Do you price them as round trips or one at a time? Dry van? How much notice of when a load is ready?

Trucking is a lot more involved then one would think. What is your plan and how much do you think it’s going to cost you?

 

Hrmmm, missed that you had a backhaul already, so basically right now if it costs you less than 7900 a load in one direction, thats a steal, if its about that, why deal with the headache? If its significantly higher, maybe do some more research

 

Does your product absolutely have to be on a flatbed?

 

You will quickly regret buying a truck and hiring someone to drive it.
It's too long to explain, but basically imagine me deciding to do the same business what you do. Open a small manufacturing company, hire workers and let them do the work, without me knowing anything about that kind of business.
Things just don't work that way

 

IMHO do what you do and raise your prices. Let brokers and carriers do what they do. This is a brutal volatile industry and one wrong move will ruin it all and you will be right back where you are or worse. Just my opinion of course.

 

What’s the total you spent on transportation last year?