Some numbers for new O/O

I'd be shocked if they paid for registration and all insurance, they have to pay UCR, maybe I guess they could pay 2290?
whatever the case it ain't making up for the thousands/week lost compared to even a not great % rate. AIUI they have a few different rates for different distances, and $1.75 is the highest, for shorter hauls. The long hauls are less.

I cannot imagine something Crete could possibly do to make it economically competitive with what I'm doing. I don't think what I'm doing (nearby mid size carrier with their own customers and trailers that just use O/Os) is anything special, it's just not bottom of the barrel leasing onto a company with nothing to offer except taking a cut of spot market freight you could've gotten on your own. Or, god forbid, lease-purchasing.

those things you mentioned are like, maybe $6k/year? In two or three weeks running a normal %age at almost anywhere would beat that to death, let alone 45, or even 52 weeks.

Ok I guess insurance is more than that but I guarantee you those guys are paying for insurance. And if they're getting REALLY cheap insurance, what I'm doing is apples to apples anyways and beats it still. I'm at like $6k/year for insurance right now because I don't pay the freight side of it/trailer interchange and the company has a good record. Whenever I get my own authority obviously it'll have to net ahead of what I'm doing now in terms of increased cost vs increased revenue. I don't think it would've up front and going out of business isn't an option I want to entertain so I did the slightly lower risk approach.
That's the upside to leasing on. But if your rates are that low, like $1.75 MAX, you're in a whole new type of risk and it isn't worth it anymore

 

Without knowing what is paid and what you have access to you can’t just a mileage contract on rate alone. With FCC my insurance was way cheaper than what I paid Great West, fuel discount was substantial, tires were cheap, license was paid for, and I was getting their pricing on parts at Peterbilt in Lincoln. Probably forgetting some things since it’s been almost a year since I was there, but to only look at the per mile rate doesn’t paint the entire picture.

 

All of those benefits are measurable, though. Eliminating them also has a sort of diminishing return, just like improving fuel economy.

My insurance is $500/month. Cheap tires, decent company shop to use, discounts on parts and stuff, etc etc etc. Fuel card is, in many circumstances, over a dollar off and is almost always forty cents off at least depending on where I go. My monthly overhead is like $550 excluding truck payment, which has nothing to do with the carrier I pull for.

I get roughly 80/20 and I'm above $2/mile after that split by odometer miles and sometimes I get really neat loads in the 3s that gross good too. I really doubt I've stumbled across the best dry van carrier to lease onto in America. I'm actually explicitly aware of better places that have one or two requirements I can't easily accept (max 5 year tractor age is a big one for me, I'd like to get to having paid off equipment and keeping it) and/or aren't taking more O/Os right now because the economy is slow, or the specific freight I'd pull for them is really slow.


This kind of thing is probably available from SOMEBODY in almost every major city.

Grossed $9k after split in a week running with an ELD legally without tomfoolery. Can't summon that every single week, maybe if I had more schedule flexibility I could do it half the time, but from what I've seen, and just doing the math, the big carriers that use set rates per mile loaded and bobtail do it for their own benefit.


Which isn't to say it can't work out and be worth it, but there are better places to lease onto with all the same upsides outside the rates.

There's only a certain amount of cost that you have that they can save you. You've gotta do the math and determine whether it's worth it each time vs the revenue. I don't see it with, for instance, Crete. They're probably grossing 8-12k/week on those walmart runs and paying o/os the equivalent of like 45% of gross.

 

Just saying without all the info it’s tough to paint the picture. I didn’t care what FCC grossed because I was happy with what my truck was making. I left home Monday morning, drove 30 miles to pick up my loaded trailer, usually did two rounds to IN, and was home Friday night.

My insurance on my 2022 was just over $300 a month compared to almost $700 through Great West. I bought a shift stalk at Allstate in MN and it was $1100, the one I had to buy in Lincoln using their discount was around $400 if I recall. There’s no trailer charge, the money to the truck is the money to the truck. I’d say on the low end it was around 90% drop and hook. Very few live loads or unloads. Another benefit to being at a company with a 3 to 1 trailer to truck ratio.

Everything else I’ve done with a truck was percentage based and I was hesitant to try a mileage contract. Once I was over there I was wishing I had gone there sooner, mostly for the schedule I could keep but the money was fine. I went there from an 80/20 split on a dry van because it was increasingly difficult to get me home just because of where their customers were. Toward the end I was bouncing 3 hours home and then 3 hours back out.

I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m not saying they’re all a good idea. But you start chipping away a few dollars here and there and it’s money at the end of the year.

I left because my truck was paid for, I didn’t feel like buying a new one, and I had the opportunity to learn how to haul fuel. Had I kept my truck I’d still be there only I’d cut about 30k miles off my year to keep everything in check with a paid for truck.