What Rate is considered Cheap Freight?

To me cheap freight is my CPM X 1.27 as the lowest I can pull freight for and my fleet average income was $2.50 / mile in past 12 months so not too much cheap freight

 

Cheap to me is cost plus driver pay plus 30% profit.

 

A cheap load can be considered as a load that is paying less than other loads in that same market. For instance, loads that are paying $1.29-$1.49 a mile while others in the same market are paying above $2.00/mile. The costs associated with servicing a load does not determine whether a load is cheap or not.

 

^^that would be the definition of cheap freight

 

I just can't understand why someone would want haul for a $1.29 a mile when with just a little more time and a few more phone calls they can easily haul for over $2.00 a mile. The rate is at $1.29 a mile because the Broker knows that with time, he can and will find someone to haul for what he is paying. NOT ME!

 

To me, cheap freight is a load that costs me more to move than the missed opportunity of an earlier reload from a better market, minus the cost of getting there immediately. To figure that out, you need to know your dead head and break-even CPM, as well as daily revenue requirement.

Since the profit in a load is a function of time, revenue, and distance, you can't benchmark "cheap" with a fuel cost to gross revenue ratio. All you're doing there is comparing revenue and distance, skewed somewhat by the fuel efficiency of the truck. So maybe an indication of profitability on loaded miles, but too many missing variables for it to really have a lot of merit on it's own to decide if something is "cheap" or not.

 

The costs associated with servicing a load does not determine whether a load is cheap or not. you need to know the COST associated with everything to determine if there is $ to be made on anything related to TRUCKING

 

not always true in fact I did it just a few weeks back I can think of a few markets like that Salt Lake City Denver and ND you can sit for a month waiting on $2/mi freight going out....I made my money on the inbound so I took my $1.24/mi on a max weight tarp load at that and moved on..

 

Here's one problem with the 'no cheap freight' argument is that $2.50/mi might be great for an average, but if you're heading from Chicago to New Jersey for $2.50/mi you just got bent over.

 

Cheap Freight is in the eye of the beholder, its all Relative based on what your Individual Cost Per Mile is and what you feel comfortable earning, and you cant just Base that on rates in a certain market because there is a huge difference its 1 thing if your picking between 2 loads going the same destination its completely different if the Origin is the same but one's going east the other is going west.

also you have to consider your Round Trip Earnings not just 1 way cuz you may sit for ever on the other end, like if you haul for $3.00 then the loads coming out of that area are $1.20 at best but they get you back to where the rates are good your overall average is still good

I've hauled loads that i may only earn $0.12cpm after expenses but they were short and i made a profit no matter how small but got me to a location where the rates were back in the 2+ range

In all honesty there is no real answer but i have liked reading the responses everyone has their own way