Percentage over mileage

That question has been asked a million times on this forum. There's a search function on the top right of the screen.

It's a toss up. Percentage is usually 25% of the load. Probably after fuel. You DON'T get 25% of what the load pays. And you DON'T get to see what the load paid. And you DH for free.

Where as you know what your making on mileage. Loaded or Empty.

 

It depends on the freight your company gets.

For mileage: if you're getting a decent rate (over 40cpm) and the company gets a lot of frieght, mileage is consistent and good paying, which may be better.

For percentage: if you're getting a decent rate (over 25%) and the company gets high paying freight which you can see the invoice of, pay is great and variable, which may be better.

Personally, i would choose a company that paid close to 30% which mostly hauled government loads. If i couldn't find that, I'd look for close to 45 cpm at a place i knew pulled a lot of freight. I would try to retire at either of these places. Otherwise, I'd get my own tractor and trailer.

 

When I drove percentage it always ended up coming out to the same pay as if I was driving mileage. That was with all miles empty and loaded. You might ask the company paying percentage what there drivers average per mile per year. At the time I did it they always seemed to get a good paying load to say california and than you would have a cheap load coming back so its a toss up as far as I am concerned.

 

If it's a "regional" carrier with various regional fleets, percentage may be a good option. Short-haul freight pays consistently more [per mile] then longer freight (example load from Birmingham to Columbus is what I'd call short freight and probably pays quite a bit more per mile then say a load from Memphis to Los Angeles)

If you're expected to get home most weekends, you'll have to deal in short freight that keeps you close to home. That sort of freight is going to have much better rates [per mile] then long freight [which translates to you don't get home time opportunity as easy or as often]. But the trade off with regional freight of course, is fewer miles and more unpaid time spent loading and unloading the more frequent loads.

Most carriers expect "home most weekends" to be worth about $250 a week to drivers and will extrapolate the pay model to yield this result, but lots of the really big carriers who have a national fleet that is paid miles, simply don't have the abundance of freight to keep drivers financially happy. In North America, there is much more short, regional freight then there is long freight. Dead-heading 200 unpaid miles for a load that pays $2200 + FSC, and keeps you busy for a few days, is not a bad trade-off.

If at a national carrier with hit and miss freight areas and paid mileage ... sitting 24 hours between 1,200 mile loads [that had 2.5 days each on them] is very costly to the driver's weekly gross

 

It sounds like this is a company with some sort of niche contract worked out and "only 24%" may produce outstanding gross pay checks ... but it all depends on their freight model and the load gross the drivers are paid on. I would love to get 24% of 2 loads a day that grossed $600 each and be home nightly, and there is a lot of that out there. It's just a matter of finding a carrier who has a great contract and can hopefully keep it a while.

 

One thing to consider Mileage pay is constant, however Percentage pay can increase if freight lane rates go up.
pending your lease agreement.

 

.24 percent and 40cpm are horrible numbers.

 

You don't know that. It is all relative to the freight rate being assessed. There are countless different freight niches out there, some charge unreal rates and may involve 50% deadhead, but the end result can still be great. Too many variable to make such blanket statement.

24% of $8,000 - Good
30% of $4,000 - Not so good

And 40 CPM is bad if you can only typically be paid for 2,300 miles/week. But if you can consistently run 3,000 miles weeks, it's not bad except for loss of hometime. All the "50-55 CPM" announcements [at large carriers] are always related to regional fleets where you can only typically expect to run maybe 2,500 miles on a "good week"

40 cpm on 3,000 miles - Fair, but no frequent home time
50 cpm on 2,000 miles - Less, but with weekends home and lots of weekday time sitting
choose your poison