How do Freight Brokers make their money?

It was intended as a compliment. I appreciate your business acumen, and your no nonsense approach to things. Been reading here for months before I created an account- you're a good reminder of why lowballing is a bad idea on a time critical move. Honestly, I'd rather pay more for a guy like you, because I know the job'll get done right. My father in law is fond of calling that sleep insurance. I tend to agree with him.

That all said, @boredsocial does seem to be correct from my perspective- rates are spiking across all segments and markets I'm dealing with. The mess in Houston has just exacerbated that. Now- I can't swear to what you see on your end, but last week I got beat up even harder than I expected, with the holiday weekend. I didn't lose out- like your Amazon example, I presented the options to my customers, but I had to do some backpedalling on initial quotes.

 

I work mostly midwest-southeast and it's 100% standard right now for my trucks to take an IN-FL run at 3000 for 840 miles and get 1000 coming back to IN. Now that I'm looking at the math it's 2.38 a mile. Still pretty fantastic. Definitely possible to make more money going both ways if they scalp like you lol.

 

There's no scalping anything out of Florida, well, except for maybe now until week's end. It's a good time to have a reefer 12-24 hrs before a storm hits there. Last year when I took the van down they were offering $5 a mile back to TN on reefer loads - I realized my mistake in not taking the reefer. My dilemma is I get a higher percentage with the van so it's not always a clear cut easy decision. And I really don't see what I do as scalping. Especially when I see other guys booking the same rates in the exact same manner. I'm not the only one it's nothing unique.

 

You scalp INTO FL and come back empty lol.

EDIT: I don't use the word 'scalp' in a pejorative sense. It's just the name for your whole business model. Scalpers are a necessary part of the freight ecosystem. Someone has to be willing to go anywhere so that none of the loads get missed. They deserve to be paid for that flexibility. They also run the risk of not getting a load at all if the market is at all oversupplied... Or getting stuck hauling some really bottom of the barrel junk load after all the good stuff is gone.

I don't pay your rates... Because I offer a reasonable enough price in the morning and book with someone who wants to go somewhere like where my load is going. If for some reason I don't offer enough money to get them I have to deal with you. I avoid that like the plague. Not because it's a particularly bad experience, but because the right time to deal with you is when the customer has a last minute emergency load that needs to go. I'm more than happy to turn a profit on a load at any rate with any truck. It's committing to a reasonable price in advance and then being forced to book with you that I want to avoid. More than happy to pay you with someone elses money lol.