How much do you pay for your dispatching services???

10% is what my current company charges me, previous company charged 18% and an additional 10% of the load for the trailer.

 

Some people might knock me for being leased and I get that but I cannot imagine giving a dispatch service money for the most critical part of my business. Honestly if you can't self dispatch one little truck you ought to hang it up IMO. I can see where having a half dozen or more trucks could get to be a handful. I could run circles around any dispatch service out there, pull in better revenue, and I didn't know zilch about dispatching myself when I started. It's like tying your shoes or riding a bicycle. You will try kicking yourself in the rear end when you figure it out on your own and realize how cheaply they've been booking you just so you stay busy and meet their EASILY met revenue numbers where they have NO risk or skin in the game at all. As with many things in this business dispatch services serve to leach your profits and are best avoided.

 

There is a lot of truth to that. I make a lot more off my trucks than I do dispatching. Why do some people use me? Easy, they don't understand all the aspects of the business. I imagine that once they figure it out, I will no longer be needed by them. I don't work for the broker or shipper, only the carrier. If I don't provide a service that they see as valuable, I have no business. I would say that I have a lot of skin in the game!
As far as being a leach, name calling doesn't suit you sir.

 

Finding freight is exciting . To pay for it, instead of doing it on your own, is like to go hunting and pay someone else to do the shooting. It might make sense, if there are multiple trucks and a fleet owner drives one of them too.

 

With all due respect @rollin coal you're suffering from the Dunning Kruger effect a little here. Negotiating seems easy/fun to you because you're good at it. Other people find it incredibly difficult and anxiety inducing. A lot of people have a REALLY hard time saying no. That's why the brokers throw out all those ridiculous emotional appeals to you... it's not for you it's for the less talented them.

None of this changes the fact that dispatchers are a hugely mixed bag. I've seen a few who turn ####ty trucks into decent trucks and they are worth what they charge. They also deal with headaches from ####ty trucks that make me slightly nauseous just thinking about. Herding idiots is hard work. Hard work is for good work (either personally satisfying or financially rewarding) and dumb people. Dispatching idiots isn't most people's idea of 'good work' and doing it well requires more than dumb.

I'm sure there are exceptions out there. There always are. But I'm talking about the structure of the arrangement. It's just super ####ed.

 

Thank you, that's the way to go!

 

My dispacher charge 3%. I have 5 trucks

 

My dispatcher charge 3% from gross amount

 

This is a double edge sword ###### if you do ###### if you don't. I have dealt with many O/O's that can drive a truck but have really bad negotiating skills,booking,following up,emailing communicating etc. I own a small fleet of 5 trucks and do all the dispatching myself and time to time owner operators reach out for help and I can honestly say by the numbers I am a great help to them. I always keep the end in mind, money is not the objective for my company but the balance in life we seek. Some drivers just don't have it. Its all preference in my opinion, if you have the time to go through a hundred calls a day looking for that good paying load than by all means do it. If you just want to concentrate on driving than get yourself a dispatcher. That simple. I mean at the end none of this that we are doing is rocket science.

 

I never counted the number of my calls, it is certainly less than 10 per load. I do scroll and click at maybe 30 or more but never call all of them. With time, you just see and recognize the load you want by seeing the broker and the lane and that's only one call then. It is a different story, if there is more than one truck to dispatch.