Landstar??

Well let's see. I haul oh probably 30% Hazmat loads which accounts for close to half of my revenue. I wouldn't even want to Imagine what insurance would cost for a one truck wonder to haul that. Second when I pick up a load of Hazmat I scan the paperwork and 5 minutes later I'm on the phone with the Hazmat department scouring over the paperwork to ensure everything is in compliance, you would be surprised how many things they catch that shippers screw up and how many little gotcha tricks there is in the rules.
Next I get paid for my load within a week of delivering and submitting the paperwork. I have never had to hunt down my money here or send a collection agency to go get it.
It works well for me and many others.

 

Another guy who looks at percentages and not actual revenue.
Shipper rates are not the same as brokered rates.
Then there are permits, factoring, time on the phone, ifta, joining a drug test consortium, on and on and on.

I don't know the real stats but I would bet guys who lease on make it more often than guys who run their own numbers. When rates go down I still have a lot of contract freight to choose from. When they go up I do pretty good selecting broker loads.

I am not knocking getting your own numbers but it is a lot more complicated than simple percentages.

 

Have you ran on your own numbers? The things you posted are cheap, easy, or unneeded.

Maybe leased on people make it more often, but people with their authority make it big more often.

 

I think you're looking at that situation wrong. These 2 things don't need to be equal. Where ever you run, I assume you are running Hazmat because it pays you better vs normal rates. Meanwhile, you can probably get that same rate on your own hauling normal freight because you aren't losing 20-30% off the top.

Meaning there is likely no reason to even haul hazmat on your own numbers.

 

Let's look at percentages this way as raw income numbers.. (using $4k gross /week because makes math very easy)

Gross income $4k/week making it a very obtainable income level. Landstar takes between 25%-35% but I go with the lowest that being 25% (because I dunno how their scale works so I'll go with lowest). This means every week Landstar would be taking $1k from my pocket before any other expenses. Let's say I'm not an overachiever and say I work 45 weeks out of the year.

That means 180k gross income to my truck for that 45 weeks. Landstar takes $45k of that income because you have to pay them at least 25%. The more you make the more they take because their income scales with yours.

Meanwhile, I have pretty much-fixed costs. If I run 52 weeks a year or 45 it doesn't cost me more or less for my plates, my insurance, my general business expenses ect.ect.. If I make $2k or 6k I don't pay anymore other than my 3% factoring on factored loads.

I pay straight up 3% for factoring so that's the only place I pay for anything by percentage.. Drug consortium is less than $100/year (way less) Load boards are probably my biggest expense when it comes to things I'm paying for monthly that isn't a 'truck expense" that you wouldn't need at a place like LS. My insurance is likely more than you'd pay as LS but it's not outrageous.

Let's be fair it's not like Landstar covers your insurance in that 25% and I'm sure they charge you for plates and lots of other little fees.

I'm not trying to say there is no reasons to not just stay at a place like LS or the other places like that, but earning potential certainly shouldn't be one of those reasons and you guys should really add up what you are paying these companies you lease onto vs what you are getting for that money.

I was originally going to go LS or Mercer until I did the actual math and realized what I'd be paying them.

Also, that's a key thing right there. Never look at this as them paying you 75% or 80% or whatever. You should look at it as YOU hiring them for 25% of your income and what are you getting for that money.

 

Yeah, I can agree with that, I went to Prime to get my CDL. Never intended to be a long term truck just figured I'd spend a year on the road and get my CDL as a company driver. Comp[any driver sucked so I switched to lease after a month.

It's funny because I never really wanted to have a trucking company, it was just going try out a new career because I was in a flexible situation. All these other guys in my class were all saying how they'd be leasing trucks are hiring drivers being the next Swift. I was the only guy that was like screw that I'm running company for a year then going home.

Now here I am the only one out of any of those guys I'm still in contact with that actually has my own company. lol

The thing was I was deadly against lease because I knew it was a rip-off but once I was there I hated company so I went lease to keep myself from walking out. What happened was I learned the business very fast (helped I had previous experience in the shipping industry) and I ended up doing very well as a 1st year driver running lease.

I ended up with enough money saved that I could buy a truck and go somewhere like Landstar or Mercer or take a truck I already had and get my authority to run hotshot. Honestly, the biggest reason I go that route was that it was when rates were going crazy and people were buying every used truck out there so the prices of used trucks were artificially high.

Due to that I held off for a while and started looking at other options and somewhere in that time frame, I start figuring out what it would cost me to run my own numbers vs what it would cost me to lease on somewhere. After that.. I didn't look back because financially it was a no brainer.

Now what I'll say is my 1st year on my own numbers (I just hit a year last month) was very, very rough due to Coronavirus and the tariffs. I knew the tariffs issue going in but knew I could work with that but the coronavirus was very hard and it's still going on but luckily my expenses are low so I still do ok.

 

If I only grossed 180k a year before they took their cut I would look for another line of work. I grossed 11k last week. I pay $57 a week for insurance. I never pay lumpers. I dont pay anything for the trailer. I get shop work for $90 an hour.

Plus a lot of things might not cost much but take up your time and time is money. I don't ever have to speak to anyone if I didn't want to. Make_Cents has a video where he and some Landstar guys are doing the same load, they made $100 more than him.

Like I said earlier, having your own numbers is great for some. But to imply guys who lease are just giving away money is just not true. The only time I gross 4k a week is if I took hometime during that week.

 

Don't focus on imaginary numbers that I made up for an example ... Focus on how much you paid them out of the $11k then how much you are paying them each month then how much you are paying them each year.

Then think about this. My single biggest business expense is $9,8k /year for insurance. The rest of my expenses for a year not including truck wear and tear or fuel ect is roughly $5k/year.

So for me to get that exact same thing you pay them 20-25%? I get it for roughly $15k/year. Every other expense you share with me.. fuel, taxes, truck expenses ect..ect. I work on my own truck btw so I can't really compare that part.

How fast do you pay them $15k? I know when I ran at Prime my 1st year I paid them a hell of a lot more than $15k but of course, that wasn't the same situation but just saying. $15k is nothing when you are paying out 20% or more..

I'm not trying to tell you it's the better way to do it, but just be aware of how much money it cost you to run at those types of places. If it works for you then great, but others might want to look at all the options because I'm sure not many guys are pulling $11k weeks at LS or whoever.

 

If you paid landstar 2750 in one week you are most definitely not using their trailer for free.

 

If I got cargo insurance for 8k a year I would do back flips.