Hello fellow flatbedders! I'm a newbie here with a question I'm sure has been beat to death. Right now I am making .38 cpm and have 6 months experience. I am looking at going to a company that has offered me the following for pay; .43 cpm OR 26% weekly profit of truck. Now I have heard alot of drivers say that percentage is the way to go. The recruiter explained it to me like this. If I ran 2000 miles that week at .43 cpm that comes to $860.00 BUT if say my truck made $4000 in profit, then I'd make $1040 for the week. Now of course any idiot can see which is the best. So here are my two questions, 1. Is percentage the better way for me? and 2. Is it even possible to for a company truck to make $4000 profit in one week? Any TMC guys please chip in, I know you run % (FYI I'm not lazy, I run hard and my current company hates when I drop a load early, then they make me sit)
Go with CPM, slow but steady income in the miles, percentage income will fall and rise with the season. A buddy of mine was running van for an owner op who gave him 45% of the truck profit, and while he was making bank during produce season, he was scrappin bits the rest of the time
Keep track of what the loads pay then figure it out on your own. I hope they will allow you to change if you make the wrong choice.
Like blind said with changing. When can you change from one to the other. Try the % and see what happens with it. If you could of made more with CPM then you know what to do. What company is it? What freight lanes? Types of freight they usually haul? That all makes a big difference in which one to do. If you are going to be driving a 75MPH truck and running loads from west coast to east coast and have the ability to run 3000+ miles a week that makes a difference too.
I'm on percentage and wouldn't dream of mileage pay. Small company and I'm never given a load before I'm asked if I want it though.
When working on percentage, some areas are much better than others. If you don't get to pick and choose your loads, and they send you out into dead zones where the freight is extremely cheap, you will waste a lot of time pulling the crappiest of loads and not making much money. Good thing would be that you wouldn't have to foot the fuel bill. Bad thing is, it would still eat up your work week. And at the end of the week, you wouldn't have anything. Now if you can stay where the freight is, of course, go percentage. You will run less miles for the same money. Working smarter, not harder. One more question: when paid percentage, do they give you the tarp pay, or a percentage of it? If they give you a percentage, you should make worlds more money on tarp pay. Stuff like reposition fees, higher detention pay, TONUs...etc should all add up to your benefit. There's a lot of fees that the company charges that you should get a part of that mileage drivers never see.
I got a flat rate for tarp. 20 steel and 25 lumber. 25 for extra drops or picks, and a % of the OD pay. Also one thing to consider, on the % pay if you go into an area that is dead 9 times out of 10 that load that went in paid you very very well to make up for the loss of revenue for having to bounce out so far. Been there plenty of times. I just want my few questions answered. With more info we can give you better advice much easier. also where do you live??? Being from the Chicagoland area % pay is crazy good in my area for a company driver! Is it TMC that you are looking at? Go read some of the TMC threads, you will learn a lot about them.
Here is another thing to think about! Are they honest? What percentage of what? I was with a company for a month and I was on Percentage and I never saw an invoice, Say there was a $2000.00 load and it paid 25% but they cut the load to show my percentage of $1650.00? so rather then $500.00 I got $412.20 WTH? I never saw a invoice and they would never show them to me so I got off their truck quickly! I asked them what is the real number on this load at various times and they never caught the hook!! Oh Well.
