Question for Brokers " What do brokers consider a fair rate per mile for freight?"

Who says brokers make more than 10%? The flatbed broker above would be digging deeply into his pockets to load my truck if I caught him in a bind. Happens to brokers as much as it does trucks. The good ones do everything to avoid it. But when you have lots of brokers and truckers who think in terms of $2 a mile is good well it's a downward spiral. It's good if you're a shipper. But it ain't so great for anyone in transportation industry not with prices of everything else.

 

So are you saying brokers rate is less than 10%? ('cuz I've read different on forums here).

And are you saying that there are freight costs involved that brokers share the risk/burden?

Please don't take this as a flame, b/c it isn't. I'm genuinely trying to learn here.
Thank you.

 

Brokers rate is the difference between what his customer is paying and what you haul it for....

No broker's initial offer is the shippers rate less 10%....

Initial offers are typically 50% of the shippers rate. If you don't negotiate you will go broke. Very few brokers willingly give 80%… They try and keep all they can....

 

As I said in my original post, I am a Numbskull..so I'm trying to clarify here.
If a shipper and broker negotiate to $3500 to ship their goods, does the Broker take 10% ($350), leaving $3150 for the O/O?
Do the broker and O/O then negotiate the % that the broker will take? Or does the broker try and get the O/O to take the load for, let's say, $2500?

Are you serious that the broker will try and keep all of the $3500 that he can?

 

They absolutely will try to keep all then can. That's how they make money, and I really don't see anything wrong with that. We are trying to get them to pay as much as we can. There are a few that will offer a fair rate on the first attempt, but most of the time you have to negotiate to get the rate you want. You can't be afraid to say no as well. Most will try to "sell" you the load. You have to know your freight lanes, and what they should pay.

 

Wow! I had no idea. I guess I thought the Broker was the liaison between the shipper and the carrier I didn't know it was an adversarial relationship with the carrier. I suppose if one doesn't like the way the game is played, one doesn't have to sit at the table.

Thank you for your enlightening response.

 

I wouldn't necessarily call the relationship adversarial, but you do have to understand that just like everyone else in business, they want to make as much money as they can. Again, carriers need to be educated in their freight lanes and rates. Most single owner operators don't think like carriers, or demand carrier rates. They think like lease operators, and those are the kind of rates they get. I agree with Rollin Coal in an earlier post, we need to, as an industry, lose the mentality that $2/mile is good money. I have brokers and other operators tell me this all of the time, and frankly, they are wrong.

 

I agree Grizzly,
If they want to live in a trailer park, continue driving a 10yr old truck, drive the truck till they drop dead (no retirement), then I guess they would see $2/mile as good money.

We want more than that out of life.

When diesel was $1.85/gal., then maybe $2/mile was good money...but now...at $4.25/g???
I don't see how one can even roll nowadays with some lanes only paying $1.73.
One must consider the deadhead miles as well and that really adds up every quarter.

I've talked to some men out here that don't even have the $$ to deadhead 500 miles to get their next load. They drove into a low-freight area and didn't negotiate enough money to get out?

When so many people in this country live paycheck to paycheck, it boggles my mind that anyone would live "load to load". No thanks to that scenario, I'd say.

 

This is a broker, I worked for a company before that wanted me to take all I could from the driver, I didn't like that very much, and I got paid 5% of the gross off of each load, so I gave mostly 90% of the money to the truck. Needless to say, I didn't work there very long. I work for a company now where I make up my own rate. The customer gives me the order, I find a truck, I take a hot $50 off each load, and it hits the road and everyones happy. I don't want to make $500 off a load, when I can move 10 times the loads and still make the money. Carriers are your friends, you need to take care of them, and when you do, they come back repeatedly every time because you were fair, and not full of BS like a lot of unscrupulous brokers out there who are charging the customer over what they should be paying, and making truckers haul for peanuts. Not good business. If anybody needs loads. I am available. I also usually send a copy of the order from customer if asked, to show I only take $50 off each load. Sometimes I even go all in if it's a tough move. Thanks for listening, and keep up the good work!

 

I very much appreciate your forthrightness.
I'm glad you are no longer with the company who wanted you to take it all. I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night in your situation.

But I will say this:
while I have very little inside knowledge about your place in this trucking industry food chain, I do believe that ethically and morally, you would be okay to take more than $50 per load. Yes you can book 10 loads a day, and the brokers that take all they can may only book 2-3 loads a day. Those brokers are actually making much more on one load than the driver nets and that is morally irreprehensible.

I won't presume to speak for other drivers, but 5% would be fair...$3500 load x 5% = $175...provided that there are no undisclosed costs to the driver, and if the load sends him into a low-freight area, the load should pay him to get out (Fuel + Lodging+ Maintenance + Time).

I commend you for providing the invoice to the driver without being asked.

I've been told that brokers represent the shipper. That shouldn't mean the driver gets ignored. Ethically, a broker should be the liaison, but I am not knowledgeable of the fed regs.

Shippers need to be pushed by the brokers to increase the rates they pay. It's obscene that shippers think they can still get their goods moved with 10 yr. old rates.

I believe that good fortune will continue to come your way b/c you seem to be operating with PRINCIPLES that have vanished from the economic landscape in America.