Dry van is the default of American truckload — roughly two-thirds of everything that moves on a trailer moves in one. That ubiquity is exactly why it is the most rate-sensitive equipment on any board: there is a van in almost every market, so the number tracks fuel, season and lane balance far more tightly than scarcity.
A single "rate per mile" hides four different things. Brokers and shippers argue about the wrong one all the time, so here is the whole stack, using the live numbers above.
| Component | Per mile | Who it belongs to |
|---|---|---|
| Line haul | — | The truck’s core revenue — driver pay, tractor, trailer, maintenance, insurance. |
| Fuel surcharge | — | Moves with the DOE average. Quoted separately in contract freight, buried inside the number in spot freight. How fuel surcharge works → |
| Carrier total | — | What actually lands on the carrier’s rate confirmation. |
| Broker margin | — | Covers coverage work, credit risk, claims exposure and the brokerage’s own cost of doing business. |
| Shipper pays | — | The all-in number, before any accessorial actually incurred on the load. |
The line haul and fuel split shown is an industry-typical approximation — roughly 78/22 at current diesel levels. On a real load it moves with the lane and the week, which is exactly why fuel is normally quoted as its own line.
Most failed bookings are not arguments about money — they are a load that physically does not fit the trailer that showed up. These are the numbers to put in a posting.
| Trailer length | 48 ft and 53 ft; 53 ft is the default for truckload |
| Inside dimensions | ~52⁄3 long × 98″ wide × 108″ tall on a standard 53′ |
| Standard pallets | 26 pallets floor-loaded, 52 double-stacked if the freight allows |
| Max payload | 44,000–45,000 lb before you start fighting axle weights |
| Loading | Dock-to-dock, rear doors; some have side doors or logistics posts |
Commonly shipped on dry van: Packaged consumer goods, paper and print, non-perishable food and beverage, electronics, apparel, retail replenishment, e-commerce fulfilment, household goods.
Benchmark rate per mile multiplied by real lane distance. Useful as a starting point for a conversation, not as a quote — direction, season and appointment requirements all move the true number.
| Lane | Distance | Carrier gets | Shipper pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago, IL → Atlanta, GA | 717 mi | — | — |
| Los Angeles, CA → Dallas, TX | 1,435 mi | — | — |
| Columbus, OH → Charlotte, NC | 426 mi | — | — |
Distances are practical truck miles and will differ slightly from a car routing. Work out your own cost per mile →
| Period | What happens |
|---|---|
| Jan–Feb | The annual floor. Post-holiday volume collapse and every truck is looking for freight. |
| Mar–May | Recovery. Spring retail resets and produce beginning to pull capacity elsewhere. |
| Jun–Aug | Steady. Produce season pulls reefers out of the market, which quietly firms up van. |
| Sep–Nov | The strongest stretch. Retail builds for Q4 and capacity tightens. |
| Dec | Sharp drop after the second week once holiday freight is in position. |
A reefer can haul dry freight, but you will pay reefer money for it. Use a van unless the load genuinely needs temperature control — or unless you need the extra insulation for freeze protection in winter, which is the one honest reason to book a reefer and run it dry.
Van is where margin is thinnest, because every broker alive can cover it. The money is not in buying cheap — it is in covering fast. A load re-posted three times has already burned the margin you were protecting, and the carriers who saw it twice now price it as a problem lane. Post it once, at a number that moves, with the accessorial terms already written down.
If your van quote sits well above the benchmark below, you are usually paying for one of three things: a hard appointment, a slow-loading dock, or a destination nobody wants to run to. Two of those three you can change. Ask the broker which one is driving the number before you accept it — a good one will tell you.
Line haul is the number everyone negotiates. Accessorials are the number that decides whether the lane was actually profitable. LoadBoot publishes its terms rather than renegotiating them load by load, so both sides know before the truck moves.
| Accessorial | LoadBoot standard | When it bites |
|---|---|---|
| Detention | $60/hr after 2 free hours | Four hours at a dock can exceed the whole margin on a short lane. |
| Layover | $250/day | A missed appointment that pushes delivery to the next day. |
| TONU | $250 | Truck ordered, then the load is not there or does not fit. |
| Lumper | Reimbursed with receipt | Grocery and food distribution, almost every time. |
Worth knowing whichever side of the load you are on. A broker who understands the carrier’s floor covers freight faster; a shipper who understands it stops wondering why the cheapest quote keeps falling through. Against a typical all-in operating cost of $1.90 per mile for a small carrier, the current dry van benchmark leaves:
$1.90 is a working average for a one-truck operation. Fleets with newer equipment and better fuel programmes run below it; an older truck with high maintenance can sit well above. Calculate your actual number →
Rate is rarely the reason a dry van load sits. It sits because a carrier cannot tell from the posting whether the load is legal on his trailer, how long he will wait, or what he gets paid if it goes wrong. Five things fix most of that.
| Give the real weight, not the round number | A load posted at "about 40,000" that scales at 46,200 gets refused at the shipper. Weight decides which trucks are legal on the lane. |
| Say FCFS or give the appointment window | This is the single biggest factor in how fast a van load covers. FCFS freight books hours faster because it does not put the driver’s clock at risk. |
| State dock hours and whether there is overnight parking | A 07:00 appointment with no place to park the night before means the driver has to solve that problem himself, and he will price it in or skip the load. |
| Name the commodity | "General freight" tells a carrier nothing. Some commodities need seals, some need food-grade trailers, and a carrier who finds out at the dock leaves. |
| Post the accessorial terms with the load | Detention, TONU and lumper in writing on the posting removes the negotiation that otherwise happens by phone after something goes wrong. |
A national benchmark is an average of very different markets. Direction matters as much as distance — the same lane run the other way can price completely differently.
| Versus national | Markets |
|---|---|
| Above national | Northeast into New England, the Pacific Northwest, and anywhere in the upper Midwest in winter — low outbound volume means the truck risks deadheading out. |
| Around national | The Southeast triangle of Atlanta, Charlotte and Memphis; the Texas triangle; the Chicago–Ohio corridor. Deep freight, balanced flows. |
| Below national | Outbound from Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta — large surpluses of trucks looking for a way out. |
Compare the carrier number below against your own cost per mile. Most owner-operators need roughly $1.80–$2.00 all-in to break even, so any load at or under that is losing money once deadhead is counted.
Averages hide lane direction, appointment requirements and weight. A quote well above the benchmark usually reflects a hard delivery appointment, a low-volume destination, or freight heavy enough to limit which trucks can legally take it.
Twenty-six standard 48×40 pallets floor-loaded, or up to 52 if the freight can be double-stacked. Weight usually becomes the limit before floor space does.
Around 44,000–45,000 lb of cargo. The legal gross combination limit is 80,000 lb, and the tractor and trailer account for most of the difference.
Weekly under normal conditions and daily in a disrupted market. The figures on this page carry the date they were last updated.
Yes, typically 10–20% cheaper on the same lane. A reefer costs more to buy, more to run and carries far higher cargo liability.
First-come-first-served freight books faster and cheaper because it does not constrain the driver’s clock. Use appointments only where the receiver genuinely requires one.
Posting is free for brokers and shippers — no subscription and no per-post fee. Every carrier who can accept your load has had authority, insurance and safety checked first, every load carries live GPS, and the accessorial terms above are written down before the truck moves rather than argued about after.