The rate con is the contract that decides whether you get paid. The ten lines to check every time, the traps under the money line, the fraud tells — and when the right answer is to walk.
A rate confirmation is not paperwork — it is the contract for that load. There is no single federal “rate con form”; the signed document is simply the strongest written evidence of what the broker owes you and what you owe the broker. When a payment dispute lands, nobody asks what was said on the phone. They ask what the rate con says. That is why the five minutes you spend reading it are the best-paid five minutes of the load.
1) Your legal name and MC — exactly right, or payment can stall and worse (a wrong carrier name is a double-brokering red flag). 2) The broker’s legal name and MC — must match the entity you verified. 3) The total amount — all-in or linehaul-plus-fuel? Get the word “total” in writing. 4) Pickup and delivery dates/times — and whether they are appointments or FCFS. 5) Commodity and weight — what you agreed to haul, not a surprise. 6) Equipment — the trailer they expect. 7) Detention terms — free hours and the hourly rate, in numbers. 8) Layover and TONU — the numbers, not “market rate”. 9) Lumper handling — who pays, and how reimbursement works. 10) POD deadline and invoice instructions — miss these and a perfect delivery still pays late.
The rate is rarely where carriers lose. The losses hide lower down: a detention clause that starts the clock only after you call twice; a “driver assist required” line nobody mentioned; a lumper paragraph that reimburses only with a receipt submitted within 24 hours; an offset clause letting the broker deduct claims from unrelated loads. Read below the money line — that is where the money actually moves.
Modern rate cons carry per-event penalties: a fee for every missed check call, a flat deduction for tracking that goes dark, a percentage for late delivery regardless of cause. None of these are illegal — but they must be priced. A load that pays $50 more with a $150 tracking penalty and a hard appointment is not the better load. If a penalty clause is vague ("carrier liable for all costs of delay"), ask for a number or walk.
If the rate con shows a different carrier name than yours, a different MC than the broker you spoke to, an email domain that almost matches, or payment instructions that changed at the last minute — stop. These are the classic marks of double-brokering and identity fraud that regulators explicitly warn about. Verify independently through the number on the broker’s official record, never the one in the suspicious email.
Refuse when: the carrier name is wrong; the amount differs from the agreed number; detention/layover/TONU are blank or “per policy”; the broker refuses to put a verbal promise in writing; you are asked to move the load on another company’s MC; or the document arrives from an address you cannot verify. A load without a clean rate con is not a load — it is a dispute with a pickup date.
Save the signed copy where you can find it in ten seconds — it belongs in the invoice packet with the BOL/POD and any receipts. Never accept edits by phone: any change (rate bump for a reload, a new delivery time) deserves a revised rate con or at minimum a written confirmation. And match the final payment against the document line by line; short-pays hide in the difference.
The rate con is your paycheck in draft form. Read the ten lines, price the penalties, verify the parties, and refuse the vague ones — or run with a dispatch service that refuses them for you. On LoadBoot the rate confirmation is generated automatically from the load’s own posted terms and can never be edited afterward — because the fine print should never be a surprise.
It is the strongest written evidence of the agreement between broker and carrier — courts and factoring companies treat the signed rate con as the operative terms for that load. That is exactly why every term you rely on must appear on it, in numbers.
Not unilaterally. Any change should come as a revised, re-signed confirmation or clear written agreement. On LoadBoot the generated rate confirmation is immutable — no edit path exists for anyone, including dispatch.
Ask for them in writing before you sign. A blank detention line usually means unpaid hours at the dock. LoadBoot loads cannot be posted without detention, layover, TONU and lumper terms — the rate card is enforced before a carrier ever sees the load.
Your dispatcher may sign only if your dispatch agreement gives them that written authority (a limited power of attorney). Either way the terms bind the CARRIER — so the reading rules in this guide apply to whoever holds the pen.
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