The short version
A load has a floor and a ceiling. The floor is what it costs a carrier to run those miles, which ATRI put at $2.336 per mile in 2025, or $1.854 without fuel. The ceiling is what your customer will pay. Everything in between is set by lane balance, season and how much capacity is sitting in that market this week. Price from the floor upward and you can defend the number to both sides.
Two brokers quote the same lane an hour apart and land $300 apart. One of them worked from a number; the other worked from what the last one covered at. Only one of those survives a market turning.
What is the floor on any load?
What it costs the carrier to run those miles. ATRI put the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, the highest it has recorded, and $1.854 with fuel stripped out. A rate that does not clear that line across every mile the carrier drives, empty ones included, is a rate nobody profitable will take.
That is an industry average across fleets of every size, so it is a benchmark rather than any one carrier’s number. It is still the most useful single figure in a negotiation, because it tells you when you are asking somebody to lose money and lets you stop pushing before you damage a relationship you will need in three weeks.
What sets the number above the floor
| Factor | What it does to your number |
|---|---|
| Lane balance | A market that ships far more than it receives pays well outbound and badly inbound. The same miles cost different money in each direction. |
| Season | Produce season lifts reefer on the growing lanes. Construction lifts flatbed spring through autumn. Retail cycles move dry van. |
| Capacity that week | Weather, a holiday, a plant shutdown, a big shipper flooding a market. This is what changes between the quote and the cover. |
| The freight itself | Tarps, a liftgate, hazmat, food grade, a two-hour appointment, a facility known for holding trucks. Each one shrinks the pool that can take it. |
| Fuel | Moves the all-in number without moving the margin, which is why linehaul is the figure to compare across weeks. |
For reference, DAT put July 2026 spot linehaul at $2.90 for flatbed, $2.75 for reefer and $2.39 for dry van. Those are national averages, so they tell you the shape of the market rather than the price of your lane, and the gap between the two is exactly why the factors above matter more than the index does.
A method you can repeat
- Start with the miles, all of them. Loaded miles plus the realistic deadhead into the pickup. That is the denominator the carrier is using.
- Set the floor. Cost per mile times total miles. Use the industry figure until you know what your usual carriers on that lane actually run at.
- Add what the freight demands. Tarping, driver assist, a tight window, a facility with a reputation. These are hours the carrier works without a mile turning over, and they belong in the number rather than in an argument later.
- Read the market direction. Check what is posting out of the delivery city. A load that strands a carrier is worth less to them than the same rate into a market that reloads them.
- Compare against your own history first. What did this lane cover at last month, and what has changed since. Your own book is a better index than any national average.
- Decide your walk-away before you call. The number where the load stops being worth covering. Negotiating without one is how a margin becomes a loss on an accessorial.
Margin, and where it quietly goes
The gap between what your customer pays and what the carrier takes is not the margin. The margin is what is left after everything below, and each of these has ended a month that looked fine on the load board.
- Detention you agreed to and did not budget. If the confirmation promises it, price it.
- A reload at a rate you had to take. Covering late costs more than covering right.
- Lumpers and accessorials nobody approved. Set the approval process in the confirmation, not on the day.
- The cost of paying carriers faster than you are paid. Real money, and the reason quick pay is a pricing decision rather than a favour.
- A claim on freight you did not insure against. Rare and large. Where broker liability sits is worth knowing before it happens.
What to tell the shipper
Pricing from a floor gives you a sentence you can say out loud: this lane is 640 miles with 90 of deadhead, the equipment needs tarping, and the market is short this week. That is a defensible number rather than a haggle, and it is the difference between a customer who trusts your quotes and one who checks them against three other brokers every time.
Carriers do the same arithmetic from the other side, and reading it is useful: freight rates per mile by truck type is the version they are working from.
The bottom linePrice up from the carrier’s cost, not down from what you can get away with. The first survives a market turning; the second only works while somebody is desperate.
Frequently asked questions
How do freight brokers set rates?
From a floor upward. The floor is what the miles cost the carrier, including the empty ones into the pickup. Above that, the number is set by lane balance, season, capacity that week and what the freight demands in unpaid time, then checked against what the same lane covered at recently.
What is a fair rate to offer a carrier?
One that clears their cost per mile across all their miles with something left over. ATRI put the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, or $1.854 excluding fuel, which is the benchmark to check a rate against before you assume it is competitive.
Should I price from a rate index?
Use one for direction, not for your number. A national index tells you which equipment types are strong and which way the market is moving; it does not know your lane, your deadhead, your appointment window or the facility that holds trucks for six hours.
Why did my rate cover last week and not this week?
Capacity in that market moved. Weather, a holiday, produce season starting, or a large shipper absorbing trucks will all change what a lane covers at within a week, without anything about your load changing at all.
Is a low rate ever a false economy?
Often. A rate only a desperate carrier will take selects for the carrier with no reserves and no reputation to protect, which is the profile most likely to re-broker the load or to fail on it. The saving is smaller than the claim.
Sources
Every figure in this article is linked in place. The full list, for anyone who wants to check the working.
- ATRI, An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, 2026 update. Average marginal cost per mile, with and without fuel.
- DAT, July 2026 rate report. Spot linehaul rates by truck type.
