Small fleets
Fleet dispatcher for 2 to 10 trucks: every truck booked, every accessorial billed, every driver's receipts in one place.
With one truck, money leaks at the dock. With five, it leaks between the dock and the office: a lumper receipt left in a cab, detention nobody had time to claim, a POD that arrived three days after delivery. Our fleet dispatcher desk books every truck and keeps every receipt for 4% of gross.
Where a fleet's accessorial money actually goes.
The table is a made-up week for a four-truck fleet with mixed equipment. Each truck spent hours past free time, and three paid lumpers. Whether that money comes back depends on three things the driver and the office had to get right: detention terms on the rate con before the load was accepted, in and out times to prove the wait, and the lumper receipt.
Untick a box and watch the leak grow. Truck 2 waited nine hours at a produce shed, but nobody logged the check-in time, so there's nothing to bill. Truck 3 sat at a mill, but its rate con never mentioned detention. Truck 4 paid a lumper and lost the receipt. None of these are driving mistakes. They're office gaps, and they get wider with every truck you add.
| Truck | Hours past free | Terms on rate con | Times logged | Lumper receipt | Billed | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Truck 1 · dry van | $540 / $540 | Billed in full | ||||
| Truck 2 · reefer | $310 / $760 | No in and out times to prove it | ||||
| Truck 3 · flatbed | $0 / $200 | No detention terms on the rate con | ||||
| Truck 4 · 26 ft box | $150 / $270 | Lumper receipt lost |
Earned
$1,770
Billed
$1,000
Leaked
$770
Earned means the time and the cash were spent. Billed means there was enough on paper to ask for it. Whether a broker pays is still up to the broker.
Notice the pattern: no single big failure causes the leak. A few small ones do, on every truck, every week. Closing them takes a routine, not more effort from drivers who are already tired.
A written policy helps too. Our detention policy template (coming soon) gives your drivers and your office the same rules for when the clock starts and what to send.
Outsourced truck dispatch or a dispatcher on payroll?
Both work. The right answer depends on how many trucks you run, how steady your freight is, and whether you want to manage a dispatcher or a dispatch result. Here is a fair comparison, including where hiring your own wins.
| Question | Small fleet dispatch service | In-house dispatcher |
|---|---|---|
| Cost when trucks sit | Nothing; the fee only applies to loads hauled | The salary is due either way |
| Cost when trucks run hard | Grows with revenue at 4% | Fixed, so it can be cheaper per load at high volume |
| Nights, weekends, sick days | Covered by the desk | Needs a backup person or the owner |
| Knowledge of your shippers | Learned over the first weeks | Deep, once the person has been there a while |
| Broker relationships | Spread across many carriers' lanes | Built from scratch for your fleet |
| Paperwork and claims | Included and tracked by truck | Depends on the person and their workload |
| Commitment | Month to month, 30 days notice | Hiring, training, payroll taxes, turnover |
Where an in-house dispatcher usually wins: a fleet with steady dedicated freight, enough trucks to keep one person busy every day, and an owner who wants someone in the building. Where a dispatch service usually wins: two to ten trucks on mixed freight, owners who are still driving themselves, and fleets that can't afford a gap when someone quits.
To see how the numbers fall for your fleet, try the dispatch ROI calculator with your own hours and rates.
Who says yes in a fleet is your call too.
The rule doesn't change because you have more trucks: nothing is booked without a yes, and the rate con goes to the person who signs for your company. What you choose is who that person is for each truck.
Whoever approves, you see everything. Every offer, accepted or declined, shows up in the weekly report with the rate and the terms, so a driver turning down good freight or taking thin loads is visible without you listening in on every call. Drivers like it too: the offer explains itself, and nobody has to argue with dispatch about why a load was booked.
- The owner approves everything. Every offer comes to you, and you sign every rate con. Most control, most phone time.
- Drivers approve within your rules. A driver can accept loads that meet the rate floor, lanes and home days you set. Anything outside them comes to you.
- A mix. Your senior drivers approve their own, newer ones go through you. Change it any time with a text.
Setting up a fleet with us.
- One call with the owner. Your trucks, your equipment, your authority, who approves loads for each truck, and the rate floor for the fleet as a whole and for any truck that runs differently.
- Each driver's settings. Home days, the lanes each driver likes or won't run, and the phone number we use for offers, check calls and paperwork.
- One way to send paperwork. Every driver sends BOLs, times, lumper receipts and PODs the same way, so nothing depends on who was driving.
- Carrier packets. Your fleet's packet goes to the brokers that fit your lanes, once, for every truck.
The weekly report, by truck.
Every week you get one report for the fleet. For each truck it lists the loads, loaded and empty miles, gross, rate per mile, and every accessorial claim with its status: filed, paid, or refused and why. Totals at the bottom show the fleet's week at a glance.
It answers the questions owners usually can't answer without an afternoon of digging: which truck earned the most per mile, which receiver keeps holding drivers past free time, which broker is slow to pay detention. Those are the answers you use to decide which lanes to keep and which shippers to drop.
Signs your fleet has outgrown its back office
- You're booking loads from the cab at night after driving all day.
- Detention gets claimed only when a driver complains loudly enough.
- Invoices go out days after delivery because a POD is missing.
- Two trucks deadhead toward the same market because nobody planned them together.
- You can't say which truck made money last month without a spreadsheet.
4% of gross for two trucks or more.
Once your authority is past 6 months and you run two trucks or more, the fee is 4% of the linehaul and the accessorial pay we collect, on every truck. If your authority is newer, it's 7% until month 7. Lumper reimbursements, tolls and scale tickets are never in it, and a truck that sits in the shop for a week adds nothing.
Example A three-truck week with $16,800 in linehaul and $450 in detention and layover comes to a fee of $690. The $700 in lumper money reimbursed that week isn't touched.
If cash flow across several trucks is the pinch, factoring for small fleets (coming soon) explains the options. The full fee rules are on the pricing page.
Price my week
Example weekPass-through money. Never in our fee.
Our fee (4%)
$690
You keep
$17,260
Fee on $17,250. $700 in lumper money passes straight to you.
Questions fleet owners ask
Do you collect PODs and receipts from my drivers?
Do you bill accessorials for each truck?
Who approves loads in a fleet, me or my drivers?
Can you dispatch mixed equipment in one fleet?
Do you work nights and weekends for fleets?
How do you handle driver home time across a fleet?
Every truck booked. Every receipt filed.
Send the application with your truck count. We set up each driver, each truck's lanes and home days, and who approves what. 4% of gross, month to month.
You approve every load. No setup fee. No contract.