How much does a dispatch service cost?

Chapter 01

What is the dispatch percentage taken on?

It is taken on whatever your agreement names as the base, and no regulation sets it. Some services take it on the linehaul, which is the price for moving the freight. Others take it on the gross, meaning everything the broker pays: linehaul plus fuel surcharge, and sometimes detention and lumper money too. The same 5% costs very different amounts on each base. Of three dispatch price pages we read on September 22, 2026, only one says plainly the amount it uses to calculate its percentage. None says how it treats detention or lumper money.

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you run three dry vans out of Indianapolis. You drive one yourself, and two hired drivers run the others. Until now you have booked every load on a load board, often late at night. In September 2026 you decide to price a dispatch service. Whether to hire one at all is its own question, and we answer it in should you self-dispatch or hire a dispatcher. Here you only want to know what it would cost.

Three quotes come back. Two of them say “5%”. The third is a flat $799 per truck per month, which is what we charge for our own dispatch service. The quotes and the owner are made up for this story, but real price pages look much the same. Truck Dispatch Experts publishes 6% per load for semis, or a flat $250 a week. For box trucks, sprinter vans and hotshots it is 8%, or $350 a week (its price page). Logity Dispatch advertises “from as low as 3% of gross”, with 5% for dry vans, reefers and flatbeds and 7% for hotshots (its home page). Fleet.care offers dispatch “for only 3.5% fee without a contract” (its dispatch page).

So what is each percentage taken on? Truck Dispatch Experts asks the question itself: “Linehaul only, or the gross including fuel surcharge?” Its answer is that its percentage “is calculated on the gross revenue of each load we book for you” (its price page). Logity says its pricing “starts from just 5% of the gross load value”. It does not say whether that gross includes the fuel surcharge (its home page). Fleet.care names 3.5% and no base at all. You will also read that 5% to 8% is typical. That range comes from dispatch companies’ own pages, such as the Truck Dispatch Experts rate guide. We found no survey behind it.

Now look at your own revenue. Take the truck you drive, and add up the lines on its rate confirmations for July 2026. A rate confirmation is the broker’s written offer for one load: the price and each extra charge it agreed to pay. The linehaul came to $16,400. The fuel surcharge, the part the broker pays toward diesel, came to $5,200. Detention, the pay for waiting at a dock past the free time, came to $300. And lumper reimbursements came to $450. That is money you paid an unloading crew at the dock, and the broker paid it back. In all, brokers paid $22,350 for that truck in July.

Work out 5% three ways. On the linehaul only, it is $820. On the linehaul plus the fuel surcharge, it is $1,080. On everything, it is $1,117.50. It is the same 5%, the same truck and the same month, and the gap is almost $300.

The fuel surcharge makes the biggest difference. DAT, the load board company, reports what the spot market pays each month. In August 2026, van linehaul averaged $2.19 a mile across the country, and van fuel surcharges another 70 cents on top (DAT’s August report). So on a typical van load, a percentage on the fuel surcharge makes the fee about a third bigger. Your July matches that: $5,200 of fuel surcharge on $16,400 of linehaul is about a third. A fee on lumper reimbursements deserves particular attention. That money was never profit. You paid it out and got it back, so a fee on it is a fee on money you are simply getting back. Detention is real income, often collected because someone followed up persistently with the broker. Whether the fee applies to it is simply a term you agree in writing.

Chapter 02

What other fees can a dispatch service charge?

Besides the percentage, a service can charge a setup fee to start and a weekly or monthly fee for its software. It can set a minimum, charge you to cancel, or take an extra cut when you use a factoring company. That is a company that pays your invoices early, for a fee. No regulation sets these charges. They are whatever the written agreement says, so ask for the full list before you sign. Truck Dispatch Experts, itself a dispatch company, lists each of these as charges to watch for (its rate guide, its price page). Its rate guide says setup fees run from $50 to $500.

Back to your two 5% quotes. Read the fine print, and they stop looking alike. The first service takes 5% of everything the broker pays. Its agreement also has a $250 setup fee for each truck and a technology fee of $150 a month per truck. The second service takes 5% of the linehaul only. It has no setup fee, but you pay at least $600 a month for each truck. These fees are made up for the story, but each kind appears on those lists.

That $600 is a minimum fee, and it changes how the percentage works. In a good month you pay 5% of the linehaul, as promised. In a slow month you pay $600, even if 5% comes to less. So in a slow month, a percentage with a minimum acts like a flat fee.

The published price pages we read promise fewer additional charges. Truck Dispatch Experts says its setup fee, cancellation fee and monthly minimum are all $0 (its price page). Logity offers “a free setup”, and its questions page says it works month to month (Logity’s questions page). Fleet.care says it has “no contracts or hidden fees” (its dispatch page). A promise on a web page is a good start, but only the agreement you sign binds anyone.

One more line to read is how the fee gets paid. FMCSA’s 2023 guidance lists the signs of a dispatch service that works as the carrier’s agent. Such a service generally does not have to register as a broker (FMCSA’s guidance on brokers and dispatch services). It “does not provide billing or accept compensation from the broker, third-party logistics company, or factoring company”. Instead, it “receives compensation from the motor carrier(s) based on the pre-determined written legal contractual agreement”. In plain words, the broker pays you the full rate, and the dispatcher sends you a bill under your written agreement. The fee is not taken out of the load before the money reaches you.

Chapter 03

Which costs less at your revenue: a percentage or a flat fee?

It depends on how much each truck grosses in a month. Our flat fee of $799 costs the same as 5% of $15,980, 8% of about $9,988, or 3.5% of about $22,829 (our dispatch service). Below those amounts the percentage costs less. Above them the flat fee costs less. A slow month favors the percentage, because it shrinks with the gross. A flat fee does not.

Here is the whole picture for one truck in one month. “Gross” in the table means everything the brokers paid, and each percentage is taken on all of it, the way your first quote works. The 3.5%, 5% and 8% columns are rates that real services publish (Fleet.care, Logity Dispatch, Truck Dispatch Experts).

Now compare your own monthly figures. Your truck grossed $18,800 in June, $22,350 in July and $13,150 in August. In August the truck sat in the shop for nine days. At 5% of everything, the fee comes to $940, $1,117.50 and $657.50. Our flat fee is $799 each month. So the flat fee costs less in June and July, and $141.50 more in August. Against 3.5%, the flat fee costs more in all three months, even in July by about $17. A 10% fee would cost less than the flat fee only in a month under $7,990.

Over the three months, each quote adds up differently. The first quote comes to $3,415: $2,715 in percentage fees, $450 of technology fees and the $250 setup fee. The second quote comes to $2,115: 5% of the linehaul in June and July, which is $695 and $820, and the $600 minimum in August. Our flat fee comes to $2,397. So for this truck, the second quote was cheapest, by $282. Your own figures may also show that a percentage is cheaper.

Some services charge a flat weekly fee. Convert it to a monthly average before comparing. Truck Dispatch Experts charges $250 a week for a semi (its price page). A year has 52 weeks, so that is $13,000 a year, or about $1,083 a month, not $1,000. The same page says its fleet price for three or more trucks comes in lower. Ours does not change with the number of trucks: three active trucks cost $2,397 a month (our dispatch service).

Chapter 04

How do you choose, and what should the agreement say?

Choose on your own numbers, not the headline rate. Add up three months of each truck’s rate confirmations, line by line. Calculate each quote using the base the service actually applies, add every other fee, and compare the totals. Then get the base, every fee, any minimum and how you will be billed written into the agreement before the first load. If two totals come out close, pick the one whose bill you can check most easily each month.

Here is the order to do it in, with the three quotes in front of you on the kitchen table.

1. Pull three months of rate confirmations for each truck, and split the linehaul, fuel surcharge, detention and lumper lines.
2. Ask each service in writing the amount it uses to calculate its percentage, line by line.
3. Ask for every other fee in writing: setup, weekly or monthly fees, minimums, cancellation and factoring.
4. Work out each quote’s total for each truck and each month, then for all three months.
5. Check that the agreement says the service bills you, and that the broker pays you the full rate.

Now run it for your other two trucks. A truck that grosses more each month pushes the answer toward a flat fee. A truck that sits more pushes it toward a percentage. Ask one more question of any flat fee service, us included: how is a month billed when a truck stays parked the whole time? Get that answer in writing too. Ours is short: no setup fee, no minimum term, and a truck that stays parked the whole month is not billed for that month.

Check the dates before you sign, too. Prices on these pages change, and Truck Dispatch Experts says it last reviewed its rates on September 14, 2026 (its price page). FMCSA’s position on who pays a dispatch service dates from its guidance of June 16, 2023, and we found nothing newer (the guidance).

There are things we could not check. None of the three services says in public how it treats detention, layover or lumper money. Logity and Fleet.care do not say whether their percentage includes the fuel surcharge. And the “typical” range of 5% to 8% has no survey behind it that we could find. So ask, and keep the answers.

If you are still deciding whether to pay anyone at all, start with should you self-dispatch or hire a dispatcher. If you want to know where the loads come from in the first place, read how to find loads for your trucks. And if a flat monthly fee fits your numbers, here is what ours covers.