Where do I find loads: load board, broker or shipper?

Chapter 01

What is the difference between a load board, a broker and a shipper?

The shipper owns the freight and needs it moved. A broker arranges for carriers to move that freight and keeps part of what the shipper pays. A load board is a website where brokers and some shippers post loads, and where you pay a monthly fee to see them. The board is not a party to your deal. When you book a load from a board, your deal is with whoever posted it, and that is who pays you. You, the carrier, need your own authority to haul any of it across State lines.

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you own one truck with a dry van trailer, and you drive it yourself. Your authority went active on Monday, March 2, 2026. The truck is fueled, insured and parked at home. The phone is quiet. Now you need loads, and every video and website tells you something different.

Start with the rule under all three. FMCSA is the federal agency for trucking. Federal law says a carrier may haul freight for pay across State lines only if it is registered with FMCSA (the federal law on registration). Most owners call this registration their authority, or their MC number. A truck run without the authority it needs is ordered out of service (the rule on operating authority). So no board, broker or shipper can lawfully give you interstate loads before your authority is active. If yours is still pending, read what you can prepare before your authority is active. This page starts on the day it goes live.

Next, the broker. The rules say a broker is paid to arrange freight for others. In their words, it “arranges, or offers to arrange, the transportation of property by an authorized motor carrier” (the rule that defines a broker). In plain words, the broker has the shipper, and you have the truck. The broker offers you the load at a rate below what the shipper pays and keeps the difference. A broker needs its own registration, separate from yours. It must also keep a $75,000 bond or trust fund on file with FMCSA. That money can pay carriers when the broker does not (the rule on broker bonds). You will meet that bond again later in this story.

Then the load board. Many owners search for “load board vs broker”, as if the two were choices of the same kind. They are not. In 2023, FMCSA looked at this in its guidance on who counts as a broker (FMCSA’s 2023 guidance). It found that “merely making information about potential shippers publicly available, regardless of whether a fee is charged, does not require an entity to obtain broker authority”. That holds as long as the board takes no part in the deal itself. In plain words, a board sells you a list. It does not arrange your load, and it does not pay you.

The boards are big lists. DAT says its network sees nearly 700,000 load posts a day (DAT’s August 2026 report). 123Loadboard describes itself as a marketplace for carriers, brokers and shippers (123Loadboard’s plans). When you book one of those loads, your deal and your pay come from the broker or shipper who posted it.

Last, the shipper. That is the company whose goods are on the trailer: a factory, a warehouse, a store chain, a farm. When you haul for a shipper directly, there is no one in the middle. You agree the price with the shipper, you bill the shipper, and the shipper pays you. Amazon is a shipper too. Its own load board, Amazon Relay, lets approved carriers book Amazon’s loads directly (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). It has its own rules, and how to qualify for Amazon Relay covers them.

Chapter 02

What do I need before they will give me a load?

You need active authority, insurance that meets each buyer’s rules, and a setup file with each broker or shipper. The federal minimum for liability cover on ordinary freight is $750,000 (the federal insurance table). The two large brokers we checked, and Amazon Relay, ask for $1,000,000 plus $100,000 of cargo cover. Each company also decides whether your authority is old enough and your safety record clean enough. A load board asks for little more than the monthly fee.

Start with insurance, because it is the first thing a broker checks. The federal rules set the floor. A truck rated over 10,000 pounds hauling ordinary freight across State lines for pay needs at least $750,000 of liability cover (the federal insurance table). Brokers set their own bar above it. TQL, a large national broker, lists “Minimum $1 million auto liability insurance” and “Minimum $100,000 cargo insurance policy” (TQL’s carrier FAQ). C.H. Robinson asks for the same two amounts (C.H. Robinson’s sign-up page). Amazon Relay asks for $1,000,000 of auto liability and at least $100,000 of cargo cover, among other policies (Amazon Relay’s FAQ).

So in February, before your authority went live, you raised your policy to those amounts. It cost more than the federal minimum would have. But at $750,000, the two brokers above could not have used you at all. Your insurance agent now sends a certificate of insurance to each broker who asks. That is a short paper that proves your cover and names the broker.

Then the setup. Before a broker gives you its first load, you fill in its carrier packet. That is a small file about your company. C.H. Robinson asks for “An active MC/MX# or DOT#”, an “Electronic W-9” and “Proof of insurance” (C.H. Robinson’s sign-up page). The W-9 is the IRS form with your tax number. TQL also wants a “Completed online Carrier Contract”, and it says “Approval takes about 48 hours” (TQL’s carrier FAQ). Every broker has its own packet, so you type the same facts again and again. Keep one folder with your authority letter, W-9, insurance certificate and bank details. You will send it dozens of times.

Now the harder part: age. Your authority is brand new, and some brokers and shippers want it older. There is no federal rule on this. Each company sets its own. C.H. Robinson says you can sign up “at anytime after receiving your MC number”. It also warns that “some customers require a 90-day minimum”, so the freight open to you is thinner at first (C.H. Robinson’s sign-up page). Its FAQ adds that your authority must be active for at least 7 days before it will consider you for loads (C.H. Robinson’s FAQ). Amazon Relay wants your authority active for at least 180 days (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). For you, day 90 falls on May 31, and day 180 on August 29. Many websites say all brokers want six months. We found no published standard behind that, only each company’s own rule. Which brokers take a new authority, and when, is in how to get loads with a new MC authority.

Brokers also look at your safety record. Your inspections, violations and crashes are public, and so are your insurance filings. A young carrier with a few bad inspections can be turned down even when its authority is old enough. Why brokers turn down a carrier over its safety record explains what they look at and how to fix it.

A load board is the easiest door. Most ask for the monthly fee and little else. Some check you first. Truckstop charges an application fee it does not refund, and it counts toward your first month “If approved” (Truckstop’s pricing page). The entry carrier plans at DAT, Truckstop and 123Loadboard cost from $35 to $59 a month. DAT’s top plan costs $339 (DAT’s plans, 123Loadboard’s plans). 123Loadboard gives a free trial of 10 days. Which board to pay for depends on your equipment and lanes. Our guide to the best load board for your truck and lanes compares them with real numbers.

Chapter 03

How far does a load board get me?

A load board gets you moving in the first week, and that is its real value. You can book the same day, with no relationship at all. The cost is that every load takes a fresh round of calls and negotiations. You call, you bargain, and you compete with every other truck that sees the same post. Rates follow the day’s market, and the empty miles to each pickup are yours to pay for. For a new authority, a board is a good start and a hard way to live.

On Monday, March 2, you start with DAT’s cheapest plan, at $59 a month. It shows each broker’s “average days to pay, credit scores and customer reviews” (DAT’s plans). You set your location and search for dry van loads within 100 miles. There are hundreds. You call the ones that pay best. On about half the calls, the load is already gone. On others, the broker asks how old your authority is and says no. By Friday you have made about 40 calls and booked three loads.

Say one of them pays $1,750 for 620 miles. That is about $2.82 a mile, and it looks great. But the pickup is 90 miles from where your last load ended. You drive those 90 miles empty, and nobody pays for them. Most owners call these empty miles deadhead. So the load really pays $1,750 for 710 miles, about $2.46 for every mile you drive. That is the number to judge a load by. Once you agree, the broker sends a rate confirmation. That is the short contract for this one load: the price, the dates, the pickup and delivery, and the terms.

Next, you need your own cost. Say you add up fuel, insurance, the truck payment, repairs, permits and a modest wage for yourself. It comes to $2.20 for every mile the truck moves, loaded or empty. We made that number up for this story, and how to work out your real cost per mile shows how to find yours. For comparison, ATRI, a trucking research group, put the 2025 average at $2.336 a mile, driver pay included (ATRI’s 2026 cost report). At your cost, the 710 miles cost $1,562. The load leaves you $188.

By the end of March, a typical week looks like this. You run 2,400 miles, and 400 of them are empty. The 2,000 loaded miles pay $2.70 on average, or $5,400. Spread over all 2,400 miles, that is $2.25 a mile. Your costs are $5,280. You keep $120 for the week, on top of the wage you already counted. And you spent about 15 hours on the phone.

Those rates are made up. For the real market, DAT reports that van loads on the spot market paid an average of $2.19 a mile in August 2026, before fuel. Fuel surcharges added about 70 cents more (DAT’s August 2026 report). The spot market is what you see on the boards. DAT says spot rates “are paid by freight brokers to carriers on a per-transaction basis”, which means load by load. That month, the van spot rate fell 20 cents, the steepest August drop DAT has on record. A board rate can move that much in one month.

Getting paid is the next surprise. The broker pays you, not the board, and on the broker’s terms. TQL’s standard terms are 28 days. For faster money, it pays in 7 days for 3% of the load, or in 1 day for 5% (TQL’s carrier FAQ). On your $1,750 load, 3% is $52.50. Brokers call this quick pay. C.H. Robinson’s quick pay costs 2% (C.H. Robinson’s FAQ). So in March, you haul for about four weeks before steady money comes in. Plan your fuel money for that gap.

The board’s broker data helps here. Before you book, look at the broker’s days to pay and credit score, and pass on a broker whose numbers look bad. 123Loadboard shows both from its $59 plan up (123Loadboard’s plans). Also check that the company name and MC number on the rate confirmation match the broker you called.

After six weeks, you know what the board is good for. It fills a truck on short notice, and it shows you what lanes pay. But you negotiate every load from scratch, 15 hours a week, and keep $120 a week for it. Some owners pay a dispatch service at this point to do the calling. That is a separate choice with its own math, and whether to hire a dispatch service or dispatch yourself works through it. You decide to try the brokers first.

Chapter 04

Can I get steady freight from brokers?

Yes, and it usually comes from the brokers you have already hauled for. A broker with a regular shipper needs trucks it can trust on the same lanes every week. Show up on time, answer the phone and send updates, and brokers start calling you. The rate on a regular lane may be lower than the best post on the board. You make it back with fewer empty miles and far less time selling. The risk is that nothing binds the broker to keep you.

Brokers say this out loud. C.H. Robinson runs a program for carriers that “commit to tracking success and the highest level of on-time pick-up and delivery”. Its top carriers get “access to the most freight along with better payment terms” (C.H. Robinson’s carrier program). In plain words, reliable trucks get the next load first.

So in April, you change how you work. You send the broker an update when you load, at midday and before you unload. You send the delivery papers the same day. When a load goes well, you ask the broker’s rep one question: “Do you have anything else on this lane?” By the end of April, two brokers call you before you call them. And on May 31, your authority turns 90 days old, so more of their customers open up (C.H. Robinson’s sign-up page).

In early June, one broker offers a regular load. Every Monday, a warehouse 30 miles from your home ships a trailer to a city 550 miles away. The broker offers $2.55 a mile, all in. That is lower than your best board loads. But the pickup is close to home, so you drive almost nothing empty to reach it. For the trip back, the second broker often has a load, and the board fills the rest.

Your week in June looks like this. You run the same 2,400 miles, but now only 250 are empty. The 2,150 loaded miles pay $2.62 on average, or $5,633. Over all 2,400 miles, that is about $2.35 a mile. After your $5,280 of costs, you keep $353 a week. And you spend about 7 hours on the phone, not 15. Your rate per loaded mile went down. The money you keep nearly tripled, because the empty miles and the hours went down more. These rates are made up too, and real ones swing month to month (DAT’s August 2026 report).

Steady is not the same as safe. Unless you sign something that promises volume, a regular lane is a habit, not a contract. The broker can drop it when its shipper leaves or finds a cheaper truck. You may hear about it on a Friday. So keep your board account active and stay in touch with a few other brokers.

Pay is the other risk. Your money still comes from the broker, weeks later. The broker’s $75,000 bond can pay carriers “if the broker fails to carry out its contracts” (the rule on broker bonds). That rule changed on January 16, 2026. Now, when payments drop a broker’s bond below $75,000, FMCSA gives the broker 7 business days to fix it before its authority is suspended. But $75,000 is the whole bond, for every carrier and shipper that broker owes. When a large broker fails, it may not cover everyone. So the days to pay on the board still matter more than the bond.

One more trap sits in the broker’s contract. The Monday load goes to a big distributor. After a few weeks, you know its shipping manager by name. It is tempting to offer the lane to that company yourself, for more money. Read your broker contract first, because broker contracts often forbid it. One broker’s published agreement shows how this reads. The carrier “shall not directly or indirectly, solicit” the broker’s customers without written consent. That holds during the agreement “and for a period of one year after the termination” of it. Brokers call this back solicitation. Break it, and you break your contract with that broker. Direct shippers are worth chasing. Chase the ones you find yourself.

Chapter 05

Is it worth going straight to shippers?

It can be, with the right shipper, but it is the slowest road and it takes the most effort to win customers. A shipper pays you with no broker in the middle, and a good one gives you the same loads every week. In return, you find it, win it and keep it yourself. You bill it, and you wait for your pay on its terms, with no bond behind it. And one shipper’s loads often run one way, so you still need freight for the trip back.

In July, you try it. You pick a company you found yourself: a flooring distributor 20 miles from home. It ships to its stores in two nearby States. You call and ask who books the trucks. It is the shipping manager. You send a short email with your MC number, your insurance certificate, your truck type and the lanes you run. A week later you stop by with the same papers. She tells you they use two brokers and one carrier. She asks for your price on their busiest lane: two loads a week to a store 450 miles away.

How much to ask? Nobody publishes a reliable figure for how much more direct freight pays. Some websites promise a set premium per mile over board freight. We found no measured source behind any such number, so we do not repeat one. The best public signal is DAT’s contract rate. DAT says contract rates are “negotiated prices paid by shippers to asset-based carriers and freight brokers”. In August 2026 the van contract rate averaged $2.41 a mile before fuel, against $2.19 on the spot market. In July, the two were “roughly even” (DAT’s August 2026 report). So a shipper’s rate can beat the board, and in a hot month it may not.

You quote $2.80 a mile, all in. They ask for one trial load, and it goes well. In early August, they sign you up. Their packet asks for your insurance certificate, a W-9 and a signed transportation agreement. Federal law asks something of you here too. For each agreement to haul freight, a carrier must “specify, in writing, the authority under which” it does the work (the federal law on registration). In plain words, your MC number goes into the agreement. Their agreement also sets the pay terms: 45 days after they receive your invoice. We made that up for this story, because each shipper sets its own.

Now the money. The shipper gives you two loads a week, 450 miles each, at $2.80. That is 900 loaded miles and $2,520. But the loads all go one way. Say you drove home empty each time. You would run 1,800 miles, half of them empty, for $2,520. At your $2.20 a mile, that week costs $3,960, so you would lose $1,440. A shipper’s lane pays only when you fill the trip back. That is why the brokers from June still matter.

Payment works differently too. You bill the shipper yourself, and you chase the money yourself. With terms of 45 days, about six weeks of this shipper’s pay is always owed to you, some $15,000. And there is no $75,000 bond behind a shipper. That bond is a broker’s bond (the rule on broker bonds). If a shipper stops paying, you are one more company it owes. Before you sign, ask for two other carriers or suppliers it pays, and call them.

Could a dispatch service do this selling for you? Under FMCSA’s guidance, not without broker authority. The guidance lists signs that a dispatch service needs broker authority. The first is that it “interacts with or negotiates any shipment of freight directly with the shipper, or a representative of the shipper” (FMCSA’s 2023 guidance). A dispatch service that stays outside broker work “goes through a broker” and “does not seek or solicit shippers for freight”. The guidance is not a rule itself, but it shows how FMCSA reads the rules. So a dispatcher working as your agent books through brokers. Getting loads directly from shippers stays your job. That goes for our own dispatch service too.

Chapter 06

What mix keeps my truck full and paid?

For one truck or a few, the mix that usually works has three layers. A shipper or a regular broker lane carries the main run. Brokers you know bring the truck home. The load board fills the gaps and keeps you in touch with what loads pay (DAT’s plans). No layer is safe alone, so keep all three alive. Judge the mix by what you keep for every mile the truck drives, and by how long you wait to be paid.

By September, your week has settled. The flooring distributor gives you two loads out: 900 loaded miles at $2.80, or $2,520. Your two brokers give you two loads back: 900 miles at $2.55, or $2,295. The board fills one gap: 350 miles at $2.70, or $945. You drive 250 miles empty. That is 2,400 miles and $5,760, or $2.40 for every mile. After your $5,280 of costs, you keep $480 a week. You spend about 8 hours a week selling, on broker calls, the board and a monthly visit to the shipper.

Here are your weeks side by side. The rates and hours are made up for this story. For real rates, compare DAT’s August 2026 report.

The mix wins, but not because one source pays best. It wins because each source covers another’s weak spot. The shipper gives you a steady run at a good rate. The brokers fill the trip home. The board catches the week a load falls through, and it gives you a current view of freight rates. The waits for pay balance out too. Broker loads pay in about four weeks and the shipper in about six. Quick pay is there when you need cash, at a price (TQL’s carrier FAQ).

Watch how much of your week one customer gives you. In September, the shipper pays $2,520 of your $5,760, or 44%. If it left, you would lose nearly half your weekly revenue. So keep your brokers happy even when the shipper keeps you busy. And keep the board even in a good month. It costs $59 a month, and it is how you replace a lost lane in a day (DAT’s plans).

Your authority passed 180 days on August 29. Now Amazon Relay is open to you, if your safety record and insurance meet its rules. Amazon pays weekly: work done by Saturday night “will be paid out the following week on Friday” (Amazon Relay’s FAQ). That is fast money next to 28 or 45 days. It is one more source for the mix, not a replacement for it. How to qualify for Amazon Relay covers the rules.

What has changed lately? Van spot rates fell 20 cents a mile in August 2026, the steepest August drop DAT has on record. They were still more than 30% above August 2025 (DAT’s August 2026 report). So a price you quoted in spring may be wrong by autumn. Before you quote a shipper, check what the lane pays on the board now. Since January 16, 2026, a broker whose bond falls short faces suspension within days (the rule on broker bonds). And FMCSA’s 2023 guidance still stands. A board is not a broker, and a dispatch service without broker authority keeps away from shippers (FMCSA’s 2023 guidance).

Some advice you will hear is wrong. You cannot haul interstate loads without active authority, whatever a video says. No public source proves that direct freight pays a set amount more. And “all brokers want six months” is not a rule, because each broker and shipper sets its own. There are also things we could not check. We read the rules of a few large brokers, not all of them. We read one broker contract with a back solicitation clause, so we cannot say how common the clause is. And we found no source on how most shippers set their pay terms. Ask each company, and get the answer in writing.

The plan for next week is simple. Write down your own cost per mile. Keep one board for the gaps. Ask the brokers you haul for well about regular lanes. And pick one shipper near home to visit this month. Some owners also hand the calling to a dispatch service. Ours is $799 per active truck per month, about $184 a week. In your March weeks, that would have cost more than the $120 you kept. It pays off only if it lifts your rates or cuts your empty miles, and nobody can promise that. If your hours are worth more to you than that, here is what we offer.