Loaded miles, off a guide
The distance in the rate is the one the mileage guide gives between two ZIP codes. It is not the route the driver takes, so detours, closures and a bad bridge do not add miles to your bill. They come back later as time.
Mode pricing
Truckload shipping cost: the unit of sale is a mile
Ask two carriers what a shipment costs and you can tell which mode you are in from the shape of the answer. LTL comes back in dollars per hundred pounds against a class. Truckload comes back in a rate per mile, because what you are renting is a driver, a tractor and a fixed budget of legal hours. Below is what that number contains, which parts are federal, and why the same lane reprices from one week to the next.
Tariff items citedFederal limits quotedRead 2026-07-29
Distance, hours, fuel
Three inputs set a truckload rate, and a shipper controls exactly one of them.
Two tariffs, two units of sale
A hundredweight rate exists because a shared trailer has to be divided fairly between people who have never met. Buy the whole trailer and there is nothing left to divide, so the carrier goes back to selling what it actually owns: a driver, a tractor and a set of hours pointed at a distance. The switch is written into the same rules tariff that governs the LTL side, and you can read the exact point at which it happens.
| Rule | What it says | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| What still counts as LTL | Freight weighing under 20,000 lb and loaded to no more than 20 linear feet of deck | Item 110, definition 8 |
| What ends LTL pricing | A trailer loaded to capacity, whether by the shape of the freight, by a state weight restriction, or simply by filling the deck so nothing else fits | Item 390, Note A |
| What replaces it | A floor under the shipment built from the miles between the origin and destination ZIP codes, read off a published mileage guide rather than off a scale | Item 390, paragraph A, using Zip Code Mileage Guide HGB 105 |
| Asking for it on purpose | Mark the bill of lading tendered as a truckload and the truckload rate applies at the actual or the minimum weight, whichever is greater, and will not drop back to the LTL rate | Item 883 |
The third row is the one to sit with. Even inside a less-than-truckload tariff, the moment a trailer is full the carrier stops counting pounds and starts counting miles off a distance table. That is the whole difference in one sentence, and it explains why a truckload quote is stable against weight and violently sensitive to geography, while an LTL quote behaves the other way around.
What a shipper-side per-mile rate is paying for
The driver's clock
A property-carrying driver may drive at most 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, may not drive past the 14th consecutive hour of the duty period, needs a 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving, and stops at 60 or 70 on-duty hours in 7 or 8 days until a 34-hour restart. Those limits are the FMCSA summary at fmcsa.dot.gov, page last updated March 28, 2022, read 2026-07-29.
Time at your dock
Detention on a truckload rate attaches to any move carrying a stated minimum weight of 20,000 lb or more, and a tractor dispatched for a load that never gets tendered is billed per day per vehicle. Those are items 500 and 985 of the same tariff.
Nothing in that list is negotiable in the sense people hope. Hours are federal, distance comes off a published table, and the only real variable a shipper controls is how long the truck sits still at either end. A load that ties up a driver for a morning has spent part of a fixed daily budget of hours that the carrier cannot get back, which is why a cheap lane with a slow dock is not a cheap lane.
Why the number moves from one week to the next
Two things reprice a truckload lane on a weekly cycle, and neither of them is a negotiation.
The fuel line is set on a Monday
Fuel does not sit inside the mile. It is a separate percentage applied to the net charges, and the percentage is read off an index rather than off a pump. The R+L tariff, item 563, sets its surcharge from the national average fuel index published by the Department of Energy, states that the index is announced each Monday and that the surcharge is adjusted the following Wednesday, and publishes separate scales for less-than-truckload and full truckload. The underlying survey is the weekly on-highway diesel price collection at eia.gov, read 2026-07-29, which showed a release dated July 28, 2026 with the next one due August 4, 2026, covering five regional groupings plus California on its own. One Monday reading therefore reprices every mile bought that week before anybody picks up a phone.
Deadhead is an item number, not a metaphor
A truck has to get to you empty, and somebody pays for that. The same tariff prices it directly: when a shipper asks a truck to run more than 50 miles empty to reach the loading origin, item 499 applies a charge for each deadhead mile plus the fuel surcharge on top. Fifty miles is the tolerance. Past it, the empty leg is billed like a loaded one, which is the clearest published statement anywhere of why an origin off the beaten track quotes badly.
Lane balance decides who is desperate
Freight does not flow evenly in both directions. A carrier with plenty of loads heading into a region and few heading out will price the outbound cheaply, because a partly paid backhaul beats an empty one, and will price the inbound leg to cover both. That imbalance shifts with harvests, retail restocking, weather and plant shutdowns, so the same origin and destination pair can quote differently in consecutive weeks with no change to your freight at all. When a rate jumps and nothing about the load changed, the honest answer is usually that the trucks moved, not that somebody decided to charge you more.
What we sell here, stated plainly
SMKlog sells United States domestic parcel labels directly from the calculator on this site, with no account and no contract. Pallet, less-than-truckload and truckload requests go to a person who prices them against carrier tariffs and comes back to you. We own no tractors, no trailers and no terminals, and this page carries no rate because a truckload number that was not built for your lane, your dates and your commodity is worth nothing to you.
Bring these to the conversation and the answer arrives the same day: origin and destination ZIP codes, the pickup date and the window either end can work with, what the commodity is, total weight, pallet or piece count with dimensions, whether there is a dock and a forklift at each end, and whether the receiver requires an appointment.
Truckload pricing: common questions
Why is truckload priced per mile when LTL is priced per hundredweight?
Because of what is being sold. LTL divides one trailer between strangers, so it needs a fair way to split the cost, and weight against class is that way. A dedicated trailer has nothing to split, so the carrier charges for the thing it is actually giving up: a truck and a driver moving a distance.
What is deadhead, and does it appear on my bill?
Deadhead is the empty running a truck does to reach your loading point. Carriers publish a tolerance and charge past it. One national rules tariff read on 2026-07-29 sets that tolerance at 50 miles and bills each further empty mile plus fuel.
How often does a truckload rate change?
The fuel component changes weekly on a published schedule, and the market rate for the lane can change with it. The tariff we read sets its surcharge from a national index announced each Monday and applied the following Wednesday.
Can I get a truckload price from the calculator on this site?
No. The calculator prices United States domestic parcel shipments and sells those labels directly. Truckload, partial truckload and pallet moves go through a review where a person builds the quote against carrier tariffs.
What does a carrier need before it can quote a truckload?
Origin and destination ZIP codes, the pickup date and the window each end can work, what the commodity is, total weight, piece or pallet count with dimensions, whether there is a dock and a forklift at both ends, and whether the receiver requires an appointment.