Most rate calls are lost before they start, because the carrier doesn't know their numbers and the broker does. This counter-offer calculator gives you three figures to hold: the rate where you stop making money, the rate you want, and the number to open with.
How it is calculated
- Total miles = loaded miles + deadhead to the pickup.
- Cost = your cost per mile × total miles + tolls and extras.
- Walk-away = cost, grossed up for a dispatch fee if you pay one (cost ÷ (1 − fee)), rounded up to $25.
- Target = (cost + your margin per mile × total miles), grossed up the same way, rounded up to $25.
- Opening counter = target × (1 + room to negotiate), rounded up to $25.
Grossing up matters: a percentage fee comes out of the rate, so a rate that just covers costs before the fee loses money after it.
A worked example
- $1.90 × 680 mi
- $1,292 cost
- Walk-away after a 5% fee
- $1,375
- Plus $0.40/mi margin
- $1,650 target
- Broker's offer
- $1,500
The offer is $150 under target but above break-even. Open at $1,800, explain the 80 empty miles to the pickup, and settle no lower than $1,650 if you can. Below $1,375, walk.
How to negotiate freight rates on the phone
- Ask before you quote. Pickup and delivery times, weight, commodity, stops, detention terms.
- Open with your number, not a question. "I can do it for $1,800."
- Give one reason. Deadhead, a tight appointment, a slow lane out of the delivery city.
- Come down once, in a round step, and stop at your target.
- Get every term on the rate con before you agree, including detention and TONU.
Negotiating shipping rates is easier when you know the lane. Compare offers per mile with the rate per mile calculator, and see what a dispatcher adds with the dispatcher fee calculator. Port and rail moves price differently: see drayage rates and intermodal freight rates. What our dispatch costs is on dispatch cost.
Results are estimates from your numbers, not a market rate.