Built for Courier owners.
Grounded in real Courier business owners. No generic web guessing. Honest when the library does not cover your question.
What Courier owners ask about
Pricing your work
How to price jobs, raise rates without losing customers, and stop underbidding.
Hiring and firing
When to hire your first employee, how to spot the wrong one fast, and what to pay.
Handling customers
Tough calls, refund requests, reviews, and the customers worth firing.
Local marketing
What actually drives calls in your zip code. Less guesswork than Google says.
Cash flow
Reading your numbers without an MBA. Knowing when you can actually breathe.
Daily decisions
The stuff a coach charges $500/hr for. Available at 6 AM before the first job.
How the money works in courier
What actually decides your year
Small packages, tight windows, and vehicle cost per mile. Recurring commercial routes beat on-demand work for margin stability.
- What the customer is buying
- one loaded mile, one run
- Business model
- Freight and per-mile work
- Your hard ceiling
- Legal driving hours and how many of your miles are loaded.
Cost per mile is the whole business, and most operators do not know theirs. Deadhead miles, detention, and fuel swings decide whether a good rate was actually good. Revenue per truck per week beats revenue per load, because the truck has to keep moving to earn.
Run the numbers
Your true cost per mile
One truck, one month, everything counted.
| Fixed: payment, insurance, permits | $4,100/mo |
|---|---|
| Variable: fuel, tires, maintenance | $0.62/mile |
| Driver pay | $0.60/mile |
| Miles run | 9,500 |
| Deadhead percentage | 14% |
$4,100 ÷ 9,500 = $0.43 fixed + $0.62 + $0.60 = $1.65/mile → adjusted for 14% deadhead ≈ $1.92 per loaded mile
A $2.05 load is a 7 percent margin, not a good week. Knowing this number is what lets you turn down freight without guessing.
Figures are illustrative benchmarks to show the method, not a quote or a promise. Put your own numbers in the same structure - that is the point.
Numbers to watch
The five numbers that tell you the truth
If you only track revenue, you find out about a bad quarter after it is over. These are leading indicators.
Cost per mile (all-in)
Recalculate quarterly
Every rate decision depends on it.
Loaded vs deadhead percentage
Deadhead under 10%
Empty miles cost the same as full ones.
Revenue per truck per week
Set a floor
Rate per mile alone can flatter a slow week.
Detention billed vs incurred
Bill it every time
Free waiting is free labor plus lost miles.
Days to get paid
Under 30 without factoring
Cash timing kills more carriers than rates do.
Where the money leaks
Common profit leaks in courier
None of these show up as a line item. They show up as a busy year with nothing left at the end of it.
01
Not knowing cost per mile
Every load you take is a guess until you do this math once.
02
Deadheading to a familiar lane
Comfort costs real money. Plan the return before you accept the outbound.
03
Unbilled detention
Track in and out times, put it in the rate confirmation, invoice it without apology.
04
Deferred maintenance
A roadside failure costs the repair plus the load plus the reputation.
05
Factoring everything forever
Factoring is fine to start and expensive to keep. Move your best-paying customers to direct terms.
First 90 days
A plan you could start Monday
Three windows, in order. Do not skip the first one - you cannot fix a number you have never measured.
Days 1-30
Do the math
- Compute all-in cost per mile from the last 90 days of real numbers.
- Measure deadhead percentage per truck.
- Set a rate floor and write it on the wall.
Days 31-60
Get paid for everything
- Add detention and layover terms to every rate confirmation.
- Bill accessorials every time, no exceptions.
- Tighten invoicing to same-day with paperwork attached.
Days 61-90
Improve the lanes
- Identify your three best lanes by revenue per truck-week.
- Pursue two direct shippers in those lanes.
- Set a preventive maintenance schedule and hold it.
Hiring ladder
Who to hire, and when
Hire on a trigger, not on a feeling.
Dispatcher (or a real TMS)
Two or more trucks
Deadhead is a planning problem before it is a driver problem.
Second driver
You are turning down loads in your best lane
Only with a lane that supports it, not with hope.
Back office / billing
Invoices go out later than 24 hours
Slow paperwork is slow cash.
Safety / compliance
5+ trucks or a DOT audit
Cheaper than the fine and far cheaper than a shutdown.
Say it out loud
Turning down a cheap load without burning the broker
Broker offers below your floor on a lane you like.
"I can't do $1.78 on that one - my all-in cost is $1.92 a mile."
"I can run it at $2.35 and I'll be on time, every time."
"If you're stuck today I understand. Keep me in mind on that lane - I'd rather be your reliable truck than your cheap one."
Seasonality
Produce season, retail peak, and winter weather swing rates hard. Build a floor and a cash cushion in the strong months so you can say no in the weak ones.
FAQ
Common questions from Courier owners
- Is Ask a Shop Owner actually built for Courier businesses?
- Yes. Ask a Shop Owner is grounded in a curated library of real business owner experience that includes Courier owners and adjacent trades. It will tell you when a question is outside what the library covers.
- How is this different from asking ChatGPT about my Courier shop?
- ChatGPT pulls from the generic web and guesses confidently. Ask a Shop Owner only answers from a vetted library of real shop owners and refuses when the library does not cover it.
- Do I need to be technical to use it?
- No. You ask a question the way you would ask a friend at the bar. Plain English. Answers cite who they are pulled from.
- What does it cost?
- There is a free tier to try it. See the pricing page for current plans.
Ready to stop guessing?
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