Reduce deadhead miles by planning the next load before you're empty
Deadhead is the discount nobody prints on a posting. A $1,300 load for 500 miles looks like $2.60 a mile. Drive 150 miles empty to get to it and you're really earning $2.00 for every mile you put on the truck. Fuel, tires and your hours don't care whether the trailer was full.
The cheapest way to reduce deadhead miles isn't a better load board. It's timing. Find the next load while you're still loaded, close to where you'll deliver, instead of starting the search empty at the receiver. That's how our desk plans every truck.
- Reloads planned before delivery
- You approve every load
- 5% of gross
- No setup fee
Drag the empty miles and watch the rate fall
Here's an EXAMPLE load: $1,300 for 500 loaded miles. Slide the empty miles to the pickup and watch the all-in rate on the left card drop. The right card shows the same load with a planned reload close to the last delivery.
The rate didn't change between the two cards. The broker paid the same. What changed is how many miles you drove to earn it. On a single load, the difference looks like a few dozen cents per mile. Over a month of loads, it's often the difference between a good month and a thin one.
Put a dollar figure on your own empty miles with the deadhead miles cost calculator. It uses your cost per mile to show what each empty mile actually costs you.
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How we plan reloads: before delivery, not after
Most deadhead happens because the search for the next load starts after the last one is done. By then you're empty, the good loads near the receiver are covered, and the choice is between waiting and driving. Our desk turns that around.
- While you're loaded, we search near the delivery. The moment you're rolling, we start on what's moving out of that area on your lanes.
- We look at the market before we book the first load. A load into a market with little outbound freight costs you on the next one. We price the pair, not just the load in front of you.
- We counter the reload with your position in mind. Being 20 miles away when a broker needs a truck is a strong position. We use it in the counter.
- When nothing's close, we compare options. Wait a few hours, drive empty to a stronger market, or take a short, cheaper load that ends somewhere better. You get the numbers for each.
- We track it. Your weekly report shows empty miles next to loaded miles, so you can see the trend.
When a cheap load beats an empty drive
Sometimes the best reload pays less than you'd like. That doesn't automatically make it a bad load. A low-paying load that goes where you were going to drive empty anyway turns dead miles into paid ones.
EXAMPLE: you're empty in a slow market and need to get 250 miles toward home. Option one: deadhead home and look for freight there. Option two: take a $500 load going the same way. Option two doesn't beat your floor on its own, but it pays $500 for miles you were going to drive for nothing. Our guide on cheap loads to reposition walks through when that's smart and when it's a trap.
Backhauls work the same way on a bigger scale: the load home from a market where you dropped. Our guide to backhaul trucking explains how to price them and why they're often cheaper than headhaul freight.
How much deadhead is normal?
There's no single right number. It depends on your equipment, your lanes, how dense your region's freight is and how much home time you want. Specialized trucks often deadhead more because their loads are thinner. A van running busy lanes can often keep it low. What matters is that you know your own number and watch it.
Our guide on what deadhead means in trucking explains how to measure it and how to price it into every counter. When you work with our desk, empty miles are part of every rate we bring you, so you always see the all-in number, not just the posted one.
Every reload still comes to you first
Planning the reload early doesn't mean booking it without you. The next load comes to you while you're still on the current one, with the pickup distance, rate, stops and terms. You say yes or no. Once you say yes, the broker sends you the rate confirmation.
If you say no, we keep looking, and you'll see the next option before you're empty. The goal is that by the time you deliver, you already know where you're going next.
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Deadhead and home time
The longest empty run of the week is often the drive home. Planning the last load of a run so it ends near home, even at a slightly lower rate, often beats a better load that leaves you 400 miles out on a Friday. We plan backward from your home date for exactly that reason.
What it costs
5% of the gross on loads you haul for one truck with authority 6 months or older, 7% for an MC under 6 months, 26 ft box trucks and hotshots, 4% for two or more trucks while the fleet rate lasts. No fee on empty miles, and no fee in a week you don't haul.
No setup fee, no minimum, month-to-month. The fee breakdown has the full math.
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Why widening your search radius isn't the same as planning
When the board is empty near the delivery, the quick fix is to widen the deadhead radius from 50 miles to 150 and see what appears. Sometimes that finds a good load. Often it finds a load that only looks good because the posting doesn't count the extra 140 empty miles you just agreed to drive.
The better approach is to price the radius. Every mile you widen the search is a mile you'll drive empty, so the rate on a farther load has to be higher to come out even. EXAMPLE: a $1,300 load 30 miles away for 500 loaded miles is $2.45 all-in. To match that from 150 miles away, the load would need to pay about $1,590.
That's the comparison we run before we counter a farther load. If it doesn't beat the closer option on all-in money, it doesn't reach you, however good it looked on the board.
Deadhead planning questions
What is deadhead in trucking?
How much does deadhead cost per mile?
How much deadhead is normal?
Should I take a cheap load to avoid deadhead?
See what fewer empty miles keep.
Example week at 5% of gross. Your tier may differ.
Cut my empty miles| Gross (EXAMPLE) | $4,000 |
|---|---|
| Fee 5% | $200 |
| You keep | $3,800 |
| No haul | $0 fee |