Is a truck dispatcher worth it? Cost and savings

1. 01Your time: a normal week's hours on load boards, broker calls, rate confirmations and paperwork, times what an hour of your time is worth.
2. 02Downtime: the idle days a month you think a dispatcher could save you, times what one working day earns the truck. Unless you enter your own, that is your weekly gross divided by 5 working days, gross before costs. A month is 52 ÷ 12 weeks, so a month's figure times 12, divided by 52, is a week's.
3. 03Deadhead: the empty miles a week you think a dispatcher could save you, times what a mile costs to run, $2.336 (ATRI, 2026 Operational Costs of Trucking).
4. 04Better-paying loads: your own estimate of the extra a week, if you have one. Left blank, it counts as $0.
5. 05Add the four: that is what hiring could save you a week. The fee is the percentage in the dispatcher's agreement times your weekly gross.
6. 06Put the two side by side, a week and a year (52 weeks). The larger side comes out ahead at these numbers, not as a promise.

Even if you pay a dispatcher, for example, 5% to 7% of gross, or a flat $300 to $500 a week, it can be worth it: one bad load, unpaid detention, empty deadhead run or short pay avoided, and the better loads found, can come to more than that. To compare a flat weekly fee here, divide it by your weekly gross: an example $300 on a $6,000 week is 5%. Example figures, not our price. No revenue or savings guarantee: results vary with markets, your costs, equipment, drivers and brokers.

• The savings are your own estimates. Nothing on this page says what a dispatcher will save you: results vary with markets, your costs, equipment, drivers and brokers.
• A day's earnings is gross, before costs, so fuel and running costs on those days are not taken off. Enter your own figure for a day if you prefer to count it after costs.
• You do not get every hour back: you still answer questions, approve loads and sign paperwork. Read what the fee covers, and keep your FMCSA and bank logins to yourself.