Ask ten owner-operators what they run for and you will get ten numbers that are not comparable. One is quoting linehaul. One is quoting all-in with fuel surcharge. One is quoting what the broker posted before he negotiated. They are all telling the truth and none of them are describing the same thing.
Three numbers, and only one of them is your rate
Linehaul is what you are paid to move the freight. It is the number that reflects the market’s opinion of your lane today, and it is the number a dispatch fee should be calculated on.
Fuel surcharge is reimbursement. It exists to shift diesel price risk off the carrier, and it moves with the price at the pump rather than with the value of the freight. It is not earnings in any meaningful sense — you spent it before you were paid it.
All-in is the two added together. It is the biggest number, which is why it is the one people quote.
As of week ending 14 August 2026, DAT Freight & Analytics put national dry van linehaul at about $2.28 a mile and the all-in figure around $2.93. That is a difference of roughly $0.65 a mile. On a 2,500-mile week that is over sixteen hundred dollars of the same money being described two different ways.
Why this matters when you compare dispatchers
A dispatcher charging 5% of all-in and a dispatcher charging 6% of linehaul are not one percentage point apart. Run it: on a 1,000-mile dry van load at those national numbers, all-in pays about $2,930 and linehaul is about $2,280. Five percent of all-in is roughly $147. Six percent of linehaul is roughly $137. The lower headline percentage costs more.
That is not a trick anyone is hiding. It is just a comparison almost nobody performs, because the headline numbers look close and the fee base is buried. Ask any dispatcher you are considering one question: what exactly is your percentage calculated on? The answer is more informative than the percentage.
Where the national average is useful, and where it is not
National averages are a floor to argue from, not a target to hit. They blend every lane in the country, including the ones nobody wants. A headhaul out of a strong market should beat the national number comfortably. A backhaul out of a soft one may not, and that is sometimes still the right load to take if it repositions you.
Where averages genuinely help is in the negotiation itself. When a broker offers you $1.90 on a dry van lane and the national linehaul average is $2.28, you are not haggling — you are pointing at a published number and asking them to explain the gap. That is a different conversation and brokers respond to it differently.
The spread between equipment types
At the same reporting point, reefer linehaul was around $2.75 and flatbed around $2.79, against dry van at $2.28. Those gaps are real but they are not free money. Reefer carries fuel for the unit, washouts, and rejection risk. Flatbed carries tarping, securement time, and thinner backhauls. Compare equipment on what lands in your account after those costs, not on the headline rate.
The number that actually matters
Your cost per mile. Not the market’s, not the average carrier’s — yours, including the truck payment, insurance, maintenance reserve, and your own pay. Until you know it, no rate is good or bad, it is just a number. Once you know it, you can look at an offer and answer in three seconds, and brokers can hear that confidence over the phone.
We keep the published averages on the front page for exactly this reason, with the date and the source on them. If they go stale, that is our fault and you should tell us.