Freight Bidding
Freight Bidding
Use the best freight bidding site in the industry to bid on freight loads successfully.
When it comes to the best freight bidding sites, DAT stands above the competition. DAT not only has the most loads available (over 400 million posted each year), but it also provides the best tools to help you understand the going rate and bid with confidence.
- Use accurate market rates to bid on freight loads.
- Find your most profitable routes for smarter freight bidding.
- Determine where your services are in the highest demand.
Use accurate market rates to bid on freight loads.
Leverage accurate spot market data to understand the going rate and make intelligent freight bids.
When it comes to freight bidding — whether you’re looking to bid on small freight loads or large ones — it’s important that you know the going rate for similar loads. DAT offers a data-based solution with up-to-date, accurate data on market rates so you can make successful bids every time.
With your DAT subscription, you’ll be able to access average spot market rates for both 15-day and 30-day periods that are based on real data from invoices.
Find your most profitable routes for smarter freight bidding.
Identify the best routes to get the most out of each load and each freight bid.
Successful freight bidding is about more than just finding the best loads — it’s also about finding the best routes. That means finding the best-paying routes.
DAT can help you do just that with the help of market rate data on 68,000 routes and the TriHaul feature, which lets you understand the most efficient routes to your destination and shows you where you can pick up new freight along the way.
Determine where your services are in the highest demand.
Figure out where your services are most needed to boost your profit margins.
Maximizing your profit margins is about more than just finding some great freight. It’s also about figuring out where you can get paid the most for hauling that freight. The truth is, supply and demand can vary a lot between lanes and while your services may not be particularly necessary for some lanes, they may be sorely needed in other ones.
With DAT you can take the guesswork out of figuring out where your services are most needed. Get an updated view into truck activity — including where trucks are entering and leaving — to find the best freight bidding opportunities.
Successful freight bidding depends on having information about loads, market rates, and more. Before you can make a bid, you need to have a good understanding of each load’s criteria. For example, what seems like a great, high-paying load might actually be riddled with problems if it comes with a difficult broker or a long route.
Once you find the perfect load (which you can do most easily using a quality load board like DAT!), your best bet is to charge a price as close as possible to the market rate. That means knowing the current market rate. To help you do that, DAT’s load board offers market rate estimates based on actual invoice data (not bids or requests), so you can estimate as accurately as possible how much other truckers are charging for your lanes before you start your freight bidding.
Nowadays accessing freight broker bidding sites is simple. All you need is some kind of device and an internet connection. Back in the day — before the mobile phone — carriers used to call brokers and shippers to negotiate load rates using information picked up from truck stops and faxes. Now, all you have to do to bid on freight loads is access your supplier’s website or use their contact information from the load’s listing on your DAT load board. And you can submit your bid right from there!
It sure can! Finding the best freight to bid on is simple with the DAT load board. When you subscribe to a DAT load board, you’re not just signing up for the largest database of loads in the country (with over 400 million new loads posted each year) — you’re investing in a tool that’s designed to help you grow your business. That includes helping you find the best loads every time.
The truth is that finding the right loads requires lots of different considerations. These include the time it will take to deliver the load, the route you must take, the reliability of your broker, and more. Not only does DAT give you access to hundreds of thousands of new loads posted each business day, we also offer the market and demand insights you need to find the best load for your needs every time.
At DAT our top priority is accuracy when it comes to rate data. The fact is, while many load boards nowadays include some sort of rate tool, not all rates are created equal.
When you use freight rate data included with most DAT load board packages, you get rate data based only on actual transactions between carriers and load providers — not bids or asking prices, which can result in values that don’t actually reflect what was paid accurately. The rate data collection and analysis process is automated in real time so that the numbers you see on DAT reflect changes in the spot market as they happen.
DAT RateView is a great online tool that puts real-time freight rates you can trust at your fingertips. It gives you spot market rates based on $150 billion of actual transactions — what brokers and shippers are actually paying to carriers, not what they’re bidding or asking for.
Depending on the subscription you choose, DAT RateView lets you see:
- Real-time truckload rates on 68,000 lane pairs.
- Broker-to-carrier spot market AND shipper-to-carrier contract rates.
- Multi-lane lookup to help with bids and RFPs.
- 13-month lane rate histories.
- Rates as recent as the past 7 days.
- Origin/destination geographies as precise as a 3-digit ZIP code.
- And more!
Absolutely! For truckers, getting ahead of the competition requires good rate negotiation. If your rates are too high, cheaper competitors will swoop up your load matches. If your prices are too low, you’ll be paid less than you deserve. To operate a trucking business that’s sustainable and competitive, you need market rate data that will help you go into each and every negotiation prepared to get the best price possible without being out-bid or underpaid. By giving you accurate, up-to-date market rate data, DAT empowers you to go into each negotiation prepared to maximize your profit margin.
“The DAT Load Board is the only one I use, and I really don’t see any interest in trying any other one.”
- Brian Stone, Stone’s Trucking LLC
"DAT Load Board is awesome. They even teach you how to book a load and how to use it on your computer or cell phone app. Highly recommend DAT!"
- Francis Gatmaitan, Alpha Trucking
Strengthen your freight bidding with DAT!
When you use DAT for your freight bidding, you can get the accurate market rate data you need to bid on freight loads effectively. Choose from nearly 1 million loads posted each day using information on lane rates, demand, and more. Get started with DAT today!