A 53-foot semi-truck on a California interstate highway in a convoy with other trucks
Truckload Desk · Same-day cover

Full Truckload.
One truck. One driver.
One chain of custody.

The fastest, lowest-damage way to move 10+ pallets across North America. Dedicated 53′ trailer, single driver end-to-end, lane-priced quotes from a vetted 50,000-truck carrier pool.

Estimate my laneGet a real quote
50,000+
Vetted carriers
<2 hr
Avg cover time
99.4%
On-time delivery
45,000 lb
Max payload
What is FTL?

A truck booked for your shipment alone.

The opposite of LTL. The fastest, most secure way to move bulk freight on the road.

Full Truckload (FTL)means an entire 53-foot trailer is booked exclusively for your shipment. There’s no co-loading with other shippers, no terminal stops, no third-party handling — the freight is loaded at your dock, the trailer is sealed, the driver runs direct to the destination, and the trailer is opened by the consignee.

Most freight networks split FTL into three buckets: contract FTL (annual rates locked in for high-volume lanes), spot FTL (market-rate one-off bookings), and dedicated FTL (a truck that runs your lanes every day on a private rate). Qeep handles all three, with a 24/7 desk and same-day cover on most North American lanes.

Long-haul semi-truck on a North American interstate at sunset
A 53′ dry van — the backbone of North American freight, the most common rig on the road.

When does FTL beat LTL?

The break-even is typically around 6–8 pallets. Below that, LTL is usually cheaper because you only pay for the trailer space you use. Above that, LTL accessorials (liftgate, residential, inside delivery, reweigh fees) add up fast — and FTL becomes both cheaper and faster. Time-sensitive, fragile, or high-value freight is almost always better on FTL regardless of pallet count, because cargo never leaves the trailer until it reaches your dock.

How is FTL priced?

FTL is priced per-mile based on the lane’s current market rate (tracked daily via DAT and Greenscreens indexes), plus a fuel surcharge tied to the EIA national diesel average, plus deadhead miles the driver must travel empty to your pickup. Accessorials — detention after 2 free hours, lumper fees, layover, driver-assist — are passed through with no margin. There’s no mystery in an FTL invoice.

Interactive estimate

Estimate your lane in 30 seconds.

Pick equipment, origin, destination, and cargo weight. Get a directional lane price + transit estimate. Then click through to get a real, lane-specific quote from our desk.

Equipment
35,000 lb
5,000 lb45,000 lb max
Estimates use lane miles + market RPM + FSC. Real quotes account for fuel index, deadhead, accessorials, equipment availability and season.
Estimated lane price
$2,100
USD all-in, per shipment
Lane miles700 mi
Rate per mile (RPM)$3.00
Transit (HOS)2 days
Get the real quote
Equipment

Three trailer specs.
Same dispatch desk.

53′ trailer
Equipment

53′ Dry Van

The North American freight standard. Most common trailer on the road, widest carrier pool, deepest capacity.

Pallet positions
26 standard or 30 pinwheeled
Max payload
45,000 lb
Interior length
636″ (53′ 0″)
Interior width
100″ (8′ 4″)
Interior height
110″ (9′ 2″)
Best for

General dry freight, palletized goods, packaged consumer products, long-haul moves

Cinematic long-exposure shot of an American semi-truck on a US interstate at twilight
Coast to coast

From Long Beach to the Port of New York.
Every American interstate, every day.

48 contiguous states plus daily Canada and Mexico cross-border. The largest vetted carrier pool in North America at your dispatch desk.

The FTL lifecycle

From quote to POD,
in five clean steps.

  1. Logistics dispatcher reviewing lane rates on a desktop monitor
    01

    Quote in minutes

    Live lane rate from DAT/Greenscreens market intel plus our contract rates. Quote within 10 minutes during business hours.

  2. Professional fleet of semi-trucks parked at a North American carrier yard
    02

    Tender to vetted carrier

    We dispatch from our 50,000-truck pool. FMCSA Authority, CVOR, insurance and safety scores rechecked every booking.

  3. Aerial view of trucks docked at a modern distribution center
    03

    Pickup + confirmation

    Driver arrives with BOL, signed pickup confirmation pushed to your account, GPS tracking activates immediately.

  4. Semi-truck on a US interstate at dusk with motion blur
    04

    Live in-transit visibility

    Hourly GPS pings, milestone events, exception alerts if the truck stops unexpectedly. You always know where the freight is.

  5. Forklift loading freight into a modern distribution warehouse
    05

    Delivery + POD same-day

    Signed POD imaged and pushed within 4 hours of delivery. Detention timer auto-tracks if the dock holds the driver.

FTL vs LTL

When each mode wins.

Pick FTL when

Full Truckload

  • 10+ pallets or 15,000+ lb
  • Fragile, high-value or hazmat
  • Time-sensitive (no terminal layovers)
  • Dedicated chain of custody required
  • Cross-border under one bill of lading
Estimate FTL
Pick LTL when

Less-than-Truckload

  • 1–6 pallets or under 15,000 lb
  • Predictable cost matters more than fastest transit
  • Dock-to-dock B2B freight
  • OK with terminal touches
  • Frequent small-quantity shipments
See LTL service

The break-even point is around 6–8 pallets. Below that, LTL almost always wins on price. Above that, FTL wins on price AND transit.

What drives the rate

Five inputs. Zero mystery margins.

Driver #1

Lane rate

The single biggest input. Set by the supply-demand balance on the specific origin-destination corridor. Outbound <> inbound imbalance drives whether the carrier’s next load is profitable, which sets your rate. We pull live market data from DAT and Greenscreens every quote.

Driver #2

Fuel surcharge

Indexed weekly to EIA national diesel average. Floats with diesel — passed through, not marked up.

Driver #3

Deadhead

The empty miles a driver runs to reach your pickup. Origins far from carrier home bases cost more.

Driver #4

Accessorials

Detention after 2 free hours (~$50–80/hr). Lumper at major retail DCs ($150–400). Layover ($300–500/night). Driver assist, weekend pickup, residential delivery.

Driver #5

Seasonality + market

Produce season (Apr–Jul), peak retail (Sep–Nov), CVSA Roadcheck week, and inclement weather all spike spot rates. Contract lanes hedge against the volatility.

What sets the transit

A truckload moves at the speed of the hours-of-service clock.

Distance is only half the answer. What actually decides whether your load is there Tuesday or Thursday is how many legal driving hours sit between the two docks, and how many of them get spent waiting.

The solo driver clock

In the US a driver may drive 11 hours inside a 14-hour on-duty window, after 10 consecutive hours off. In Canada it is 13 hours driving inside a 14-hour window after 8 hours off. In practice a solo driver covers roughly 800 to 1,000 km a day. Anything beyond that adds a full day.

When a team makes sense

Two drivers alternate, so the truck keeps moving while one rests. That roughly halves the transit on long lanes - Toronto to California drops from four or five days to about two and a half. It costs more per mile, so it is worth it when the freight is late, perishable or holding a line down, and not otherwise.

The border is a variable, not a constant

A cleared load with the eManifest filed and a valid PAPS or PARS barcode is usually through in minutes. One that arrives with a document mismatch can sit for hours. On a one-day lane that is the whole transit advantage, which is why the paperwork gets checked before the truck is dispatched, not at the booth.

Appointment windows and dock hours

A receiver that only accepts freight between 07:00 and 11:00 sets your delivery day regardless of how fast the truck moved. Tell us the window at quote time - it changes the dispatch plan, and sometimes it changes whether you need a team.

The charges, named

Every accessorial we charge, and what triggers it.

Accessorials are where freight invoices go wrong. None of these are surprises if they are priced at quote time, so here is the full list rather than a line item you find out about later.

Detention

Charged after the free time at a dock is used up - typically two hours loading and two unloading. Billed hourly after that. The fix is realistic appointment times, not a bigger allowance.

TONU

Truck Ordered Not Used. If a truck is dispatched and the load is cancelled after it arrives, the carrier is paid for the trip it did not make. Cancel early and it does not apply.

Layover

When a driver has to wait overnight because a dock closed or an appointment moved. Charged per day.

Driver assist and lumper

If the driver loads, unloads or pays a lumper at the receiver, that cost passes through. Say up front whether the dock has staff.

Extra stops

Each additional pickup or delivery on the same load. Cheaper than a second truck, but not free.

Reconsignment

Changing the delivery address after the truck has left. Priced on the extra distance plus the time.

Fuel surcharge is separate again - indexed, shown as its own line, never folded into the linehaul.

Who you are handing the freight to

Licensed, bonded, insured - and checkable.

Truckload is a high-trust purchase: you are handing over your cargo and hoping it turns up. These are the numbers you can verify before you book, rather than adjectives you have to take on faith.

Authority

USDOT 4187952 · MC-1613475 · BMC-84 surety bond on file. All three are public record and can be checked on FMCSA SAFER before you tender a load.

Border programmes

C-TPAT and PIP participant, and a bonded carrier. That matters on cross-border loads: it affects inspection likelihood and how quickly a truck clears.

Carrier vetting

Every carrier is checked for active operating authority, insurance limits and safety rating before it is allowed to haul, and re-checked rather than assumed. [CONFIRM: state your re-check interval and minimum cargo insurance limit here.]

Capacity Models

Drop trailers, dedicated capacity and live loads

How a truckload is loaded matters as much as who hauls it, and the choice between a live load and a drop trailer quietly decides both your cost and your dock labour. A live load means the truck arrives, waits while it is loaded or unloaded, and leaves, which is efficient for a shipper who can turn a trailer in an hour or two. Past that, the waiting time becomes detention, and a driver held for hours is a driver who cannot make the next appointment, so the carrier prices that risk into the rate on any lane where your dock is slow.

A drop trailer removes the clock. The carrier spots an empty trailer at your dock, you load it on your own schedule, and it is collected when it is ready, which suits high-volume shippers, operations that load across a shift, and docks that cannot guarantee a fast turn. It costs a little more because the carrier commits equipment to sit at your site, but it eliminates detention, smooths your labour, and on a busy lane it usually pays for itself in avoided waiting charges and missed-appointment costs.

Dedicated capacity is the next step up for shippers with steady, predictable volume. Instead of tendering each load to the open market, you commit to a set number of trucks or lanes and the carrier commits the equipment and drivers to serve them. That gives you priority access to trucks when the market is tight, stable pricing that does not spike with the spot market, and drivers who learn your sites and your product. The trade is the commitment itself, so it fits consistent freight rather than sporadic volume.

Most shippers of any size end up with a blend, and the blend is the design work. A dedicated or contracted core covers the predictable base volume at stable rates, drop trailers handle the high-volume lanes where dock time is the constraint, and spot-market live loads absorb the peaks and the one-off moves. We build that mix around your actual volume and dock reality rather than defaulting to whichever model is easiest to quote, because the right split is where the cost and the reliability are both won.

Securing Trucks

Tender acceptance and capacity in tight markets

The truckload market swings between loose and tight, and the difference decides whether your freight moves at the rate you expected or waits for a truck that never shows. In a loose market carriers chase loads and rates fall; in a tight one shippers chase trucks and the load that is priced too low, tendered too late, or headed somewhere carriers do not want to go simply does not get covered. Understanding where the market is at any moment is the first part of getting trucks reliably, and it is work we do so you do not have to.

Tender acceptance is the number that matters more than the quoted rate. A cheap rate that carriers reject is not a saving, it is a load sitting on your dock while you re-tender at the real market price a day later, having already lost the day. A slightly higher rate that carriers accept the first time, every time, is almost always cheaper once the cost of failed tenders, expedite premiums and missed delivery windows is counted. We optimise for the rate that actually gets your freight covered rather than the lowest number on a screen.

Several things make a lane easier to cover, and most of them are within your control. Tendering with enough lead time rather than same-day, giving carriers flexible appointment windows instead of a single narrow slot, keeping dock turns fast so drivers are not held, and being a shipper carriers want to run for all raise your acceptance rate. Freight that is easy to haul gets hauled first when trucks are scarce, and we advise on the small operational changes that move you up that list.

When a lane genuinely cannot be covered at market, there are still options short of paying whatever the spot market demands. Shifting the pickup by a day, splitting the volume, routing through a different mode for part of the trip, or drawing on committed capacity secured in advance all keep freight moving when open-market trucks are scarce. The importers and shippers who never seem to get stuck are not paying the most, they are the ones who set up those options before the market tightened rather than after.

FTL questions

Things shippers ask before booking.

How many miles a day does a full truckload cover?
A solo driver is limited to 11 hours driving inside a 14-hour window in the US, and 13 inside 14 in Canada, so roughly 800 to 1,000 km a day in practice. Team drivers alternate and roughly halve that transit on long lanes. It is the hours-of-service clock, not the speed limit, that sets your delivery date.
What is TONU and when would I be charged it?
TONU means Truck Ordered Not Used. If a truck is dispatched and arrives, and the load is then cancelled, the carrier is paid for the trip it made for nothing. Cancelling before dispatch avoids it entirely, which is why it is worth telling us early if a load is shaky rather than hoping it firms up.
Is full truckload cheaper than LTL?
Under about six skids, LTL is normally cheaper. Between six and ten it is genuinely worth pricing both. Above ten, FTL is usually cheaper per skid and always faster, because the freight is never handled at a terminal in between. On a busy lane a truckload sometimes comes in within a few dollars of LTL, so ask for both numbers.
Are you licensed and insured for cross-border truckload?
Yes - USDOT 4187952, MC-1613475 and a BMC-84 surety bond, all verifiable on FMCSA SAFER. We are a bonded carrier and participate in C-TPAT and PIP, which affects how quickly loads clear at the border.
How fast can you cover an FTL load?
Most North American lanes are covered same-day. AOG, hot-shot, and team-driver expedites can be dispatched within an hour for an additional charge. Cover time depends on the lane — Toronto–Chicago is typically <90 minutes, Calgary–Halifax may take 4–6 hours.
What's the maximum weight I can ship FTL?
Up to 45,000 lb net payload on a 53′ dry van — that’s the typical legal limit (80,000 lb gross vehicle weight minus ~35,000 lb for tractor, trailer, fuel and driver). Heavier loads route to flatbed, RGN, or specialized equipment with state-issued overweight permits.
Do you offer dedicated FTL capacity?
Yes — for regular lanes (2+ shipments per week), we can dedicate trucks on an annual contract with locked-in rates, named driver continuity, and guaranteed weekly capacity. Talk to us about your lane history and we’ll model a dedicated program against your spot spend.
What's your cargo insurance coverage?
Standard $100,000 cargo coverage included on every FTL shipment. Higher-value coverage is available via per-shipment certificate of insurance — we have brokers who can bind $500k, $1M, or higher within an hour.
Can you handle hazmat FTL?
Yes — we have hazmat-certified carriers across all 9 DOT classes. Add hazmat at quote stage and we’ll route to the appropriate carrier with placards, driver hazmat endorsement, training docs, and 24/7 emergency response contacts.
Do you handle Canada-US and Mexico FTL?
Yes — daily FTL across both borders. Canada–US runs through our in-house customs desk (ACE/ACI, PARS/PAPS, CARM). Mexico–US runs through our Mexico desk at Laredo, El Paso, Otay Mesa and McAllen with Mexican carrier transfer coordination.
You may also need

Less-than-Truckload (LTL)

1–10 pallet shipments with predictable class-based rates.

Explore →

Expedited

Sprinter to team-driver. Under-hour cover when standard FTL isn’t fast enough.

Explore →

Temperature Controlled

Reefer FTL with continuous data logging and FSMA compliance.

Explore →

Toronto to Detroit

Ontario into Michigan: transit, crossing choice and what drives the rate on the lane.

Explore →

Toronto to Chicago

GTA to Illinois truckload transit, seasonality and rate composition.

Explore →

Toronto to New Jersey

Ontario to the New York and New Jersey port corridor: transit, customs and rates.

Explore →
Where you ship from

Full Truckload (FTL) out of Toronto and the GTA.

Ramp cut-offs, border crossings and lane rates are local questions. The Toronto page covers what this service looks like in that market specifically.

Full Truckload (FTL) in TorontoAll locations

We run full truckload (ftl) out of every market we cover — Mississauga, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Halifax. Tell us the origin and destination and we will price the lane.

Let’s move it

Have a shipment? Get rates in 10 min.

Tell us the origin, destination and mode. A Qeep specialist replies within 10 minutes with live capacity, lane price, and a transit window you can actually plan around.

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