LTL rate estimator that returns an instant less-than-truckload price band by freight class, weight, distance, fuel surcharge, and accessorials. Type origin and destination, pick a class, and get a low-mid-high range you can plan against — typically within ±15–25% of a real carrier quote.
Mid estimate: –
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Estimate only. Actual carrier rates vary by tariff, contract pricing, and lane density. ±15–25%.
Need a real binding rate?
Cross-border lanes from Markham average $2.50+/loaded mile.
LTL pricing is built on three stacked layers. The first is base line haul, calculated as the freight class factor multiplied by your shipment weight (in CWT — hundredweight, or 100-pound units) multiplied by road miles between origin and destination. Class factors are published per-100-pound rates indexed to commodity density, handling, stowability, and liability. A class 50 commodity (high density, easy to handle) prices around $0.07 per CWT-mile; class 500 (low density, fragile) can exceed $0.50. Industry CWT-mile benchmarks come from SMC³ CzarLite, the published rate base used by most LTL carriers as the starting point for contract negotiations.
The second layer is the fuel surcharge (FSC), a percentage applied on top of base line haul. Carriers index FSC weekly to the EIA national average on-highway diesel price, typically starting the surcharge at $1.10/gallon and stepping up 1–2 percent per 4-cent diesel increase. With diesel near $3.80/gallon, FSC sits around 32–38 percent of line haul; at $4.50, it pushes 45 percent or more. Coyote Logistics and Project44 publish an LTL spot index that tracks weekly FSC movement across major lanes.
The third layer is accessorials — flat fees for anything outside a standard dock-to-dock pickup and delivery. Liftgate, residential, inside delivery, appointment, limited access, hazmat, and notification each carry a published per-shipment fee. These are where invoice disputes most often surface, because the carrier bills based on what their driver reported, not what was quoted. The estimator above adds whichever you check; in practice, residential plus liftgate is the most common combo on B2C deliveries.
Two shippers on the same lane can get quotes hundreds of dollars apart. The estimator above uses regional centroids and a public CzarLite-style baseline, but real-world pricing moves on these factors:
Find your NMFC class by density, handling, stowability, and liability before estimating.
Compute pounds per cubic foot to derive density-based freight class quickly.
Decide where the breakeven sits between small parcel and a single LTL pallet.
Live EIA-indexed FSC percentages by mode. Used to pre-fill this estimator.
Audit a fuel surcharge billed on an invoice against the published EIA index for that week.
Walk through an LTL invoice line by line, flag the three charges most often overbilled.
Verify FMCSA authority, safety, and insurance status for any USDOT or MC number.
Estimates land within ±15–25% of real carrier rates for typical lanes. The model uses regional centroids, freight class, and CWT-mile pricing benchmarked against SMC³ CzarLite and Project44 LTL index data. Contract rates, lane density, and capacity can shift actual rates outside that band.
CWT means hundredweight — 100 pounds. A CWT-mile rate multiplies the per-100-pound class factor by your shipment weight in CWT and the road miles between origin and destination. For class 70 at 1,000 lbs over 500 miles with a 0.115 factor, base line haul is 0.115 × 10 × 500 = $575 before fuel and accessorials.
Yes — class is the single biggest driver of LTL price. If you do not know yours, use our freight class lookup tool first. Density (pounds per cubic foot, or PCF) drives the class for most commodities, with handling, stowability, and liability adjusting up or down.
LTL fuel surcharges typically run 30–45% of base line haul, indexed weekly to the EIA national average diesel price. Most carriers publish a sliding scale starting at $1.10 per gallon and adding 1–2 percent per 4-cent diesel increase. The estimator pre-fills the current EIA-indexed value.
A real broker quote includes contracted carrier rates, lane-specific discounts, current capacity, transit time, and live accessorial pricing for your exact addresses. This estimator uses public benchmarks and regional averages — it is a planning tool, not a binding rate. For booking, .