Category: Uncategorized

As a percentage of all employees Mid-Cap ($50-$99m) freight brokerages are ramping up for growth as almost 10% of employees are upper management. This trends down as a brokerage cross over the $100m annual gross revenue mark. 

From at least 2015 to 2019 freight brokers control of for-hire trucking hovered around 15% based on gross revenue estimates for trucking (ATA) and brokerage (Armstrong & Associates). 2020 moved the needle though as the percentage of freight moved by brokers jumped to 25% by 2022.

The trend of freight brokerages closing continues into 2024. The latest counts from the FMCSA shows an 8.4% year over year decline in active freight brokerage authorities. 

A few people have reached out inquiring about loads per day (LPD) of the largest 1,000 freight brokerages. We did a bit of estimating and these are our results.

Updated stats show freight brokerages contracted again for the 7th straight month. 7.8% fewer brokerages than a year ago to be exact.

November numbers from the FMCSA now show 28,950 active freight brokerage MC numbers. Year-over-year growth for the past two months has been -7.4% & -6.1%.

One of the main reasons is that quite a few of the largest 1,000 freight brokerages are part of larger asset based or logistics companies.

From Jan 2020 to Dec 2022 – 25,291 new freight brokerage authorities were granted, of which 9,794 are still active.

Based on intel collected from 75% of Mid-Cap ($50-$99m) freight brokerages the vast majority use more than one source for pricing. The legacy providers DAT and Truckstop are still the most popular with three out of four using one or both. 

After double digit growth rates in 2020 and 2021, new freight brokerage growth is now negative.

It’s an interesting question for any high growth freight brokerage. It’s also a fun question to speculate on whenever and wherever you’re talking shop.

In a recent post we explored TMS usage for freight brokerages doing over $50m a year in gross revenue. Today let’s look at the 650 or so freight brokerages doing between $10m to $50m a year gross. It’s interesting to note the rankings between the two groups. Especially once you get to the middle of…

There are roughly 330 freight brokerages that we classify as either Large (Over $100m) or Mid-Cap ($50 to $99m). We’ve collected TMS profiles for 86% of these brokerages to date.  Based on our intel these are the top 10 by market share for this segment. The remaining 17% of the market is shared by 16 other TMS providers.

It’s amazing to think gross revenues doubled for the industry during the pandemic years! We should see 2023 revenues fall back down to earth, but the key takeaway is that the industry will keep much of this expansion and move forward. 

The key takeaway though is this $160b a year industry is dominated by the top 1,000 firms. Growth or decline in the long-tail shouldn’t be a concern for most us in our sales and marketing strategies. 

Quick pay is offered by two-thirds of freight brokerages with $10m to $50m in yearly gross revenue.

Let’s talk about how the top 1,000 freight brokerages control 80% of the domestic transportation management market, even though there are 27,000 active freight brokerages on file with the FMCSA.  What do the numbers say?  According to Armstrong & Associates research, annual revenues for the domestic transportation market has grown from roughly $86.5 billion in 2019 to…

Selling to freight brokers can be a fun endeavor. Most leaders at brokerages are salespeople by nature and love talking the language of sales to anyone who will listen.