Readiness
Where the truck is, when the clock resets, what is still open from yesterday, and what has to be covered before noon.
Sam Barret Dispatch · Fort Worth, Texas
You are running two businesses. Only one of them pays by the mile.
Managed dispatch and a full back office for Texas carriers running one to five trucks. We book in your name at rates you approve, we invoice the day after delivery, and we keep every date that can shut you down on a calendar with a person's name on it. You drive. We handle the rest of it.
Call (817) 000‑0000
Apply as a carrier
Twenty minutes on the phone gets you the tier, the fee at your actual volume, and a start date. Onboarding runs about a week. No multi year lock.
Start with the first two rows
Cost to run a truck, 2025 average$2.336 / mi
Dry van spot linehaul, mid Aug 2026$2.25 / mi
Loading and unloading, per week14.3 hrs
Of 11 drive hours actually used6.4 hrs
Typical wait to get paid30 to 45 days
A truck costs more per mile than the market is paying per mile. Nobody drives out of that gap. It closes in the office or it does not close.
Sources on the arithmetic page: ATRI, DAT, OOIDA, Truckstop.
Booked in your name
You are the carrier on every rate confirmation
Your authority, your insurance, your customers, your money. We are that office. You pay us, so we work for you and nobody else on the load.
Nothing moves without approval
Every rate comes to you before it is accepted
We search, we negotiate, we bring you the number. You say yes or no. Then the setup, the packet, the certificate, and the confirmation happen without you touching a phone.
The calendar is the product
Twenty seven things to track, one place to see them
Filings, expiries, inspections, driver files. Every one with a date, and every date with a name against it. See the whole list.
i.
Ask any dispatch service what they do all day. Here is our answer, written down before you call.
This is the office's day. Yours is behind the wheel.
The working day
Your day, once somebody else is running the office.
a.
6:00 amBefore dispatch
b.MorningOptions to you
Search and shortlist
Boards, direct relationships, and the lanes you asked for. Searched against your equipment, your home base, and your appetite for reload risk. You see the options that fit your truck, not the ones that pay a broker best.
c.On approvalYour yes
Booking
Nothing is booked without your approval. We handle carrier setup, the packet, the certificate of insurance, and the rate confirmation, and the confirmation lands in your TMS and your inbox.
d.In transitDocumented
Check calls and exceptions
Detention, layover, reconsignment, and TONU written down while the truck is still sitting there. An accessorial you did not document is a bill you will never collect.
e.Delivery plus oneInvoice out
On file, then invoiced
Rate confirmation, bill of lading, proof of delivery, receipts, and accessorial evidence assembled and invoiced within one business day. Payment goes to you, from the broker, in your name.
f.WeeklyThen monthly
The number
Revenue, miles, revenue per loaded mile, deadhead, and accessorials collected. Every Monday you know whether the week paid, instead of finding out at tax time.
The part that ends carriers
Almost nobody is shut down for driving. They are shut down for dates.
A lapsed policy. A biennial update nobody filed. A quarter of fuel tax never reported. An annual inspection certificate that is in the shop, not the cab. None of it feels like an emergency until an officer asks for it, and then the fine is per day.
$1,584 per day
Federal recordkeeping violation penalty, capped at $15,846 per violation
DOT civil penalty schedule, 2025 levels$21,114
Up to, for a financial responsibility violation, with each day a separate offense
DOT civil penalty schedule23.51percent
CY2025 vehicle out of service rate across 2,039,598 vehicle inspections
FMCSA out of service rates586,580
Citations from CY2022 to CY2026 for no proof of annual inspection. A piece of paper, missing
FMCSA A and IThe Almanac
Look at the numbers before you look at us.
This week's diesel with the surcharge worked out at your own mpg. Every filing deadline in date order. The permit rules in the states you cross. Free, no login, no email, and no reason to call us first.
Diesel and the fuel surchargeGulf Coast weekly average, the surcharge worked out per mile, and state fuel tax rates across the regionLive
The compliance deadline calendarEvery recurring federal and Texas filing in date order, with the rule behind itLive
What a carrier must trackThe full record inventory, retention clocks, and the current penalty scheduleLive
Corridors, border, port, and permitsTexas freight scale, bottleneck ranks, Laredo and Port Houston volumes, and permit rules in the states you crossLive
Cost per mile and the rate floorBreakeven by line item, deadhead, and what a load has to clearLive
Gulf Coast dieselWeek ending 17 Aug 2026
$5.237per gallon
▲ 19.3¢ week over week
National average$5.454
Prior week, Gulf Coast$5.044
Midwest PADD 2$5.435
Surcharge at 6.0 mpg, $1.25 base66.45¢ / mi
U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly retail on highway diesel, Gulf Coast PADD 3 and U.S. average, week ending 17 August 2026, retrieved 25 August 2026. Work it out at your own mpg.
Pricing
You cannot hire a dispatcher, a bookkeeper, and a compliance clerk one twelfth at a time.
So we sell the twelfth. Dispatch is 8, 10, or 12 percent of gross freight revenue depending on how much handling the equipment needs, with a weekly minimum per active truck. The back office is a flat monthly fee. Both numbers are on the page below, and neither one changes after you sign.
| Tier | Commission | Weekly minimum | Typical fit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 8% | $350 / truck | Dry van, reefer, flatbed with seasoning |
| High touch | 10% | $400 / truck | Hotshot, box truck, Sprinter, new authority |
| Complex | 12% | $500 / truck | Oversize, high value, project freight |
Commission is calculated on gross freight revenue: linehaul, fuel surcharge, detention, layover, and TONU. Documented pass throughs are excluded. Full terms on the pricing page.
The back office
Company, monthly$1,100
Per active truck$300
Per active driver$100
Microsoft 365 seat$35
One truck, one driver, $24,000 monthly gross on the 8 percent tier: $3,455 a month for dispatch and the office together, or 14.4 percent of gross. First year is $3,805 with onboarding spread across twelve months. Line by line on the pricing page.
What is inside the officeQuestions carriers ask first
Seven answers, so the call can start at the eighth question.
Are you a broker?
No. Sam Barret Dispatch LLC holds no brokerage authority. We hold no freight, we take no spread, and your money never passes through our hands. Ask the next dispatch service you talk to who pays them. If the answer is the broker, you have your answer.
Who gets paid, and how?
The broker pays you, in your name, under your authority. Our fee is a separate weekly invoice you pay from your own account, against gross freight revenue on the loads we dispatched. You can read it, check it, and dispute it.
Do I have to give up my authority or my insurance?
No. You hold the USDOT and MC authority, the policies, and the customer relationships. If you leave, you leave with all of it plus the files, exported and organized. Nothing here is built to trap you.
Will you move my load with another carrier?
Never. A load booked in your name is dispatched on your truck, or it is not booked. There is no internal board and no allocation between clients.
Is there a contract term?
A written dispatch service agreement with a defined scope, a defined fee, and notice on either side. No multi year lock. If the office is not earning its fee, you should be able to walk, and you can.
What do you guarantee?
The work, and the speed of it. Anyone guaranteeing you a rate per mile in this market is quoting you a market they do not control. We commit to what we do, how fast we do it, and what you walk out with.
What does onboarding involve?
About a week. A qualification screen, documents, a written agreement, the TMS tenant and the ELD, then a compliance intake that produces your calendar before the first load is dispatched. The whole sequence is on the onboarding page.
Pick your equipment
The rulebook changes with the rating. So does the office work.
A cargo van and a 53 foot dry van are not the same business, and they should not get the same service description. Here is what we run for each, with the pricing that goes with it.
Dry van
8% · $350 weekly minimum
The most competitive segment in the country. Load selection against your real cost per mile is the entire game.
Hotshot
10% · $400 weekly minimum
Under the CDL threshold, over the commercial vehicle threshold, and on the hook for all of it. Plus axle math and permits.
Box truck
10% · $400 weekly minimum
Straight truck work pays on service and accessorials. We work out which filings actually reach your truck.
Cargo van
10% · $400 weekly minimum
Expedite pays for availability. Board coverage during your driving hours and a rate floor we will not break.
New authority
10% · $400 weekly minimum
Eighteen months of monitoring and sixteen automatic audit failures. The file gets built from week one.
Who owns what
Every obligation, line by line
Thirty three obligations that stay legally yours, next to the work we take over. Read it before you shop anyone.
The next step
Twenty minutes decides it, one way or the other.
Have last month's gross and your truck count in front of you. You will leave the call with the tier, the fee at your real volume, the filings closest to going late, and a start date. Or a no, with the reason. Either way you learn something about your own operation that you did not know at 7 am.