The half-truckload trap, and how to avoid it
The most expensive box order isn't the small one or the big one. It's the awkward middle. Here's why, and what you can do about it.
Talk to any freight dispatcher and they'll tell you the same thing: half-truckload is the worst tier. Single pallets ride LTL relatively cheaply. Full truckloads have their own dedicated economics. The space between — about 6–14 pallets — is the awkward middle, and the freight cost per box can be 30% higher than either neighbor.
Why the curve is shaped that way
LTL networks are optimized for many small shipments. Their pricing has fixed handling minimums that don't scale per pallet. Once you cross from "a few pallets" to "a partial truckload," you've crossed into LTL's expensive zone — too big to ride efficiently with other small shipments, too small to justify a partial. Partial truckload (PTL) carriers can sometimes handle this zone, but they're not always available on every route.
Full truckload economics, by contrast, scale by the truck not the pallet. The cost per pallet drops sharply as you fill up the truck. Once you're at 18–22 pallets, you're at the cheapest per-pallet zone on the entire shipping curve.
How to avoid the trap
- If you're at 9 pallets, talk to your vendor about pushing the order to 18. The per-box cost may actually drop even though the total bill rises, because freight is the dominant cost above the LTL minimums.
- Time orders to combine. Two orders of 7 pallets each, two weeks apart, can sometimes consolidate into one 14-pallet shipment that comes in below the freight tier penalty.
- Ask about swaps. We can sometimes ride your order on a backhaul of another customer's outbound, which gets you full-truckload economics on a half-truckload quantity.
The honest tradeoff
Carrying inventory has a cost — capital tied up, space committed, possibility of overstocking. Buying in awkward middle quantities to avoid carrying inventory might cost less than the freight penalty would. There's no universal right answer. But the question is worth asking out loud at the procurement level: where does the per-box freight cost curve actually bend for our routes?
If you can't answer that question, your vendor can. We've got it modeled for every route we run. Ask.
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