At 7 o’clock Central time on a typical Monday, Steven W. wakes up and opens his first load board app to start looking for his next load. Sometimes his search to find the highest paying truck loads takes up half his day.
“I’m not just looking for anything,” he said. Steven is an owner-operator specializing in refrigerated loads and can carry temperature conditions of -20 up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. “The higher the temp, the less fuel I’m going to use on my refrigerator unit. So I try to look for loads that don’t make my unit work as hard.”
When he was introduced to TruckSmarter’s free load board, Steven quickly found it to be the best load board for owner-operators that he could trust, with filtering features that help him book relevant loads, faster. “TruckSmarter has features where you can see which loads have what temperature, and DAT doesn’t have that.” It’s also the only free load board app that includes all of the app’s features without a subscription, including the ability to bid and book directly, with no hidden fees ever, unlike competitors.
So why choose TruckSmarter over competitors like DAT?
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Reason #1: BOOK CONFIDENTLY
These days, Steven says when he’s looking to book loads, he doesn’t like that other load boards feel like a free-for-all. “There's a lot of fraud going on in the industry right now. There's a lot of brokers and factoring companies going out of business," he explained.
But Steven praised TruckSmarter’s fast response to feedback from truck drivers, citing an instance where TruckSmarter pulled a broker from its load board after the broker filed for bankruptcy. “They heard the feedback from the truckers and they pulled them immediately,” he said. In addition, Steven can block a broker from his search results, another load board app feature.
He knows that brokers have gone through an extra layer of scrutiny to be on Trucksmarter’s load board. “Whenever I go to book a load, I'm confident that's the one that I want and I book without second guessing it.”
Reason #2: BOOK FAST
TruckSmarter brings together a lot of relevant features that make searching for loads easier. “I’m looking for something that’s going to make sense, and TruckSmarter makes it easy because there’s so much in one spot,” Steven said. “I like TruckSmarter better than DAT because I can just pretty much bid on the great majority of the loads that I see, versus DAT, where there's very few that you can actually bid on or send a bid email directly. I don't know if that's an extra paid feature with DAT, but with TruckSmarter it is just there in the app on most of the loads.”
Now, instead of bouncing between multiple load boards and spending more time trying to reach brokers to bid and book loads, Steven can view all his load boards in one place, and filter by load rates, weight, pricing, distance, preferred brokers, and so much more, directly from TruckSmarter’s free load board app. Which means less time searching and more time making profit.
Reason #3: EARN MORE
In a tough environment, more money in the pocket is the bottom line for Steven. “Right now we’re battling rising fuel costs, rising maintenance. We’re battling a lot. So right now it’s all about profit,” he said. To him, TruckSmarter’s ecosystem of fuel discounts, factoring and cash back banking is a huge benefit.
Getting access to TruckSmarter’s fuel discounts for truck drivers doesn’t require Steven to sign up for a fuel card or get burdened with transaction fees. Through his load board app he has access to TruckSmarter’s nationwide network of fuel discounts, which average about fifty cents per gallon at the pump.
TruckSmarter’s freight factoring rate is one of the lowest in the industry with no hidden fees, no minimums, and a flexible 30-day contract.
Through factoring, Steven gets paid within 24 hours (often within minutes) of uploading his truck load info and paperwork into the app. And as a factoring customer, he has access to TruckSmarter’s Visa Card, allowing him to bank directly through his app, giving him 1% cash back on his purchases.
All these extra benefits can add up to thousands of dollars a year saved on diesel, helping Steven’s bottom line with huge savings.
Reason #4: COMMUNITY
The reason why TruckSmarter’s free load board, factoring, and banking perks resonate so much with Steven is also because he knows feedback from truck drivers has been a priority for TruckSmarter from day one. “TruckSmarter listens. They started out doing Zoom meetings with truckers, and that showed me something different. I’ve actually met some of the people from those meetings in person. So I'm like, you know what man, TruckSmarter gets an “A” in my book, because they brought some pretty cool people together.”
