The Complete Guide to LTL Freight Shipping
Less-than-truckload (LTL) freight shipping is one of the most common and cost-effective ways for businesses to move goods that don't fill an entire trailer. If you're shipping between 1 and 10 pallets (roughly 150 to 15,000 pounds), LTL is almost certainly your best option.
How LTL Freight Works
In LTL shipping, your freight shares trailer space with shipments from other companies. You pay only for the space your goods occupy, measured by weight, dimensions, and freight class. The carrier consolidates multiple shipments onto a single truck, making stops at terminals along the route to sort and transfer freight.
This hub-and-spoke model makes LTL significantly cheaper than booking a full truck for smaller shipments. The tradeoff is transit time. LTL shipments typically take 2-5 business days for regional routes and 5-10 days for cross-country lanes due to the consolidation process.
Understanding Freight Class
Freight class is the single biggest factor in LTL pricing. The National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) assigns classes ranging from 50 to 500 based on four characteristics: density, stowability, handling difficulty, and liability.
Lower class numbers mean lower rates. A dense, easily stackable product like bricks (class 50) costs significantly less to ship per pound than a fragile, oddly shaped item like a chandelier (class 175).
Getting your freight class right is critical. Misclassification can result in reclassification fees, invoice adjustments, and damaged carrier relationships. If you're unsure of your freight class, a logistics provider like Razor can help you classify your products correctly.
How to Get Better LTL Rates
The most effective way to reduce LTL costs is to work with a third-party logistics provider (3PL) that aggregates volume across multiple shippers. A 3PL like Razor Logistics ships enough volume to negotiate deeply discounted base rates that individual shippers can't access on their own.
Beyond rate negotiation, there are several practical ways to lower your LTL costs:
- Optimize packaging to increase density and potentially qualify for a lower freight class
- Consolidate shipments when possible to move fewer, larger loads
- Be flexible on pickup times to avoid premium scheduling charges
- Provide accurate dimensions and weights to avoid reclassification fees
- Use a TMS platform to compare rates across multiple carriers for every shipment
When to Switch from LTL to Truckload
As your shipping volume grows, there's a tipping point where booking a full truckload becomes cheaper than LTL. This typically happens when you're shipping more than 10-12 pallets, or when your shipment weighs over 10,000 pounds.
The exact crossover point depends on your lanes, freight characteristics, and carrier pricing. A good logistics partner will analyze your shipping data and recommend the optimal mode for each shipment.
Getting Started
If you're currently managing LTL freight on your own (calling carriers, comparing rates, tracking shipments across multiple websites), you're almost certainly overpaying and overworking. A logistics provider like Razor handles all of this for you, at no technology cost, with access to rates you can't get on your own.
Contact our team for a free shipping analysis to see how much you could save.