Freight volume can create meaningful leverage with carriers, but volume alone does not always determine how carriers price, prioritize, or commit capacity to a shipper’s freight.
What often matters more is how that volume fits into the carrier’s broader network.
Most carriers evaluate freight at the lane and network level. They consider whether volume is consistent enough to plan around, whether a load positions equipment near the next revenue opportunity, how much time drivers spend at facilities, and whether the economics work across the entire trip. Those factors influence everything from pricing and tender acceptance to the amount of capacity a carrier is willing to commit.
Research reinforces that distinction. In a study of 1.93 million truckload loads, MIT researchers found that larger shippers did not automatically receive better primary-carrier acceptance. During the 2017–2018 capacity-constrained market, a shipper 10 times larger than a peer actually experienced 1.46% lower acceptance. More important than absolute size were characteristics such as consistent weekly volume, tender frequency, competitive pricing and operational efficiency.
That network perspective has shaped KBX Logistics™’ approach to freight management. And with tender rejections hitting 14.17% in October, that leverage matters again.
The result is an important callout for shippers: scale changes carrier behavior when the network makes that scale useful. In this article, we explore the five ways that shows up in practice.
1. Carriers Price Your Freight by the Whole Trip
A carrier might love your freight going in one direction, but want nothing to do with it coming back. If a delivery leaves its driver 200 miles from the next paying load, somebody has to cover those empty miles, and you can bet they’re working that into your rate.
Carriers can’t afford to be generous either. ATRI puts operating costs at $2.336 per mile, with truckload margins under 1%.
Look at the difference between markets. During the week of October 6, carriers rejected 48.38% of tenders out of Quincy, Illinois, compared with just 3.25% out of Lakeland, Florida.
Scale gives you more opportunities to make those trips worthwhile through better lane balance and equipment choices. We saw that firsthand when a switch from flatbeds to Conestogas helped us cut Georgia-Pacific’s™ conveyor shipping costs by 57%.
2. Steady Volume Gets More Tenders Accepted
Even a profitable lane loses some appeal if your freight shows up whenever it feels like it. Carriers have trucks and drivers to schedule, and they’d much rather commit them to a shipper who gives them dependable work every week.
The MIT study put numbers to that preference. During a tight market, a one-point increase in weekly volume volatility dropped primary carrier acceptance from 89.32% to 79.19%. Tendering a lane just 5.2 more weeks a year raised acceptance to 96.17%.
Carriers also remember what happens when they reach your dock.
Every additional hour waiting to unload reduced acceptance by 1.75%, and they’re tracking those delays by facility.
Pooling freight can give carriers a steadier stream of loads, but your receiving operation still has to hold up its end. Our total-cost approach accounts for detention and the other costs that come with making carriers wait.
3. Carriers Protect Their Steady Accounts When Capacity Tightens
All that dependable volume and faster unloading pays off when carriers have the luxury of saying no.
On October 20, reefer carriers were rejecting 21.44% of tenders, and when trucks are that hard to come by, carriers naturally favor the customers whose freight makes their lives easier.
Don’t count on buying that loyalty by paying extra when capacity is plentiful. MIT found that shippers who paid above-market rates got no special treatment once things tightened. When their primary carriers rejected a load, finding a backup cost 18.2% more.
With Werner expecting average double-digit increases in early 2027 bids, those rejections could get expensive fast.
We’ve seen enough freight cycles to know why the lowest bid isn’t always the best deal. You need carriers willing to show up when everyone else is fighting for trucks.
4. Big Networks Fill the Carrier’s Trip Home
One of the best ways to get a carrier to take your freight is to have another load waiting where the first one ends. Nobody wants to haul an empty trailer home, and a carrier that can count on paying freight in both directions has a lot more room to work with you on rates.
Of course, your own shipping network may not have enough freight to make those round trips work. MIT researchers recommend bundling lanes, pairing less frequent routes with busier ones to give carriers more consistent work.
We’ve been doing that across our own Koch™ companies for decades, and today our network moves more than 8,000 domestic loads a day.
When a shipper brings us their lanes, we’re already looking at where those trucks could go next. Sometimes the freight that makes your lane attractive belongs to someone else entirely.
5. Carriers Commit Trucks to Steady Volume
Give your carriers enough reliable loads and they’ll start keeping trucks nearby because there’s likely freight waiting. That’s when you can negotiate dedicated capacity and better rates instead of competing for whatever trucks happen to be available.
Logistics Management reported in March that shippers are increasingly committing regular freight to core carriers in return for more favorable pricing.
Carriers want those commitments too.
Covenant’s Tyson Wimberly said as much in July, and FreightWaves expects predictable weekly volume to carry even more weight as capacity tightens.
We’ve built those relationships by making KBX worth working with. Beyond consistent freight, our carriers get clear operating requirements and access to a fuel card that saved an average of 53 cents per gallon in Q4 2024.
We give them reasons to keep coming back.
The KBX Model: Built on a Shipper’s Base Load
We’ve spent decades on both sides of this equation, first managing freight for Georgia-Pacific and the broader Koch network, then building a business that gives other shippers access to the same advantages. That’s the thinking behind the KBX model.
More than $2.5 billion in annual freight gives us a base load that carriers already know and plan around. When we bring another shipper into that network, we’re looking at how their lanes fit with freight we’re already moving, where we can give carriers a better backhaul, and how to turn scattered loads into business worth committing trucks to.
We’ve seen what that looks like at scale. Molex™ started with us on two lanes and now operates across more than 2,000, supported by dedicated account teams and shipment visibility through KBX Track™.
With Knight-Swift expecting contract rates to rise at least in the mid-teens heading into 2027, those carrier relationships will matter even more.
Bring us your toughest lanes. We’ll show you what changes when they’re part of a network carriers already depend on.
Freight Management FAQs
Freight volume can improve rates and service when it arrives steadily on the lanes a carrier already runs, since that cuts empty miles. Sporadic volume gets priced for the trip home and rejected first. In MIT’s study of 1.93 million truckload loads, steady weekly volume mattered far more than shipper size.