Spot rate vs contract rate
Also: Spot market · Contract freight · Bid rates
A spot rate is the price for moving one load now, set by supply and demand on that lane that week; a contract rate is a price agreed for a lane for a period, usually a year, through a shipper's bid; spot rates swing above and below contract rates with the market, and brokers live in the gap between them.
The truckload market has two prices for the same move.
Spot. A shipper or broker needs a truck on Tuesday; carriers with trucks in the area bid; the load moves at whatever rate clears that day. Spot rates are visible on load boards and in published indexes, they include fuel, and they move fast: a hurricane, a harvest, a holiday or a change in interest rates shows up in the spot rate within days.
Contract. Once a year, or when things change, a shipper runs a bid: here are my lanes and volumes, quote me a rate per lane for the next twelve months. Carriers and brokers submit, the shipper awards lanes, and the tenders flow to the winners at the agreed rate plus a fuel surcharge. Contract rates lag the spot market by months.
Brokers arbitrage the two. A broker that won contract lanes at a rate above today’s spot market makes margin covering them with spot carriers; the same broker in a rising market can lose money on every load until the next bid. Reading the spread between spot and contract, lane by lane, is the core skill of a brokerage’s pricing desk.
For sales, the practical point is that a shipper on the phone is thinking about one of these and rarely the other: a traffic manager buried in spot freight wants coverage today; one in bid season wants a competitive contract rate and evidence the broker can service it.
Guides that use this term
Updated September 11, 2026 · All terms