On a $900 coast-to-coast open transport, roughly $200 goes to the broker and roughly $700 goes to the carrier that actually moves the car. Across the market, broker fees run $99 to $399 per vehicle. That fee is not fixed, it is negotiated between broker and carrier on every individual load. Most customers pay the driver directly in cash on delivery; if you pay everything by card instead, the broker may hold the carrier's share for 10 to 15 business days after delivery.
The $900 Breakdown
Roughly $200 to the broker, roughly $700 to the carrier. That is the shape of a typical coast-to-coast open transport at a $900 total.
The important word is roughly. There is no standard rate card in this industry. The split lands where it lands because a broker and a carrier negotiated it, load by load, and both sides were free to walk away.
The Broker · ~$200
- Posts your car to the load board
- Vets and negotiates with carriers
- Handles the paperwork and the complaints
- Market range: $99–$399 per vehicle
- Takes the loss when a load goes bad
The Carrier · ~$700
- Fuel, insurance, tolls, maintenance
- DOT compliance and inspections
- Driver's own time and wages
- Shares the run with up to 8 other cars
- Gross, not profit — see below
The $700 figure is what the carrier is paid, not what the carrier keeps. Fuel, insurance, maintenance, tolls and the driver's own wages come out of it. The $200 broker fee is closer to gross margin, but it also absorbs the cost of every load that goes sideways. Comparing the two numbers directly is the most common mistake people make when they conclude brokers are overpaid.
Why the Fee Isn't a Fixed Number
Broker fees run $99 to $399 per vehicle, and the number moves with the load.
Some brokers work to a target fee. None of them hold it rigidly, because the fee is the variable that closes the deal. When a route is hard to cover, the broker gives up margin to make the load attractive enough for a carrier to accept. When a lane is busy and carriers are competing, the fee holds or grows.
This is also why two brokers quote the same car differently. They are pricing the same underlying carrier market, but making different bets about what it will take to get your specific car moved on your specific dates. For more on that dynamic, see how the load board actually works.
What We Won't Guess At
We can't give you a reliable figure for what a driver nets per mile, so we're not going to publish one.
The obvious next question after "the carrier gets $700" is "so what does the driver actually take home?" We don't have data we trust enough to answer that, and the honest reasons are worth understanding, because they're the same reasons anyone else's number should be treated carefully:
- Fuel varies by lane and by truck. Terrain, traffic, load weight and the age of the equipment all move it.
- Insurance and maintenance are operator-specific. An owner-operator with one older truck has a completely different cost base than a fleet.
- The run isn't one car. Costs are spread across whatever else is on the trailer, which changes every trip.
Anyone publishing a confident single figure for driver take-home is either working from a much narrower case than they admit, or making it up. If we get data we trust, we'll put it here. See our rate methodology for how we treat the numbers we do publish.
Nine Cars on a Trailer
A full open trailer holds about nine sedans. Bigger vehicles mean fewer.
This is the single most useful fact for understanding carrier economics. The truck burns roughly the same fuel and the driver spends roughly the same days on the road whether the trailer is full or half empty. Those costs get divided across whatever is on board.
Which is why your oversized truck or lifted SUV costs more to ship. It isn't a surcharge for the sake of it, it's occupying the deck space of more than one sedan and the carrier has to recover that.
Costs You Never See
Running a car hauler is not running a big car. The costs that surprise people:
- DOT checks. Constant, and each one is time the truck isn't moving.
- Regulated schedules. Drivers can't simply push through. Hours are capped and enforced, which puts a floor under how fast any route can run.
- Commercial taxes and fees. A layer of registration, permitting and road costs that don't exist for a private vehicle.
None of this shows up on your invoice. All of it is priced into the rate a carrier will accept.
Why Carriers Turn Down Good Money
Two reasons dominate: the load is too far out of their way, or the vehicle is too big or heavy for the space left.
A carrier isn't evaluating your load in isolation. They're already running a lane with cars on board and commitments at the other end. A well-paid car that sits 90 minutes off the route can cost more in time and fuel than it pays.
Size is the other blocker. If the remaining deck space won't take your vehicle, the rate is irrelevant. This is why unusual vehicles wait longer even at above-market prices.
When a broker tells you your car "hasn't been picked up yet," the useful question isn't whether they're trying. It's whether the problem is price or fit. Price problems get solved by raising the rate. Fit problems, wrong route, wrong size, don't, and no amount of waiting fixes them. A broker who can tell you which one you have is worth their fee.
What the Broker Fee Actually Buys
Being honest about this cuts both ways.
The parts with real value: vetting carriers so an unvetted stranger doesn't take your car, negotiating the rate on your behalf, and handling complaints when something goes wrong. That last one is worth more than people realize until they need it.
The parts that often aren't: customer support at many brokers is close to non-existent once your booking is confirmed. Tracking and status updates are routinely well behind reality, because the broker only knows what the carrier tells them, and carriers are driving, not updating systems.
Ask how you will get updates and how often, and ask what happens if the carrier goes quiet. The answer tells you whether you're buying coordination or just a booking. Both exist at similar prices.
How the Money Actually Moves
Most customers pay the driver directly, in cash, on delivery. That's the default in this industry and it surprises people.
Under that arrangement the broker collects their fee separately and the carrier's money never passes through the broker at all. You hand it to the person who brought your car.
If you'd rather put the whole amount on a credit or debit card, the structure changes. The broker takes the full payment and then holds the carrier's portion, commonly for 10 to 15 business days after successful delivery, releasing it once the carrier has submitted the required documents.
Neither method is a trick, but they protect different people. Cash on delivery means you don't part with the carrier's money until your car is in front of you. Paying by card puts a third party and a document check between the carrier and their money, which is protection for you if something is wrong at delivery, and a cash-flow cost for the carrier. That hold is a real reason some carriers prefer COD loads, and it is worth knowing that your payment choice can quietly affect how attractive your car looks on the board.
When the Load Goes Wrong
On a no-show, a long delay or damage, the broker frequently cannot fix it, and sometimes goes into the red trying.
A broker absorbing a loss to keep a customer moving is real and more common than the industry's reputation suggests. But there is a limit. Beyond it, the matter sits between the carrier and the customer, because the broker has no truck, no driver and no legal control over either.
The other outcome nobody enjoys: when no carrier will take a load at any workable rate, the honest move is telling the customer to go elsewhere. A broker who says that early is doing you a favor, even though it doesn't feel like one.
The One Thing Worth Remembering
The split matters less than who you're dealing with.
Fees in this industry cluster in a narrow band. What varies enormously is who answers when something goes wrong. Choose the people you feel most comfortable working with, and get there by looking past the good reviews to how they handle the bad cases.
Next: how brokers, carriers and load boards fit together, or the full cost guide if you're pricing a move now.