How are Freight Brokers Staying Afloat?
A Unit-Economics Reality Check
Looking at the shocking December 2025 metrics, we couldn’t help but wonder how brokers are surviving. While, by almost any surface-level metric, freight brokerage volumes look healthy. Loads are moving. Capacity is abundant. Rates have stabilized off the bottom. And yet, across the industry, broker layoffs continue, balance sheets remain under pressure, and even well-run operators are quietly fighting for survival.
The disconnect isn’t demand, it’s unit economics.
To understand why brokerage profitability has become so fragile, you have to stop looking at gross margin percentages in isolation and start looking at gross margin per load versus the true cost to service that load. When you do, the picture becomes uncomfortably clear.
The Scenario Most Brokers Are Living In:
Consider a representative mid-market, non-asset brokerage operating in today’s loose freight environment:
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Average revenue per load: $1,912
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Gross margin: 9.91%
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Gross margin per load: ~$189
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Annual revenue: $30 million
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Annual load volume: ~15,700 loads
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Shippers pay in 40 days
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Carriers are paid in 30 days
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Cost of capital: 7%
On paper, a ~10% margin looks workable. In practice, it isn’t.
Where the Money Actually Goes:
At this scale, the brokerage employs roughly 20 people — sales, carrier reps, operations, leadership, finance and admin — with a fully loaded payroll of about $2.36 million. Spread across the higher load count required to generate $30 million at lower revenue per load, payroll works out to roughly $150 per load.
Then come the unavoidable non-payroll costs:
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Transportation management systems
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Load boards
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Market intelligence and data tools
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Insurance, compliance, accounting, marketing, and overhead
Those costs add another ~$55 per load.
Before factoring in financing costs, the brokerage is already spending about $205 per load to move freight.
Against $189 in gross margin, that’s a loss of roughly $16 per load — before interest expense.
The Quiet Drag of Working Capital:
Now layer in cash flow timing.
Even with relatively disciplined terms — shippers paying in 40 days and carriers in 30 — the broker is financing a 10-day cash gap on $30 million in annual revenue. That ties up roughly $820,000 in working capital.
At a 7% interest rate, that’s about $58,000 per year, or ~$3.70 per load.
All in, the brokerage is losing approximately $19 per load.
Scale that across nearly 16,000 loads, and the result is a six-figure annual loss — not because the company is inefficient, but because the pricing environment no longer supports the cost structure most brokers carry.
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