The thought of selecting the wrong freight brokerage can be daunting, to say the least. That's why we strive, day in and day out, to give you all the information you need to make this crucial decision.
Freight brokerage is a competitive business. We’d venture to say that providing this third-party transportation service — due to limited barriers to entry — is one of this nation’s most competitive jobs.
Granted, locating and supplying the carrier capacity to transport this nation’s non-stop demand for trailer space from one industry to the next is not without its perks.
In exchange for their services, freight brokerages develop long-term partnerships in an industry that’s truly the backbone of American business. Freight brokers also make some margin on each load.
That said, this industry is still competitive, and with more than 27,000 freight brokers currently operating in the U.S., it can be difficult to decide which one will adequately meet your needs.
You want to make the right selection and find a company that will become not only your transportation provider but a partner you can turn to throughout 2024.
Here at ATS Logistics, we’ve been operating as a freight brokerage since 1989 and although we’re confident in our service levels and pride ourselves in giving shippers top-of-the-line solutions to match their needs, we recognize that there are other options out there.
You deserve the advantages that come from fruitful freight brokerage partnerships, even if you don’t choose ATS Logistics.
In this article, we’ll outline 15 freight brokerages that you should keep an eye on when sourcing truck capacity this year
Year after year, according to the revenue numbers reported by Transport Topics, these are the companies that come out on top of the industry.
These are companies that, as evidenced by their size, customer base, diversification and years in business, do the right things year in and out. This makes them worth considering as you strive to improve your supply chain in 2024.
These companies are ordered based on their founded date (oldest to newest).
Top 15 Freight Brokerage Companies in 2024
- C.H. Robinson Worldwide
- Schneider
- J.B. Hunt Transport Services
- ArcBest Corp.
- Allen Lund Co.
- MODE Transportation
- WWEX Group
- Landstar System
- Total Quality Logistics
- Echo Global Logistics
- Nolan Transportation Group
- Coyote Logistics
- Arrive Logistics
- Ascent Global Logistics
- RXO Logistics
To help you make the best decision for your business, here is some high-level information about each of them.
C.H. Robinson Worldwide
C.H. Robinson is one of the largest freight brokerage companies in the world, handling more than 20 million shipments every year. A company rooted in technology and innovation, C.H. Robinson offers supply chain solutions complemented by a robust customer portal. C.H. Robinson serves most parts of the world, including five continents.
Founded*: 1905
Headquarters*: Eden Prairie, Minnesota
2023 Revenues**: 15,828,000,0000 (est)
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 300,000+
Number of Carriers*: 96,000+
Number of Customers*: 100,000+
Number of Employees**: 16,000+
Core Services*:
- Air freight
- Ocean freight
- Bulk and tanker
- Small parcel
- Flatbed/Open-deck
- Less-than-truckload
- Truckload
- Temperature controlled
- Drop trailer
*According to C.H. Robinson’s website
Schneider
Another company with a huge asset fleet of vehicles and equipment, Schneider has a rich history within the transportation industry. You'll probably recognize Schneider for its bright orange branding, which can be seen on their thousands of trucks and trailers. Schneider's FreightPower transportation network is one of the largest in North America. Through its 3PL division, Schneider managed more than $3 billion last year.
Founded*: 1935 (Schneider National, Inc.)
Headquarters*: Green Bay, Wisconsin
2023 Revenues**: 1,640,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: N/A
Number of Carriers*: 64,000+
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees**: 11,400 (Schneider National)
Core Services*:
- Truckload
- Less than truckload
- Intermodal
- Refrigerated
- Drayage
- Power only
- Flatbed
*According to Schneider’s website
J.B. Hunt Integrated Capacity Solutions
J.B. Hunt is a very large asset trucking company, which owns and operates more than 20,000 trucks and 150,000 trailers. J.B. Hunt also has a freight brokerage company, which brokers more than 3,000 shipments each day.
Founded*: 1961
Headquarters*: Lowell, Arkansas
2023 Revenues**: 2,386,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 3,000+
Number of Carriers*: 900,000+ trucks
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees: N/A
Core Services*:
- Truckload
- Final mile
- Intermodal
- International
*According to J.B. Hunt’s website
ArcBest Corp.
With a culture steeped in innovation, ArcBest has created a robust network of freight solutions to serve shippers around the world. One of the oldest companies on this list, ArcBest Corp has a broad geographic reach and moves thousands of shipments every day.
Founded*: 1966
Headquarters*: Fort Smith, Arkansas
2023 Revenues**: 1,940,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 5,000+
Number of Carriers*: 95,000+
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees**: 1,500+
Core Services*:
- Less than truckload
- Full truckload
- Time sensitive
- International
- Temperature sensitive
*According to ArcBest Corp.'s website
Allen Lund Co.
Founded by a man named. . . you guessed it. . . Allen Lund, Allen Lund Co. has been family-owned since 1976. Today, Allen Lund Co. moves more than 500,000 shipments per year and has a robust network of transportation carriers. SmartWay certified since 2009, Allen Lund Co. makes sustainability a priority.
Founded*: 1976
Headquarters*: La Cañada Flintridge, California
2023 Revenues**: 1,462,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 1,400+
Number of Carriers*: N/A
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees**: 685
Core Services*:
- Dry van
- Flatbed
- Refrigerated
- LTL
- International
*According to Allen Lund’s website
MODE Transportation
MODE has more than 100 offices in North America and was founded in Dallas, Texas in 1989. Today, MODE is incredibly successful and utilizes more than 50,000 carriers to provide full truckload and less-than-truckload transportation services around the nation as well as air, ocean and parcel solutions.
Founded*: 1989
Headquarters*: Dallas, Texas
2023 Revenues**: 3,465,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: N/A
Number of Carriers*: 50,000+
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees**: 600+
Core Services*:
- Truckload
- Intermodal
- Less than truckload
- Air
- Ocean
- Parcel
*According to MODE Transportation's website
WWEX Group
The WWEX Group family of brands includes Worldwide Express, GlobalTranz and Unishippers. Together, these companies serve thousands of shippers per day and move more than 36 million shipments each year.
Founded*: 1994-1995
Headquarters*: Dallas, Texas
2023 Revenues**: 4,900,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 120,000+
Number of Carriers*: 85,000+
Number of Customers***: 120,000+
Number of Employees**: 3,000+
Core Services*:
- Less than truckload
- Full truckload
- International
- Specialty
- Warehousing and fulfillment
- Managed transportation
*According to Worldwide Express' website
***According to GlobalTranz's website
Landstar System
Landstar provides a platform for freight brokerage agencies to access capacity within the "Landstar Network." More than 100,000 carriers comprise the Landstar Network, which Landstar agents use to source capacity for the loads they book (backed by Landstar's support staff).
Founded:* 1995
Headquarters*: Jacksonville, Florida
2023 Revenues**: 3,995,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: N/A
Number of Carriers*: 97,000+
Number of Customers*: 25,000+
Number of Employees**: 900+
Core Services*:
- Truckload van
- Step-deck, heavy haul and specialized
- Less than truckload
- Expedited
- Border crossing
- Air freight
*According to Landstar’s webpage
Total Quality Logistics
Founded in 1997, Total Quality Logistics (TQL) has been on an extreme growth track. In 2011, TQL had its first $1 billion revenue year and has since exploded in size and service area. Today, TQL has office locations in more than 25 U.S. states and employs nearly 10,000 people.
Founded*: 1997
Headquarters*: Cincinnati, Ohio
2023 Revenues**: 8,745,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 10,000+
Number of Carriers*: 160,000+
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees*: 9,000+
Core Services*:
- Air freight
- Drayage
- Full truckload
- Less than truckload
- Intermodal
- Ocean freight
- Drop trailer
- Oversize/Overweight
- Warehousing
*According to Total Quality Logistics' website
Echo Global Logistics
For more than 18 years, Echo has been expanding its footprint within the transportation realm. Based out of Chicago, Echo Global Logistics is a freight brokerage and 3PL company based in technology and committed to the customer experience.
Founded*: 2005
Headquarters*: Chicago, Illinois
2023 Revenues**: 3,000,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: N/A
Number of Carriers*: 50,000+
Number of Customers: N/A
Number of Employees**: 2,800+
Core Services*:
- Full truckload
- Less than truckload
- Temperature controlled LTL
- Partial truckload
- Intermodal rail
- International air and ocean
- Specialized
Nolan Transportation Group
In 2022, Nolan Transportation Group (NTG) managed more than $15 billion in transportation spend through its 3PL and offers truckload, less-than-truckload, final mile, drayage and warehousing brokerage services.
Founded*: 2005
Headquarters*: Atlanta, Georgia
2023 Revenues**: 2,150,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 3,000+
Number of Carriers*: 80,000+
Number of Customers: 14,000+
Number of Employees: N/A
Core Services*:
- Full truckload
- Less than truckload
- Final mile
- Drayage
- Expedited
- Warehousing
*According to Nolan Transportation Group's website.
Coyote Logistics
Coyote Logistics is owned by United Parcel Service (UPS), representing its brokerage wing. Coyote has 16 offices around the world which employ more than 3,000 people and serve 15,000 companies.
Founded: 2006
Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois
2023 Revenues**: 5,200,000,0000 (est)
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 10,000+
Number of Carriers*: 100,000+
Number of Customers*: 15,000+
Number of Employees*: 3,000+
Core Services*:
- Full truckload
- Less than truckload
- Intermodal
- Final mile
- Power only
- Open-deck freight
- Expedited freight
- Refrigerated freight
*According to Coyote’s website
Arrive Logistics
Arrive Logistics is a digital freight brokerage that employs more than 1,500 people (more than 250 of them work on Arrive's technology team). Look to arrive for a more automated, digital freight brokerage experience.
Founded*: 2014
Headquarters*: Austin, Texas
2023 Revenues**: 2,350,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 2,000+
Number of Carriers*: 70,000+
Number of Customers: 6,000+
Number of Employees**: 1,700
Core Services*:
- Drop trailer
- Intermodal
- Dry van
- Less than truckload
- Flatbed
- Temperature controlled
- Cross border
*According to Arrive Logistics' website
Ascent Global Logistics
Ascent ranks among the largest freight brokerage and 3PL companies in the world. Ascent is best known for its brokerage and managed transportation services which are backed by an innovative technology model.
Founded*: 2017
Headquarters*: Belleville, Michigan
2023 Revenues**: 2,099,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: 700+
Number of Carriers*: 60,000+
Number of Customers: 4,000+
Number of Employees**: 1,100+
Core Services*:
- Dry van
- Flatbed
- Oversize
- Heavy haul
- Expedite
- Less than truckload
- Temperature controlled
*According to Ascent Global's website.
RXO
RXO was separated from its parent company XPO Logistics in 2022, one of the largest shipping companies in the world. RXO is the freight brokerage arm of XPO Logistics, providing capacity to more than 10,000 customers today.
Founded*: 2022 (separated from XPO Logistics)
Headquarters*: Charlotte, North Carolina
2023 Revenues**: 2,929,000,0000
Customer Portal*: Yes
Number of Shipments Handled Per Day*: N/A
Number of Carriers*: 100,000+
Number of Customers*: 10,000+
Number of Employees**: 8,000+
Core Services*:
- Truckload
- Less-than-truckload
- Managed transportation
- Dedicated transportation
- Air freight
- Ground expedite
- Freight forwarding
How to Choose The Freight Brokerage For You in 4 Simple Steps
Now that you understand some of the options available to you, you’re probably asking yourself:
“Ok. . . but even if I consider companies like this in 2023, how will I know if they’d be the best fit for me?”
This is the tricky part. Finding your best-fit freight brokerage isn’t as easy as simply selecting a company for this list. And, it isn’t as simple as picking the largest company or the company closest to your home base.
No, to truly find a partnership that’s worth writing home about, you’ll want to do four things:
- Take stock of your needs
- Determine the brokerage’s strengths
- Take financial security and longevity into consideration
- Prioritize safety
1. Take Stock of Your Needs
When looked at from afar, the transportation landscape is complex. Reefers transport temperature-controlled goods through the heart of the Sunshine State while double-drop trailers haul large machinery to construction sites in Connecticut.
Dry vans haul pallet-based goods to North Dakota’s grocery stores and a line trailer moves a 400,000-pound boiler along Interstate 94 through the plains of Wisconsin.
With all this going on, selecting a transportation provider that can adequately serve you and your business's day-to-day transportation requirements is key.
To do this it’s important that you — before taking any action to find a provider — understand exactly what you’re looking for in a transportation partner.
You can do this by outlining your necessities, including:
- How much and how frequently you’ll need capacity.
- Where you’ll need coverage (areas, regions, locations, lanes).
- How much load-tracking visibility you’ll require.
Identifying your true pain points, before you begin the process of finding a freight brokerage to meet them, will help you substantially in the long run. It’s simply impossible to find the right partnership if you don’t first understand what you’re looking for and the part they’ll play in your supply chain.
2. Determine The Brokerage’s Strengths
Due to the wide variety of freight in transport, and the intricacies of these processes, many of the nation’s best freight brokerages don’t have experience moving all commodity types.
The last thing you want to do is to select a brokerage that — due to a lack of experience — can’t get the job done for your freight. To avoid running into this issue, make sure to ask your brokerage the following questions:
- What freight are you best at moving?
- What is your experience moving my kind of commodity?
- What are your preferred lanes and lengths of hauls?
Analyze their answers to these questions to determine whether this brokerage’s core competencies will fit your supply chain. You’ll often discover that the best freight brokers understand their strengths and weaknesses fully.
Find a brokerage that has the strengths that meet your challenges so when it’s time to get your freight moving, they know exactly what it takes to do so.
3. Take Financial Security and Longevity Into Consideration
Not all freight brokers are created equal.
In an industry with such low barriers to entry, a lot of freight brokers pop in and out of the marketplace at their convenience. This makes it difficult — without doing the proper vetting procedures— to find a brokerage that will stick by you, even when it’s not convenient for them.
You want a brokerage that has the longevity and financial security to get you a truck and maintain your relationship through thick and thin.
Brokers who don’t serve their customers well don’t stick around this industry for very long. Find a brokerage with a deeply rooted history of commitment and the financial standing to match.
Ask potential brokers questions like:
- When were you founded?
- How many employees do you have?
- What do you do if something goes wrong with my load?
These questions, and questions like these, will play an important role in selecting a brokerage that has a reliable history of putting the customer first.
You’re their customer, you always come first.
4. Prioritize Carrier Safety
In the business of transporting heavy freight at 60-70 miles per hour along interstate highways, while minivans and SUVs wiz by, maintaining safety and safe practices through the entire process is crucial.
Working with a brokerage that doesn’t have the proper checks and balances in place within their network won’t only damage your timelines and supply chain but your reputation as well.
As such, don’t ever select a brokerage without asking them about their carrier safety qualification practices first.
Their answers to questions like “What is your process for vetting the carriers in your network?” should give you the information you need to determine whether each brokerage values safety as highly as you do.
Nothing is more important than safety in this industry. Nothing. Not any amount of freight or the potential to save any sum of money. Good brokerages know this and have solid processes in place to vet their carriers.
Make sure to find a brokerage that values quality and hire carriers that have demonstrated history of safety.
Find The Best Brokerage For You This Year
Now that you have a list of companies to check this year and some guidelines for selecting the right partner for your business, you’re ready for the next step in your freight brokerage selection journey!
But what should you do next?
Here at ATS Logistics, we’ve committed ourselves to helping great companies, like yours, fill their transportation networks with companies that will come through for them.
To do so, we’ve developed this 26-question Frieght Brokerage Selection Checklist.
Download it today and ensure that the brokerages you add to your network this year are “checking all the boxes.”
Finally, here at ATS Logistics, we're proud to consistently rank among the best in the business. But that doesn't mean we're the right fit for every company. So here's what you should know about us...
You should consider ATS Logistics as long as you're looking for a brokerage that:
- Prioritizes service quality and reliability —but not always the lowest price.
- Can help you move anything from refrigerated and dry van freight to flatbed and heavy haul cargos.
- Has a firmly-vetted and well-managed network of carriers.
- Only works with the safest trucking companies and transportation providers.
- Will help you meet each of your customer commitments with solutions customized to fit your requirements.
If these things intrigue you and leave you wondering whether a brokerage like ATS Logistics would fit your supply chain, please don't hesitate to reach out. We’d love to show you how a great brokerage operates and what this can truly mean for its customers.
