Contract rate

A contract rate is a price a shipper and carrier agree for a set period, often a year, usually per lane and per mile. It fixes the price but not the capacity: the carrier can still turn a load down. DAT's US van contract rate averaged USD 2.41 a mile in August 2026, excluding fuel.

How contract rates are set

Once a year, sometimes more often, a shipper sends its lanes out to bid. FreightWaves' SONAR describes what follows: the shipper builds a routing guide listing carriers or brokers in order of preference, typically from the lowest price to the highest. Each load is then offered to the first carrier in the guide at its contract rate, and passed down the list if it says no.

What US law says

A motor carrier may contract with a shipper to provide specified services under specified rates and conditions, and the exclusive remedy for a breach is an action in a state or federal court unless the parties agree otherwise (49 U.S.C. § 14101(b)). The contract, not a published tariff, then sets the price.

Price, not capacity

DAT puts it plainly: contracts are binding on price, not capacity, so carriers can still reject individual loads — which is why even shippers with full routing guides end up on the spot market. A contract rate is the price of a load the carrier accepts, not a promise that it will accept every one.

Worked example: the premium over spot

The mistake people make

Treating the contract rate as the lane's cost. Every rejected load moves up the routing guide to a dearer carrier or out to the spot market, so the real cost of a lane is the contract rate on the loads carriers accepted and the spot price on the rest.