Commercial Equipment Shipping & Delivery
ITAG shipping rates on all open deck semi-trailers range from $900-$2,500 as a load-out rate depending on the distance and pickup/drop-off locations. Open deck semi-trailers vary from flatbeds to drop decks to lowboys to extendable flatbed trailers to double drop deck trailers to step deck trailers to most any kind of trailer with a flat deck on it can be loaded out. You are essentially ride-sharing with available loads that can be put on the trailer en route to your location. We offer doorstep delivery if you have a good GPS address that shows on map apps like Google, Apple, and trucker GPS systems. If you are buying a low-quality unit, more risks are associated with the delivery, and additional costs, such as DOT inspections and repairs along the way, are at your expense. Expedited shipping on these 18-wheeler trailers is available as well. Expedited shipping typically runs from as low as $3 a mile to as much as $5 a mile, depending on location and semi-truck driver availability. The prices of fuel and equipment cost can make the cost of shipping go up and down. In the past couple of years pricing of everything has gone through the roof due to inflation. Over time the shipping rates could go down or rise higher. The estimated rates quoted here are as of October 2022.
What affects the price of shipping and the time it takes to deliver? Several factors include the weather, pickup location, drop-off location, driver availability, load availability, rate compared to the general market rates, and the rate compared to the local market rates for that pickup or drop-off location. Rate means the amount of money the load is posted at. If the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex typically offers $1-2K+ for load-outs and your rate is below that, we will receive little interest. If we come out of Gillette, WY, the local going rate might be less.
We are also looking for carriers with trucks but no trailers, so driver availability could be a factor. There might be many drivers in that area, but they all have trailers hauling general freight. We are looking for an empty truck to marry to an empty trailer with all the proper insurance and requirements. If the rate is high enough, at times, you'll convince a carrier with a trailer to park his trailer and accept the load on the chance that they think they can make the run worthwhile. You can get lucky when a trucker is already going in that direction empty, and they will take the load cheaply because they were going that way anyways. Trucking is costly, and owner-operators are intelligent people who often refuse to run cheap freight. Their equipment is expensive, and their time is valuable, so understandably so. If you chose the load-out option, the number of loads available to put on or in the trailer could be a factor. If the loads going your direction aren't paying a reasonable rate to go that direction, then it might not be a desirable lane, and we will have a challenging time getting it delivered.
The distance between pickup and drop off, fuel prices in between, or tolls could play a factor. In the northeast corner of the U.S., tolls are costly, and if the rate doesn't cover the cost, nobody will call in interested in making the delivery. If the deadhead miles from the pickup or drop-off area are too far apart, that can play a factor too. The rate has to be commensurate with the time, fuel, load availability, deadhead miles involved, tolls, equipment type needed, equipment condition, driver knowledgable with the equipment hauled, and so much more. If you have bought an old crappy-looking product, finding a carrier willing to risk their MVR, authority, and reputation to pull a crappy-looking trailer will take much work. We can load it on top of a flatbed or drop deck to haul it to you if it is a truck. The truck must be able to drive onto the trailer, or we have to find a carrier with a trailer with a winch on it that could pull it onto the deck. Loading one trailer on top of another can be more costly with crane or rotator cost to get them out there to load it and then again at the drop-off location to unload it. If you're still reading this far, you see that many factors are at play when shipping commercial equipment.
Other types of used semi-trailers we sell, such as end dump trailers, grain hopper trailers, or side dump trailers, are more challenging to ship via load-out rates. Trailers that cannot be loaded out can only be shipped via the power-only option, which is the $3 - $5 a mile rate. Trucks can be sent one of two ways. A drive-away is where it is driven to you by a CDL driver, or the semi-truck can be loaded onto a trailer and shipped to you. Depending on the trailer type, additional loading or unloading costs could be required, such as cranes or a rotator to load the item.
Heavy equipment, construction equipment, or cranes for sale will vary in shipping rates depending on the disassembly or reassembly cost or special permits needed. Permits can range from over width to overweight to over height to escorts required. We will advise you of the equipment shipping cost according to the purchase. Overseas ocean shipping to any seaport in the world can be complex and require additional fees. Document fees, getting the equipment into the port, ensuring it is clean and free from leaks, and it can start and drive itself onto the ship. If it cannot operate under its own power, you could have a cost to break it down and load it inside a container and the cost of the container. Ocean shipping is primarily based on dimensions and weight, so the taller, broader, and heavier it is, the more it will cost to ship!
We only use A or B-rated commercial carriers and as competent and knowledgeable truckers as possible to deliver our customer's products. We ensure they have proper trucking insurance coverage and commercially licensed truck drivers for pulling the trailer. We collect several documents from each carrier, including proof of authority, a certificate of insurance, a copy of the driver's ID, a picture of their truck, and a voided check with the company name and address on it that matches the other reviewed information we have, such as insurance certificate, trucking databases, and proof of authority paperwork. The tags we provide each driver are good for the days they have to deliver. On each rate confirmation, we have the authorization to debit their account for any violations of our rate confirmation document. We require that ITAG is listed as a certificate holder on each certificate of insurance. We call each carrier's insurance agent and insurer to verify policy numbers, active insurance, and the required insurance coverage. Each trucking company is thoroughly vetted to ensure only the highest quality carriers are used to deliver your equipment purchased. This meticulous process has been hammered out over many years of delivering equipment across the country. We didn't create all this red tape out of thin air to make things difficult or slow, but every requirement we have in place is from a challenging and likely expensive lesson learned in the past. We staff dedicated in-house shipping personnel to manage and coordinate our deliveries. Our shipping process is not outsourced to a third party or a shipping broker.
Shipping and delivery times cannot be promised or guaranteed by anyone at ITAG. All deliveries depend on several factors, from the weather to driver availability to load availability to pickup and delivery locations to many factors outside the control of ITAG. You are welcome to pick up the purchased truck, trailer, or equipment yourself anytime after the purchase is complete. If you need your equipment earlier than ITAG can provide, you are encouraged to pick it up or hire another party to deliver it. ITAG delivery options and estimated pricing are just some shipping options available, as many other nationwide carriers offer these same services. Our shipping option is likely the cheapest as we do not mark up the freight as our only interest is getting units delivered as fast as possible. Shipping is more challenging than throwing it on a load board and getting it picked up. There are a lot of pitfalls, scams, and bad carriers to know how to avoid. Then you must understand how to navigate the problems and successfully get out of a hairy situation with a poor quality carrier. We have put in the work and many years of failures to create the shipping process we have in place today.
We also maintain an A Experience Factor Rating with TruckStop.com with a 1-days-to-pay payment rating. This rating shows potential carriers that we are a quality shipper to work with and that they will be paid for their services on the same day. Our rating and relationships with carriers are vital to get products picked up and delivered to our customer base. Nobody would want to ship our product if we had a bad rating or an undesirable days-to-pay factor. We must provide references every quarter to TruckStop.com with five recent carriers that delivered for us so they can verify their experience with us and amount of days it took us to pay them. Maintaining quality carrier relationships and the systems we have in place to continuously have an A+ experience with each carrier and a 1-day-to-pay rating requires doing many little things right!