LTL stands for “less than truckload,” a shipping method where your freight shares trailer space with shipments from other companies. Instead of paying for an entire 53-foot trailer, you only pay for the portion of space your cargo occupies. It’s the most common way businesses ship goods that are too large for a parcel carrier like UPS or FedEx but too small to justify booking a full truck.
How LTL Shipping Works
LTL shipments typically weigh between 150 and 10,000 pounds and take up one to six pallets. Some carriers accept freight up to 15,000 or even 20,000 pounds, but the sweet spot for standard LTL is that one-to-six pallet range. If your shipment is under 12 linear feet of trailer space, it’s generally a good fit for LTL.
The process starts when a carrier picks up your freight from your location and brings it to a local terminal. From there, it moves through what’s called a hub-and-spoke network, which works a lot like connecting flights at an airport. Your shipment travels to a larger regional hub, gets sorted and grouped with other freight heading in the same direction, then continues to a terminal near the final destination for last-mile delivery. A shipment going from Louisville to Baltimore, for example, might route through a hub in Harrisburg where it’s consolidated with other Baltimore-bound freight before completing the trip.
This consolidation model is what makes LTL economical. The carrier fills each trailer with cargo from multiple shippers, spreading the cost of fuel, labor, and equipment across everyone on board.
What Determines LTL Pricing
LTL rates aren’t simply based on weight. Carriers use a standardized system called the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) to assign your shipment a freight class, which directly affects what you pay. Four factors determine that class:
- Density: How heavy your shipment is relative to its size. A compact, heavy pallet costs less to ship per pound than a light, bulky one because it uses trailer space more efficiently.
- Stowability: How easily your freight can be loaded alongside other cargo. Irregularly shaped items or hazardous materials are harder to stow and cost more.
- Handling: Whether your shipment requires special equipment or extra care during loading and unloading.
- Liability: How fragile, perishable, or valuable the goods are, which affects the carrier’s risk.
Density is the biggest driver of classification. Recording exact dimensions on every bill of lading and packaging freight as compactly as possible helps you avoid reclassifications, which happen when a carrier measures your shipment at the terminal and finds it doesn’t match what you declared. A reclassification means a higher rate and potentially a surcharge.
LTL vs. Full Truckload
Full truckload (FTL) shipping means you’re booking an entire trailer for your freight alone. It makes sense when your cargo fills or nearly fills a 53-foot dry van, which typically holds 29 or more pallets. Your shipment travels directly from pickup to delivery with no terminal stops in between, which means faster transit and less handling.
LTL is the better choice when you’re shipping smaller quantities. You pay a fraction of what a full truck would cost because the carrier is splitting that expense among several customers. The trade-off is longer transit times and more touchpoints where your freight is loaded, unloaded, and sorted. Shipments of seven to 28 pallets fall into a middle category sometimes called “volume LTL” or “partial truckload,” where carriers may offer pricing somewhere between standard LTL and full truckload rates.
Transit Times and Handling Risks
Because LTL freight passes through multiple terminals, it takes longer to arrive than a direct truckload shipment. Each hub transfer adds time, and several factors can extend that window further. During peak periods like the fourth quarter of the year, the weeks before major holidays, or after severe weather events, terminals back up. Freight misses its sorting window and sits overnight, pushing every downstream milestone back.
The multiple touchpoints also increase the risk of damage. LTL cargo encounters forklifts, pallet jacks, conveyor systems, and sometimes hand-stacking at each terminal. Pallets that aren’t stable or products that aren’t properly protected will eventually sustain damage over enough shipments. Most carriers prefer individual pallets to weigh 2,000 pounds or less for safe handling, though maximum pallet weights range from 1,500 to 4,000 pounds depending on the carrier.
Billing issues can cause delays too. If your shipment gets reclassified mid-transit because the dimensions or weight don’t match the bill of lading, it can sit at a terminal for one to three days while the carrier and shipper sort out the pricing difference. Accessorial charges, like needing a liftgate at delivery or showing up at a location with restricted receiving hours that weren’t disclosed upfront, can also push delivery to the next available attempt.
How to Ship LTL
To book an LTL shipment, you’ll need a few pieces of information: the origin and destination zip codes, the weight and dimensions of your freight, the number of pallets, and the NMFC freight class for each commodity you’re shipping. You can get rate quotes directly from carriers or through a freight broker who shops multiple carriers on your behalf.
Palletizing your freight properly is one of the most effective things you can do to prevent damage and billing surprises. Shrink-wrap pallets tightly, stack boxes evenly, and make sure nothing hangs over the edges of the pallet. Label every piece of freight with the destination address and a bill of lading number. If your shipment requires anything beyond a standard dock delivery, like a liftgate, inside delivery, or a delivery appointment at a specific time, communicate those needs when you book. Each of those services carries an additional fee, but disclosing them upfront avoids failed delivery attempts and rebilling later.