How to Quote an Oversize or Overweight Load

Start with an equipment profile. Save the setups you run often and skip the rest. Keep it lean so it stays fast.

Origins and destinations take cities, ZIP codes, or full addresses. Need the route to go a specific way? Add a waypoint (we call it a stop). If you know a state likes to push you a certain direction, force the route through a checkpoint to get closer to what they will actually make you do.

Toggle between broker and carrier up top. The only real difference shows up in the overweight section. Where brokers can you use the GVW prediction logic.

You do not have to fill in weight or length. Leave them off and the calculator assumes that dimension is legal. That is the fast path when you just want to model a 12 foot 2 inch wide load and move on. When you do use weight, it splits load weight from truck-and-trailer weight.

There is also a full axle calculator. Drag axles to represent different setups, set minimum distances, and it shows you what is permitted per state with lookup tables. Length splits the same way weight does, and you can add overhang and a kingpin-to-rear-axle figure for states that restrict it.

Everything defaults to interstate, and you flip the route per state. A real route can often be a mix of both, so mapping the whole thing to one or the other does not make sense. More on why that matters in the next step.

On an overweight load, the first thing up is the detailed overweight fee popup. It tries to capture everything a state might charge you. Some states are a flat fee. Others get complicated. Illinois is one of the worst, with a formula that runs actual gross weight times distance plus per-increment charges. The popup shows you the model the state actually uses.

This is also where it surfaces the add-ons: bridge analysis, tollway permits, that kind of thing. Each one is a line item you can include or skip, and every value is editable. If a number does not match what you know the real cost to be, overwrite it.

Then the route breakdown. Blue is interstate. The mileage slider lets you say how many more miles you are willing to drive to capture more interstate, or the inverse. That matters because Google will often pick the route with fewer miles while the state ends up routing you onto the interstate anyway.

Road tiers are next. States carry several. California has around five, Idaho has three, some states are just multi-lane or two-lane. Flip a state to two-lane and the escort count often jumps. Here is a real one: we got put onto Wyoming two-lane during construction season and suddenly needed an escort the whole state, when we did not expect any. This is the view that catches that.

Escorts show as a raw count first. Then you price them the way they actually work: dollars per mile, retainers, base rates, hotels, and how many miles per day you cover. Bigger load, fewer miles per day, more days, retainers climb. We also built in smoothing. Conservative bridges the gap so you carry an escort through a state that did not strictly need one because you need it in the next state. Full carry holds the escort until you last need it, which is usually unrealistic, but there are cases for it.

If something trips a superload, open it and read what triggered it. Same with the notes: fees, holiday restrictions, special commodities. Structural and over-length commodities often get treated differently, so it is worth a look.

It starts with your base truck rate. Carrier or broker, you have to decide what the equipment should run. A step deck in Florida is a different number than an RGN in the Pacific Northwest, so save these as named profiles you can reuse.

Out of Route miles come next, and they are worth paying attention to. In construction season, 25 percent extra is not unusual. That figure also feeds the escort numbers.

Then the OD premium: what you charge for the load being a certain amount oversize or overweight. Marginally over width is a small premium. Fifteen feet wide is not, because you are going slow, much more tedious, and higher risk. Way more likely to need extra hoops to jump through for the state. Set it as a percentage or a dollar-per-mile, or open the OD premium logic and set your own rules for it. Roughly two feet over width might add twenty percent, for example. It builds a repeatable quoting system instead of a gut number every time.

The trip overview shows adjusted miles, base truck, OD premium, and the truck total. Add an escort safety buffer if you want a cushion. Retainers, hotels, superload and police charges are all here and all editable, because what you charge is not always what the state charges. Police and superloads add headache and delay, and you can price that in. Add custom line items for anything else, then save the calculation to use later.

You land in the dashboard. Team accounts can add teammates here. Find the calculation under the Saved tab.

Upload your logo for a branded PDF, and set an org-wide disclaimer. You can edit or drop the disclaimer per send, so you are not retyping it every time.

From a saved load you get two outputs. Export a plain PDF for your records, or generate a customer-facing quote. On the customer quote you control how much detail to show, down to pass-through items. Pass-throughs are useful when surveys, superloads, or police escorts are involved and a firm all-in number is hard to commit to. The rest folds into a single truck fee, with OD premium and broker margin lumped into that truck cost.

The finished quote shows your logo, a reference number, the escort breakdown, your truck cost as one number, and the pass-throughs. It's clean enough to hand to a customer.

There is a free plan: three calculations a month, every feature included, no credit card. Benchmark it against whatever you use now.