The Complete Guide to Shipping LTL in the US

LTL — less‑than‑truckload — is one of the most cost‑effective ways to move palletized freight in the United States. It is also one of the most misunderstood. The shippers who have the smoothest experience are not the ones who fight the system; they are the ones who understand how it works and set the right expectations with their own customers about pickups, transit, and delivery.

This document explains the rules of the road as the LTL industry actually operates them. Read it once end‑to‑end, then keep it as a reference. The sections you'll return to most are freight class (Section 7), accessorials (Section 8), transit times (Section 10), volume limits (Section 11), and claims (Section 16).

In FTL shipping, one truck is loaded at the shipper's dock and drives straight to the destination. LTL is the opposite: your handful of pallets shares a trailer with dozens of other shippers' freight, and it travels through a network of terminals rather than going door‑to‑door. Understanding that network explains nearly every rule, fee, and timing question that follows.

The hub‑and‑spoke flow

1. Local pickup. A city driver collects your freight along with everyone else's in the area and brings it to the origin service center (terminal).
2. Cross‑dock & sort. At the terminal your pallets are unloaded, weighed, measured, sorted by destination, and re‑loaded onto a line‑haul trailer headed the right direction.
3. Line haul. Long‑distance trailers — typically 48′ or 53′ vans, often run as doubles in many lanes — move freight terminal‑to‑terminal, usually overnight.
4. Relay / breakbulk terminals. Longer lanes pass through one or more intermediate "breakbulk" terminals, where freight is unloaded and re‑sorted again — often adding a night per stop.
5. Destination terminal & delivery. At the final terminal your freight is loaded onto a local delivery truck for the last mile.

The benefit of this design is enormous: by consolidating many small shipments, carriers achieve scale that makes shipping a few pallets affordable. The trade‑offs are equally built‑in — your freight is handled 4–6 times, it moves on a fixed network schedule rather than on demand, and it cannot deviate from that schedule for a single shipment.

LTL is the right tool for a specific job. Using it for the wrong job is the most common — and most expensive — mistake shippers make.

For local metro moves where speed and real‑time visibility matter, Mothership's Local Same‑Day service keeps freight on one truck with no terminal stops. For shipments that outgrow standard LTL, the right mode is FTL.

The U.S. LTL market is highly concentrated: the top 25 carriers account for roughly 91% of a ~$53‑billion market. These are large, regulated, public‑company‑scale operations. Knowing who they are — and how they position themselves — helps you understand the service you're buying. Revenue figures below are 2024 (including fuel surcharge) as compiled by SJ Consulting Group for Logistics Management.

National  coverage across the lower 48.   Regional  concentrated in certain regions or specific lane types (e.g., expedited or inter‑regional).

Not all coverage is created equal. The biggest predictor of pickup reliability, tracking accuracy and document speed is whether the carrier runs your shipment on its own assets the whole way.

There is no universally "better" answer — only the right answer for a given shipment. Mothership surfaces both so you can weigh speed and visibility against cost on every lane.

Liftgate capacity

A liftgate is the hydraulic platform on the back of a truck that raises and lowers freight when there's no loading dock or forklift. It's a piece of safety equipment with real limits — and those limits are physical, not negotiable.

If a single handling unit exceeds roughly 2,500 lbs or ~96″ in length, it likely won't clear a liftgate — split it across pallets, arrange a dock/forklift, or plan a terminal pickup.

When can you use a liftgate?

Use this quick "if‑this‑then‑that" check before booking — and tell us about both ends, since the answer can differ at pickup and delivery.

Pallet weight & dimensions

When a liftgate isn't needed (a dock or forklift is available at both ends), pallets can be heavier — most LTL carriers will accept individual handling units up to roughly 4,000–10,000+ lbs depending on tariff, with total shipment weight commonly capped before volume rules apply. The practical guidance:

• Standard pallet footprint: 48″ × 40″. Keep freight stacked within the footprint — overhang invites damage and reclassification.
• With a liftgate: keep each pallet at or under ~2,500 lbs and within the platform size above.
• Without a liftgate (dock/forklift): heavier pallets are fine, but any single piece over 8′ (96″) triggers an over‑length charge, and pieces past 12′ climb steeply.
• Always cap pallet height so a non‑stackable load doesn't get rated as if it fills the full trailer height (carriers often treat a 48″ non‑stackable pallet as 96″ tall for cubing).

Every LTL shipment is assigned a freight class (from 50 to 500) and one or more NMFC item codes maintained by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA). Class drives price: lower numbers (denser, sturdier, easier‑to‑handle freight) cost less; higher numbers cost more. Historically class balanced four factors — density, handling, stowability and liability.

What changed in 2025

Effective July 19, 2025 (NMFTA Docket 2025‑1), the classification system underwent its most sweeping revision in years, shifting roughly 2,000 commodities from commodity‑based to density‑based classification and replacing the old 11‑tier density scale with a more granular 13‑tier scale. A further docket (2026‑1) is scheduled to begin rolling out in early 2026.

The practical upshot: density now drives class for most freight. Density is simply weight ÷ total cubic feet (pounds per cubic foot). The more accurately you measure and declare your freight, the more accurately it prices — and the less likely you are to be re‑rated after the fact.

Write descriptions that prevent reclassifications

• Describe the actual commodity, not a vague label — "steel shelving brackets," not "parts" or "freight."
• Give precise, packaged dimensions and weight — measure after palletizing and wrapping, including overhang.
• State stackability and packaging accurately; declaring non‑stackable freight as stackable is a frequent dispute trigger.
• Include the NMFC code and class on the Bill of Lading when known. Mothership's quoting tools classify for you, so you generally don't need to look these up manually — but accurate dimensions and descriptions are still on you.

Accessorials are charges for any service beyond standard dock‑to‑dock pickup and delivery. They aren't optional surprises — they're priced services the carrier must actually perform. The golden rule: declare every accessorial you'll need at booking. If a driver arrives without the right equipment or instructions, the result is a failed attempt, a redelivery fee, and a delay.

Appointments are delivery‑only — and the carrier sets them

Two options cover timed deliveries, and they are not the same thing. Call before delivery is simply advance notice — the carrier phones ahead before arriving, but it is not a scheduled time. A delivery appointment is a set time the carrier arranges: it contacts the delivery location and books a slot that works for both the carrier and the receiver. There are no pickup appointments. And importantly, LTL carriers will not accept a pre‑made appointment you arrange on the receiver's behalf — they set the appointment themselves. Request the appointment accessorial and let the carrier coordinate the time directly with your customer.

Delivering to Amazon (and other appointment‑only docks)

Large fulfillment networks — Amazon fulfillment centers above all — accept freight by scheduled appointment only, and the carrier or broker books it, not you. They request a delivery slot through Amazon's Carrier Central portal using your shipment's references (PO / ASN / ARN and pallet count); Amazon confirms a date and time (often within about 24 hours) and issues an appointment / ISA ID the driver must present to get into the yard. Miss the window, arrive late, or send mismatched details and the freight is turned away — forcing a new appointment plus storage and redelivery. The practical takeaways: build in extra lead time, give complete and accurate references at booking, and don't promise your customer a delivery date until the appointment is actually confirmed.

Can you approve accessorials at the time of delivery?

A common request is for the carrier to call or email for sign‑off before performing an accessorial on site — the way a dedicated full‑truckload (FTL) driver might wait for the go‑ahead. In LTL this is not possible. The driver is running a fixed, sequenced route serving many shippers and cannot hold the truck while waiting for approval. If an accessorial is genuinely needed to complete the delivery, the carrier decides on the spot and performs it — it will not wait for your authorization first.

When approval is withheld or can't be reached in the moment, the outcomes are worse, not better. The driver either accrues wait time and detention, or takes the freight back to the terminal, where a failed‑delivery fee and daily storage begin to add up (see Sections 12–13). In practice, both of those routinely cost more than the accessorial itself. This isn't a Mothership rule — it is simply how the LTL network is built to operate.

Quotes are ZIP‑to‑ZIP — the address can still change the price

LTL rates are priced ZIP code to ZIP code. At quote time the carrier sees the postal codes, the freight class, and the dimensions — not the realities of the exact street address. So conditions that only surface on the ground can change the final price, or even whether the freight can be delivered at all: road weight limits that bar a full‑size truck, a destination terminal that can only send a smaller truck, no liftgate where one is needed, or plain access problems — low‑hanging trees, steep or curvy roads, a long dirt driveway. The remedy is the same as for accessorials: tell us everything you know about the delivery site up front, so the right equipment and service are priced in from the start instead of showing up as a rebill or a failed delivery.