Cross-docking for a freight brokerage: fees, doors, load plans and OS&D

Cross-docking moves freight from an inbound truck to an outbound one, usually within a day, without putting it away. For a freight brokerage it's a way to turn several small shipments into one truck to a region, or one inbound load into several deliveries, and to charge for the work in between. It pays when two things hold: the consolidated outbound truck, plus handling in and out, costs less than the shipments it replaces; and the freight leaves before the dock's free time runs out and storage starts.

This guide uses one example throughout: the Mississauga cross-dock on our cross-dock page, on a Tuesday at 10:12, billed on an example rate card in Canadian dollars. The rates are examples, not anyone's price list. Every total comes from the cross-dock fee calculator, so you can rerun it with your own dock's card.

When does cross-docking pay for a brokerage?

Consolidation is how LTL works at scale. Amazon Freight's Cross Dock 101 (July 2026) describes LTL terminals combining smaller shipments from many businesses into full outbound trucks. A brokerage with enough freight on the same lanes can do the same thing on its own account.

Take the example dock's Chicago run: 18 pallets on the floor for three stops, 8 for Joliet IL, 7 for Chicago IL and 3 for Gary IN. Sent separately, that's three LTL shipments, each priced on its own freight class with its own minimum charge. Sent through the dock, it's one truck plus handling. On the example card, handling is $12.00 a pallet in and $12.00 out, so the 18 pallets cost $432.00 to cross-dock. The test is simple: the truck's rate plus $432.00 has to come in under the three LTL bills together, with room left for your margin.

The second test is time, because storage turns a good visit into a bad one. Here is one visit, Northline Freight's 22 pallets from door 2, on the example card (24 hours free, then $5.00 a pallet a day), charged to the customer at an example $35.00 a pallet:

Each started day past the free time adds $110.00 for those 22 pallets. Three days on the floor take the whole margin.

Rent a partner's dock or run your own?

A brokerage has two ways in, and the maths is the same one a carrier uses for cost per mile: fixed costs spread over volume, plus the cost that grows with every unit.

• A partner's dock. You pay its rate card per pallet and nothing when there's no freight. You also live with its doors, its hours, its free time and its surcharges: Nexus Warehouse in New Jersey, for one, publishes after-hours surcharges of US$150, US$250 and US$350 depending on how late the work runs.
• Your own dock. You carry the lease, forklifts, a crew and the software, whatever the week brings. Divide the month's fixed costs by the pallets you expect to handle, add the labour per pallet, and compare the result with the partner's rate at the same volume.

We haven't found a public benchmark for pallets handled per labour-hour that we'd rely on, so use your own crew's numbers, or a partner dock's quote, rather than an industry average.

What's on a cross-dock rate card?

Most cards have the same lines, even when the words differ:

• Handling in and handling out, per pallet. The base rate usually covers unloading, a short stay in a staging lane and loading out, as Denver Express describes it.
• A minimum per visit, so a truck with three pallets still pays for the door and the crew.
• Free time, then storage per pallet per day.
• Accessorials: restacking, stretch-wrapping or relabelling, floor-loaded freight, and work outside dock hours.

Published figures are rare, because most docks quote on request. When we checked on Sep 27, 2026, Nexus Warehouse published US$10 a pallet in and US$10 out, a US$100 minimum covering 1 to 10 pallets a visit, and 2 hours of free storage, then US$4 a pallet a day. Cross Docks & Storage said many facilities charge US$20 to US$30 a pallet, and Brown Distribution Centers gave a US$10 to US$50 range. The calculator's page keeps that table, with the date each figure was read.

Northline Freight's 22 pallets, 30 hours on the floor with 2 rewrapped before loading, come out like this on the example card:

That's $29.73 a pallet. Charged at $35.00 a pallet, the visit brings in $770.00 and leaves $116.00.

Two things to copy into your own customer quotes. First, the minimum: the example card's $120.00 covers the first 10 pallets, so a 5-pallet visit costs $240.00 in and out, $48.00 a pallet, and at $35.00 a pallet it loses $65.00. Quote small visits with a minimum of your own. Second, free time: if the dock starts storage after 24 hours and your customer quote doesn't mention storage, you pay it.

What does a late inbound do to the outbound plan?

Doors are booked in advance: at the example dock, carriers book their own times. Northline Freight booked door 2 for 09:30 and is 25 minutes late with 22 pallets; Harrow Lane Trucking has door 3 at 10:30. A late inbound costs twice. Its own pallets wait, and any outbound truck counting on them either waits too or leaves light.

The fix is to plan for it rather than hope. The Chicago run's plan holds 2 positions at the doors for Gary pallets still coming off door 1, where Keel Transport's trailer is partway unloaded. Set a cutoff: if the held pallets aren't off the inbound by then, release the positions and let the truck go on time. A truck that leaves on time with 18 pallets is usually worth more than one that leaves late with 20, because every hour it waits is an hour of the carrier's detention clock and the receiver's appointment.

How do you build the outbound truck?

Load it backwards. The last stop goes in the nose and the first stop sits at the doors, so nobody unloads Joliet's freight to reach Gary's. On the Chicago run, TRL 5321 carries Joliet (stop 3) in the nose, then Chicago, then Gary at the doors: 20 of 26 positions planned, 38,420 lb against a 45,000 lb limit.

Weight matters as much as order. The heavy drums for Chicago sit over the trailer axles rather than at either end, so the truck stays inside its axle limits at the scale. After order and weight, the oldest freight on the floor goes first, unless a delivery window says otherwise.

What happens to short, over and damaged freight?

OS&D (over, short and damaged) is where cross-dock margins leak, because freight changes hands twice. The rules that keep it cheap:

1. Count and look at the door. Check the count and condition against the bill of lading as the inbound unloads, not later on the floor.
2. Write it down before the driver leaves. Note the exception on the delivery receipt, with photos. A clean signature says the freight arrived in good order.
3. Hold it apart. At the example dock, damaged or short-shipped freight goes to a Hold lane, 5 pallets on Tuesday's board, apart from the lanes for each destination, where it stays in view until it's sorted out.
4. Tell the customer the same day, with the photos, and agree what happens next: rework (a restack or rewrap, which is a billable accessorial), return, or ship with the exception noted.
5. Keep the claim clock in mind. For U.S. interstate moves, a carrier can't give you less than 9 months to file a loss or damage claim (49 U.S.C. 14706). Canadian and cross-border moves follow their own bill of lading conditions.

Overages need the same care in reverse: a pallet that isn't on any manifest waits in the Hold lane until it's matched to a shipment.

Why does the 24-hour line matter?

Cross-docking is meant to be fast. Amazon Freight describes cross-docked freight as typically leaving within 24 hours of unloading, and Warp targets 4 to 12 hours dock to dock against 24 to 72 hours in legacy LTL terminal networks. Past the free time, the dock bills storage, and freight that has missed its day tends to miss the next one too.

The example dock's Montreal lane shows how it adds up. It has 10 pallets and no truck booked. Four of them have been on the floor over 24 hours, which on the example card is $20.00 a day. By the same time tomorrow, the 3 pallets now 12 to 24 hours old will be past it too: 7 pallets, $35.00 a day, and counting until a truck is booked. That's why the dock board colours freight at under 12 hours, 12 to 24 and over 24.

What does cross-dock software have to do?

Whether you run the dock or send freight through a partner's, the system behind it should:

• Show every pallet on the floor by destination and by dwell time, so old freight stands out.
• Build each outbound truck in stop order within axle limits, holding positions for pallets still unloading.
• Let carriers book their own door times.
• Scan freight at the door and record damage where it's found.
• Turn handling, minimum visit fees and storage after the free time into invoice lines someone approves.
• Run beside the TMS or WMS you already have, over EDI, API or email.

That's the list Roadmark's cross-dock is built around, and it can run just the dock beside the rest of your stack. For the brokerage side (quoting, carrier vetting, load boards) see Roadmark for brokers; for the invoice, billing. For LTL freight you might consolidate, start with how density-based freight class works and our LTL page.