CETUS PROThe board opens
Your next load is being worked while your driver is still in the bunk. The best-paying freight posts early and is gone inside the hour.
Dispatching under your authority, not ours
You keep the MC. You keep the trailer. You approve every rate confirmation before it is signed. We do the part that eats your evenings — working the boards, arguing the rate, checking the broker and chasing the paperwork.
- No forced dispatch — you approve every load
- Rate floor you set, in writing, never undercut
- Broker credit checked before booking, every time
- Detention started at the two-hour mark, not after delivery
- No exclusivity — book your own loads whenever you want
What a dispatcher is actually for
Not to send you loads. To make sure the load you run is the right one, that the broker pays, and that nothing about it costs you a day you did not plan to give away.
A good dispatcher spends most of the day saying no. There are always loads on the board. The work is knowing which of them pays properly once the empty miles, the wait time and the reload market at the far end are counted — and which broker will still be answering the phone in forty days when the invoice is due.
That is the job we do for you. Your driver drives; you decide; we handle the noise between those two things.
What is included
Everything from the search to the settlement
One dispatcher, one direct line, and the whole cycle of a load handled end to end rather than split across three people who each know a piece of it.
- Load sourcing on the major boards and through direct broker relationships
- Rate negotiation against the floor you set, never below it
- Broker vetting — credit score, days to pay, dispute history
- Rate confirmation sent to you for approval before anything is signed
- Route planning with fuel stops, scales and truck parking marked
- Reload planning at the delivery market before the truck arrives
- Check calls to shipper, receiver and broker throughout the run
- Detention and layover claimed while the driver is still on site
- TONU claims when a load cancels after dispatch
- Lumper and scale receipts collected and submitted with the invoice
- Paperwork to your factoring company or invoiced direct the same day
- Weekly summary — gross, loaded miles, empty miles, rate per total mile
A normal day on your truck
Not a sales process. This is the actual working rhythm of the desk once you are set up.
Rate agreed, broker checked
We negotiate, pull the broker's credit and days-to-pay, then send you the rate confirmation. Nothing is signed until you say yes.
Check calls and the clock
Shipper and receiver updated, appointment confirmed. If the truck sits, the detention clock starts at two hours and the broker is told in writing.
Tomorrow is planned
Next day set against the hours your driver actually has left, with fuel stops and parking chosen in advance rather than at 22:00 on the shoulder.
Third shift takes it
Breakdowns, reroutes, appointment changes and dock refusals get answered by a person, not a voicemail box.
Why the bigger number is often the worse load
Gross pays nobody. What matters is what the truck nets per day it is committed. Here is the arithmetic we run before a load is offered to you.
Two loads on the same morning. The first looks better by two hundred and fifty dollars. After the empty miles, the fuel and the extra day, it is worth roughly six hundred dollars a day less to your truck.
| Line item | Load A — the big number | Load B — the one we take |
|---|---|---|
| Linehaul offered | $2,400 | $2,150 |
| Loaded miles | 1,000 | 820 |
| Deadhead to pickup | 250 | 35 |
| Total miles run | 1,250 | 855 |
| Rate per total mile | $1.92 | $2.51 |
| Fuel estimate | $725 | $496 |
| Net before fixed costs | $1,675 | $1,654 |
| Days the truck is committed | 2.5 | 1.5 |
| Net per day | $670 | $1,103 |
Load B also finishes in a market with freight going out, so the next load is booked before the trailer is empty. Load A finishes two hundred miles from anything and starts the whole problem again with another deadhead.
This is the entire skill of the job. Anyone can find a load. Knowing which one to refuse is what you are paying a desk for.
Getting paid
We check the broker before we check the rate
A great rate from a broker who pays in ninety days, or not at all, is not a great rate. Every booking goes through the same screen.
- Credit score and reported days-to-pay pulled before the load is offered to you
- Authority status confirmed as active and properly bonded
- Dispute history checked against carrier reports and our own record with them
- Rate confirmation read in full — we flag one-sided detention terms and unpaid layover clauses before you sign, not after
- Factoring compatibility checked if your factor will not buy that broker's invoices
- Non-payment escalation — written demand, then support with a bond claim if it gets that far
Who this suits, and who it does not
We would rather lose a call than take on a carrier this will not work for.
A good fit
- Owner-operators running one truck who are losing evenings to the load board
- Fleets of two to thirty trucks with no full-time office staff
- Carriers who want to keep their own authority and their own broker relationships
- New authority prepared for a slower first ninety days while the record builds
- Drivers whose first language is not English and who want a desk that speaks theirs
- Anyone who wants the compliance side handled alongside the dispatching
Not a good fit
- Carriers looking for someone to edit or clean up driver logs
- Anyone wanting loads booked without their approval to save time
- Operations without active authority, insurance or a working ELD
- Carriers who want a guaranteed weekly gross — no honest desk can promise that
- Fleets needing an in-house TMS build or software development
Equipment and lanes
Tell us the lanes you want and the ones you will not run. Both go on your profile and neither gets quietly forgotten in a busy week.
Dry van48' / 53'Reefer53'Flatbed48' / 53'Step deckRamps / no rampsConestogaRolling tarpPower onlyDrop & hookBox truck26' non-CDLHotshotClass 3–5
Dispatching questions
No, and the difference matters legally. A freight broker is licensed by the FMCSA, arranges transport between a shipper and a carrier, and is the party in the middle of that contract. A dispatch service works for the carrier, under the carrier's own operating authority, as your representative. Cetus Pro is a dispatch service. We are not a broker and we do not take a position between you and the shipper.
Yes. Your MC and DOT numbers stay yours, your insurance stays in your name, and the broker contracts are signed by you. If you leave, you keep every broker relationship built while you were with us. Nothing about this arrangement puts your authority behind ours.
Whenever you want. Some carriers have a direct customer they have kept for years and want us to fill the gaps around it. Tell us what you are running yourself and we plan around it instead of competing with it.
We chase it. First a written demand with the signed rate confirmation, the POD and the delivery timestamps attached. If that fails, we help you file against the broker's surety bond and give you the documentation package for it. Screening beforehand is what keeps this rare, which is why the credit check happens before the rate discussion rather than after.
Tell your dispatcher and it goes on the profile. Home time is planned into the lane sequence so the last load of the week delivers near you rather than eight hundred miles away. Lane changes take effect immediately — you are not locked into a routing plan you agreed to at signup.
Yes. Above a handful of trucks you get a named dispatcher assigned to your fleet rather than shared coverage, plus a weekly report in whatever format your bookkeeper actually uses. Tell us the fleet size on the intake call and we will be straight about what coverage looks like at that scale.
No. Every load is checked against the 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour window, the 30-minute break and the 60/70-hour cycle before it reaches you. If a load cannot be run legally, we do not offer it and then leave the driver to work out the problem at the dock.
Send us last week's numbers
Gross, loaded miles, empty miles and the rates you accepted. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to show you which loads cost you a day — whether or not you end up working with us.
+1 732 387 7777Dispatch lineinfo@cetuspro.proEmail24 hours, Monday to SundayDesk hoursELD and log book servicesRelated