How much do freight brokers get paid? Infographic

How much do freight brokers get paid? Infographic

Freight Brokerage Location

  • According to a survey of 219 freight brokers, the most popular locations to start or open a new freight brokerage are: Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Nashville, Tennessee; and Austin, Texas.  
    • The three most expensive cities to locate a freight brokerage are: New York, Seattle and Dallas. 
    • The three least expensive cities to open a freight brokerage are: Nashville,  Northeastern Arkansas and Birmingham, Alabama.  

Freight Broker Compensation 

  • The national median base salary for entry-level freight brokers is $43,285 according to data collected from LinkedIn and Glassdoor. 
  • According to a survey of 402 freight brokers, the median base salary for entry-level freight brokers is $40,000. 
    • Freight brokers in the same survey had a median commission rate of 13% on gross margins. 

Freight Broker Talent  

  • The most popular (top choice by two out of three freight brokers surveyed) definition of talent is defined as a combination of: 
    • Tenacity
    • Hustle
    • Persistence
  • Cold calling and networking are still the most popular methods for generating sales, even with the wave of automation that is transforming the freight brokerage industry.

SONAR offers proprietary data that comes from actual load tenders, electronic logging devices and transportation management systems, along with dozens of third-party global freight and logistics-related index providers like TCA Benchmarking, Freightos, ACT, Drewry and DTN.

SONAR offers the fastest freight market data in the world, across all major modes of traffic. The SONAR platform is the only freight forecasting and analytics platform that offers real-time freight market intelligence driven off actual freight contract tenders. Find out more about FreightWaves SONAR.

Related Posts

Introducing SCI: Custom Insights: Turn Your Transportation Network Into Actionable Intelligence

The Eight Year Tariff War

Cargo Chief and SONAR Team Up to Put SONAR Data Right in the Broker Workflow

Search

Search

Read Recent Posts

September 16, 2026

Introducing SCI: Custom Insights: Turn Your Transportation Network Into Actionable Intelligence

September 11, 2026

The Eight Year Tariff War

September 10, 2026

Cargo Chief and SONAR Team Up to Put SONAR Data Right in the Broker Workflow

White Papers
August 27, 2026

The Network Effect: How Live Market Data is reshaping Agentic Freight Brokerage

June 1, 2026

May 2026 The State of Freight: From Roadcheck to Summer 2026

May 1, 2026

Fuel, Friction and the Road Ahead: April 2026 The State of Freight White Paper