9 Ways to Reduce Freight Costs Without Sacrificing Service

Freight cost is one of the biggest line items for any company that moves physical goods. When fuel prices climb, freight rates shift, and additional charges start stacking up, it doesn’t take long for transportation costs to cut into your margins.

The good news is you don’t have to accept rising costs as the cost of doing business. With the right strategies, companies of all sizes, from small businesses shipping a few pallets a week to large operations moving hundreds of loads a month, can lower their freight expenses while maintaining the service their customers expect.

1. Consolidate Your Shipments

One of the fastest ways to lower shipping costs is to stop paying for space you’re not using.

How Load Consolidation Works

Load consolidation means combining multiple smaller shipments into fewer, fuller loads. Instead of sending three half-empty trailers to the same region, you send one or two full ones. The result: a lower cost per unit shipped.

This is especially relevant for companies that regularly ship smaller shipments via LTL freight. LTL pricing is based on weight, dimensions, and freight class. And the per-pound rate is almost always higher than full truckload pricing. When you can combine enough freight to fill a trailer, you move from LTL rates to FTL rates, which typically means significant savings.

When Freight Consolidation Makes Sense

Consolidation works well when you have:

• Multiple shipments heading to the same geographic area within a similar timeframe
• Recurring weekly or monthly orders to the same customers or distribution centers
• Flexibility in delivery windows that allows you to batch orders together
• Products from multiple vendors that can be combined before final delivery

Beyond cost savings, freight consolidation also reduces carbon emissions by putting fewer trucks on the road. That’s a benefit that matters to both your bottom line and your environmental footprint.

2. Negotiate Long-Term Contracts with Carriers

If you’re booking freight on the spot market every time you have a load to move, you’re almost certainly paying more than you need to.

Building long-term relationships with freight carriers gives you access to negotiated rates that are typically lower and more stable than spot pricing. A long-term contract also gives you priority access to capacity during tight markets. This means that when spot rates spike, contract shippers are usually the last to feel the squeeze.

Here’s how the two approaches compare:

Factor	Spot Market	Long-Term Contract
Rate Stability	Low — fluctuates with demand	High — locked or indexed rates
Capacity Guarantee	None	Priority access
Additional Fees	Common and unpredictable	Typically negotiated upfront
Relationship Value	Transactional	True partnership

3. Optimize Your Shipping Routes

Miles cost money. Every extra mile a truck drives means more fuel consumption, more driver time, and a higher freight cost on your invoice.

Why Route Planning Matters

Intelligent route planning reduces total miles driven, which directly lowers fuel costs and fuel surcharge expenses. It also reduces transit times, which means faster deliveries and better customer satisfaction.

Even small improvements add up. Shaving 50 miles off a route might seem minor on a single load, but multiply that across hundreds or thousands of shipments a year and you’re looking at long-term savings that are hard to ignore.

Tools and Tactics for Smarter Routes

A transportation management system (TMS) can analyze shipping routes, identify inefficiencies, and recommend optimized paths based on distance, traffic patterns, and delivery windows. If you don’t have a TMS, working with an experienced carrier who knows the road network is the next best thing.

4. Choose the Right Equipment for Every Load

Paying for the wrong trailer is one of the most overlooked sources of wasted freight spend. If you’re shipping standard palletized goods on a specialized trailer, you’re paying for capability you don’t need. If you’re forcing oversized cargo into equipment that doesn’t fit, you’re risking damage, delays, and reshipment costs.

Matching your freight to the right equipment type saves money and protects your cargo:

• Flatbeds and drop decks: construction materials, steel, lumber, oversized equipment
• Dry vans: palletized goods, boxed products, consumer goods
• Conestoga trailers: weather-sensitive freight that still needs crane or side loading
• Reefer trailers: temperature-sensitive food, pharmaceuticals, or chemicals

Mercer’s fleet includes over 1,600 trucks with flatbeds, drop decks dry vans, and conestoga trailers. You get exactly the equipment your freight shipment requires without paying for what it doesn’t. View Mercer’s full equipment lineup.

5. Reduce Accessorial and Additional Charges

The base freight rate is only part of what you pay. Accessorial charges (fees tacked on for services beyond standard pickup and delivery) can inflate your final bill by 10–20% or more if you’re not careful.

Common Fees That Inflate Freight Costs

Charge	Typical Cause
Detention	Truck waiting too long at pickup or delivery
Liftgate	No dock available for loading or unloading
Residential Delivery	Delivering to a non-commercial address
Redelivery	Recipient not available at scheduled time
Inside Delivery	Freight must be moved beyond the dock
Reclassification	Incorrect freight class on the bill of lading

How to Minimize Them

Most additional fees are avoidable with better preparation:

• Have freight staged and ready at the scheduled pickup time to avoid detention charges
• Provide accurate weight, dimensions, and freight class on every shipment
• Communicate special delivery requirements (liftgate, inside delivery, appointment) upfront so they can be quoted 
• Confirm the receiving location has a dock and someone available to accept delivery

Working with a carrier that communicates clearly and sets expectations upfront goes a long way toward eliminating surprise charges.

6. Improve Operational Efficiency Across Your Supply Chain

Sometimes the biggest cost savings don’t come from negotiating a lower rate. They come from eliminating waste in your own processes.

Audit Your Current Freight Operations

Start by reviewing your freight spend over the past 6–12 months. Look for patterns:

• Which lanes are costing the most per mile?
• How often are you paying detention or other accessorial fees?
• What percentage of your loads are moving at full capacity?
• How does your on-time delivery rate compare to your carrier’s promises?

Tracking these KPIs gives you a clear picture of where money is being lost and where operational efficiency improvements will have the biggest impact.

Reduce Waste in the Process

Once you’ve identified the gaps, focus on high-impact fixes: standardize your packaging to maximize trailer space, reduce dock dwell time by scheduling pickups and deliveries more precisely, and automate paperwork wherever possible. These changes may seem small individually, but they compound into significant savings across your supply chain over time.

7. Consider Mode Optimization

Not every shipment needs to move the same way. Choosing the right shipping mode based on urgency, volume, distance, and budget is one of the simplest forms of strategic planning.

Mode	Best For	Relative Cost	Speed
Full Truckload (FTL)	Large, time-sensitive domestic loads	Moderate	Fast
LTL Freight	Smaller shipments, budget-conscious shippers	Lower per unit	Moderate
Air Freight	Urgent, high-value, or lightweight goods	High	Fastest
Ocean Freight	Large-volume international shipments	Lowest	Slowest

Companies that default to the same mode for every shipment often overspend. A load that doesn’t need next-day delivery might save you 30–50% by moving LTL or ground instead of air freight. Similarly, companies shipping internationally in high volumes may find that ocean freight costs are a fraction of air freight for goods that aren’t time-critical.

The goal is to match the mode to the shipment, not the other way around.

8. Monitor Fuel Costs and Surcharges Proactively

Fuel is one of the largest variable components of any freight rate, and fuel surcharge adjustments can swing your costs significantly from month to month.

Rather than reacting to fuel price changes after they hit your invoice, take a proactive approach:

• Track fuel price trends using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) to anticipate surcharge adjustments
• Negotiate fuel surcharge caps or index-based formulas in your carrier contracts so spikes don’t blow up your budget
• Plan shipments during lower-demand periods when possible
• Reduce total fuel consumption through the route optimization and load consolidation strategies covered earlier

Fuel costs are largely outside your control, but how you manage their impact on your freight expenses is not.

9. Partner with a Carrier You Can Trust

Every strategy on this list works better when you’re working with the right carrier. The cheapest rate on paper means nothing if your freight arrives late, damaged, or not at all. The real cost savings come from partnering with a carrier that delivers reliably, communicates honestly, and treats your freight like it matters.

Mercer Transportation has been that partner for thousands of companies since 1977. Here’s what that looks like:

• 4,000,000+ loads delivered across North America
• Top 100 Carrier recognition from Transport Topics
• Top-Five carrier for government traffic, including the Military Traffic Management Command (MTMC) Quality Carrier Award
• 1,600+ trucks and 30,000+ approved carriers providing capacity and flexibility across every major lane

We’ve earned our reputation by doing the basics right; showing up on time, moving freight safely, and building long-term relationships with the companies we serve.

If you’re ready to take control of your freight expenses, get in touch with our team today to learn how we can help.