Anatomy of a drayage rate: what you're actually paying for

A drayage quote usually arrives as a single number. "$X, all-in, port to door." It looks simple. It isn't. That number is a stack of six or seven cost components, each with its own logic, each with its own way of surprising you later.

Shippers who understand the stack negotiate better RFPs, compare quotes honestly, and stop being surprised by invoices. Here is what sits inside the number.

1. The linehaul — the move itself

The base of the stack: a truck, a driver, and a container moving from the terminal to the consignee (or the reverse). This is the part most people picture when they hear "drayage rate," and it is the part carriers price first — distance, lane density, terminal turn times, and how reliably the driver can turn back for another load.

When two quotes differ wildly, the linehaul is rarely the whole story. The difference is usually hiding in what each quote assumed about everything below.

2. The fuel surcharge

Drayage fuel surcharges move with the diesel market, usually against a published index. They are not arbitrary, but they are not identical either — the index used, the base price, and the update cadence all vary by carrier.

Ask two questions: which index, and when did it last update? A quote that looks cheaper on the linehaul can quietly cost more once the surcharge is applied on a rising-fuel week.

Right now, this component is doing the heavy lifting. As of September 2026, the national average on-highway diesel price has pushed past $6.50 a gallon — a nominal record, according to the EIA's weekly survey — after climbing nearly 90 cents in just four weeks, with some regions jumping almost 50 cents in a single week. Year over year, diesel is up roughly two-thirds. A move like that doesn't just nudge the surcharge line; it reprices every quote in the market within weeks.

Three things to watch when fuel runs hot. The lag — most surcharge tables update weekly or monthly, so a quote can look fine on Monday and be stale by Friday. The base price — the diesel price at which the surcharge kicks in, which determines how much of the spike you actually feel. And the compounding — fuel doesn't only touch the linehaul, it touches every mile in the move, including repositioning and chassis splits. When diesel surges, the "all-in" number doesn't just gain a fee. It breathes heavier across the entire stack.

3. The chassis

A container cannot leave the terminal without something to ride on. Chassis are either provided by the carrier, rented from a pool, or supplied by the shipper — and each arrangement prices differently. Chassis splits (picking up the box and the chassis in different places), chassis rental days, and per-diem on the chassis itself all land somewhere in the quote. Or they don't, and they land on the invoice instead.

4. Port and terminal fees

Pier-pass-style fees, gate fees, and congestion or peak-period charges are set by the port or terminal, not the carrier — but they pass through to you. The key word is pass-through: you should be able to see them as a line, not discover them inside a rounded number. If a quote can't name them, it hasn't answered the question.

5. Free time — and who eats the overage

Demurrage (the container sitting at the terminal past free time) and detention/per diem (the container or chassis sitting past free time outside it) are where drayage budgets go to die. Free-time allowances differ by port, by steamship line, and by contract. The quote's assumptions about free days matter more than most line items: a cheap-looking move with two free days can cost multiples of a fair move with five, once a customs exam or a rail delay enters the picture.

This is also the least audited part of most drayage programs. Invoices arrive; nobody reconciles them against the actual free-time terms.

6. Accessorials

The long tail: pre-pulls and yard storage, overweight permits, hazmat handling, driver wait time at the consignee, re-delivery attempts, scale tickets, tolls. None of them are exotic. All of them are real, and a quote that doesn't define them is a quote that can grow.

What the stack looks like in practice

Take a local Jacksonville 40' move, overweight, running about $650 all-in (September 2026 market). That single number is the six components above, stacked: the linehaul for the local run, the fuel surcharge at today's diesel prices, the chassis, the terminal fees, the free-time position, and accessorials like the overweight permit. Change any one — a longer free-time window, a different fuel week — and the $650 moves. That is why the all-in figure is a snapshot, not a price list.

How to use the stack

When the next RFP goes out — or the next quote comes in — ask for the unbundled version. Linehaul, fuel mechanism, chassis, terminal fees, free-time assumptions, and a defined accessorial schedule. Compare the stacks, not the totals. And reconcile a sample of invoices against the agreed terms; the overage line is where money quietly leaks.

The single number was never the price. The stack was.