Ask three carriers to price the same Bangkok to Chonburi run and you may get three noticeably different numbers. The natural conclusion is that someone is overcharging. Usually nobody is.
Freight pricing looks opaque from the outside because the biggest factors are invisible to the person buying. This article opens up what actually sits inside a rate, so you can judge a quote on something better than instinct.
You are buying a vehicle and a day, not a distance
The single most useful thing to understand is that a large part of a truck's cost does not care whether it moves.
The Handbook of Logistics and Distribution Management puts it plainly: these costs "must be paid for, regardless of the extent to which the vehicle is used", and are "a cost that must be borne whether the vehicle is run for 5 or for 500 miles in any working week."
That covers the vehicle's purchase price written down over its life, tax, insurance, and the driver's wage. None of it falls because your load is small.
This is why quoting by weight alone rarely works. A half-empty truck costs almost what a full one costs. When a carrier prices your job, they are pricing a vehicle and a driver for a period of time, and hoping to fill the rest.
What the variable half looks like in Thailand
The costs that do move with distance have a fairly consistent shape in the Thai market. Krungsri Research puts the split of variable costs at:
| Cost | Share of variable costs |
|---|---|
| Fuel and lubricants | 49% |
| Labour | 32% |
| Everything else | 19% |
Two things follow from that.
Fuel moves your rate whether anyone mentions it or not. At roughly half of variable cost, a sustained diesel movement cannot be absorbed indefinitely. A carrier holding a rate flat through a large fuel rise is either eating it temporarily or has priced a buffer in from the start.
Labour is not far behind, and it is tightening. Driver availability is a real constraint in Thailand, and wages have been on an upward path. A quote that looks unusually cheap may be built on a driver cost the operator will struggle to sustain.
Why honest quotes still differ
Given similar cost structures, why the spread? Almost always for one of these reasons.
Backhaul. A carrier who already has a load coming back from your destination can price your outbound leg far more keenly than one whose truck returns empty. Neither is being dishonest. One simply has a better position on that lane that week.
Vehicle fit. If your load needs a 6-wheel truck and a carrier only has 10-wheels free, they will quote the 10-wheel. It is not the wrong price for that vehicle, it is the wrong vehicle for your load.
What is actually included. Waiting time, loading assistance, multiple drop points, overnight standing, insurance level. A lower headline rate with these excluded can end up costing more than a higher one that includes them.
Timing. Same-day and next-day pricing reflects genuine scarcity. So does moving in the run-up to a long holiday, when capacity tightens across the market.
The thing most buyers do not know about Thai capacity
Thailand had around 1.2 million registered trucks at the end of 2023. But 66.4% of them are privately operated, meaning companies running their own fleets for their own goods.
Only about a third of the country's trucks are actually available for hire.
That matters when you plan. The for-hire market is a good deal smaller than the headline vehicle count suggests, and in tight weeks it behaves like a smaller market: prices firm up quickly and lead times stretch.
Better questions than "what is your rate?"
A rate on its own is not comparable between carriers. These questions make quotes comparable:
- What vehicle is this priced on, and what are its internal dimensions?
- What is included, and what is charged separately?
- How much waiting time is allowed before charges begin?
- Is this a spot price or will it hold for a period?
- How is a fuel movement handled?
- What happens if my volume is higher or lower than stated?
- What insurance cover applies, and up to what value?
The answers usually explain the spread you were puzzled by, and they turn three incomparable numbers into a decision you can actually defend.
A note on cheap quotes
A rate significantly below the others is worth understanding rather than simply accepting. Sometimes it is a genuine backhaul advantage, which is the best outcome for everyone. Sometimes it is a carrier who has not costed the job properly.
The second kind tends to correct itself, and not in your favour. Operators who underprice either come back to renegotiate, cut something you were relying on, or become unavailable when you need them. The cost of a failed delivery to a customer is almost always larger than the saving that caused it.