You’ve got two to ten trucks, and every empty seat costs you money. One driver’s loaded, another’s deadheading, and you’re the one answering the load board at 11pm. A dispatcher puts freight under every truck and hands you the numbers per truck — so you run the business instead of chasing loads all day. Full fleet, on duty, no truck left sitting.
(306) 801-7004When it was one truck, you could dispatch from the cab. At three, five, ten trucks, the loads stack up, the paperwork multiplies, and every hour you spend on the load board is an hour you’re not spending on the business. Hiring an in-house dispatcher means a salary, a desk, and one more person to manage before a single wheel turns. Fortuna Trucks is your dispatch department without the payroll.
Only you know whether hiring in-house makes sense for your fleet size. Here’s the trade-off laid out plainly.
| Hiring in-house | Fortuna’s desk | |
|---|---|---|
| Headcount to cover one fleet | At least one dispatcher, often two once you need weekend or evening coverage | A dedicated dispatcher backed by team leads, no extra hire |
| Coverage hours | Tied to that person’s shift, PTO, and sick days | Covered whenever your dispatcher is off |
| What happens if that person quits | Trucks sit idle while you post the job, interview, and train a replacement on your lanes | A team member who already knows your fleet steps in |
| Cost | Salary, payroll taxes, benefits, and a desk, whether freight is slow or not | The same percentage on every truck |
| Ramp-up time | Weeks to hire, then more time learning your lanes and brokers | We can have a load under your first truck the same day |
The real risk with a single in-house dispatcher isn’t the salary, it’s the day they quit. One person walks out and every truck they were running goes quiet until you hire and train someone new, usually weeks you don’t get back. A desk built around a team instead of one person doesn’t carry that same single point of failure. Some owners split the difference and keep one in-house coordinator for daily driver check-ins while handing the load hunting and rate negotiation to an outside desk. Either way, the question to ask before you hire is simple: what happens to your trucks on the one day a year that person calls in sick during your busiest week.
You get a dedicated dispatcher who runs your whole fleet — knows your trucks, your lanes, your drivers by name — backed by team leads so a day off never leaves a truck parked. One point of contact for all of it, not a new voice every time you call.
Every truck reports on its own line: revenue, rate per mile, deadhead, utilization. You see which truck is earning, which lane is soft, and where to add your next unit — the same view a fleet manager would build in-house, without you having to build it.
Start with one or two trucks, watch how we run them, then hand us the rest. Your authority stays yours, your drivers stay yours — we just keep the fleet loaded and the numbers straight.
A real dispatcher picks up, day or night, in your language: English, Ukrainian or Russian. No contract to start.