Transportation/trucking and logistics/brokerage agents fall into a couple of different categories.

A trucking agent can be an agent that has freight and loads trucks supplied by the company they are leased on to but the trucking agent has no trucks of their own. These types of agents are sometimes referred to as a sales agent or freight agent since they only have freight and load system trucks provided by the carrier. These terms are sometimes used differently depending on the company but this is the way we use them on our site.

A truck agent is an agent that has trucks, either owned by the truck agent or owner operators that are assigned to the truck agent. Most of the time these owner operators would have been recruited by the truck agent or came with them when they signed on to the parent carrier. Sometimes, depending on the carrier, these agents may also load other agents trucks or system trucks.

A brokerage or logistics agent is an agent which typically just loads outside carriers. These agents do not usually have a truck following that is leased onto the carrier they are signed on to. In fact, these agents may be signed onto a carrier that only has brokerage authority. If the carrier has brokerage and contract authority then they might also load system trucks or even have a few assigned to their agency but their primary revenue would be from loading outside carriers.

It is fairly common for a transportation agent to fall into more than one category. Different trucking and logistics companies have different requirements when it comes to their agents.

Payouts also vary by company and usually increase depending on the size of the agent (revenue and/or trucks) and net profitability when it comes to brokerage agents.