LTL or FTL? Picking the Right Truck for Your Freight

Every quote request starts at the same fork in the road: does this freight need the whole trailer, or just part of one? Get it right and you pay for exactly what you use. Get it wrong and you either pay for empty space or watch your skids get handled through three terminals. Here is how we walk Ontario shippers through it.

What LTL actually is

Less-than-truckload means your skids share a trailer with other shippers' freight, and you pay for the space and weight you take up. It is the right call for roughly one to six skids on a normal schedule. The trade-off is more handling: LTL freight is typically loaded, transferred and reloaded on its way, and delivery windows are wider.

What FTL gets you

Full truckload means the trailer is yours: one pickup, one delivery, and nothing touches your freight in between. Pricing is by the lane rather than by weight. FTL wins when the freight fills the trailer, and also when it does not but is fragile, high-value or riding a tight delivery appointment.

The break-even most shippers miss

• Past roughly a third of a trailer, FTL often beats LTL on price alone. Quote both.
• Damage-sensitive freight can save more in claims than the FTL premium costs, simply by never being transferred.
• LTL accessorial charges add up: tailgate service, residential delivery and appointment fees can close the gap fast.
• A firm delivery appointment favours FTL, because your freight is not waiting on anyone else's.

How KDM runs both

We run our own fleet of tractor-trailers, flatbeds and tailgate-equipped straight trucks across Ontario, with LTL and FTL service out of our Mississauga facility. When your volume sits near the line, dispatch quotes it both ways and shows you the numbers. And when several smaller shipments are heading the same direction, consolidation gets you full-truck economics without a full truck of your own.