Truckstop vs 123Loadboard Compared Side by Side 2026

Key Takeaways

• Both names are still on sale. The public pages checked for this guide still list Truckstop and 123Loadboard as separate load boards, with carrier seats and broker seats on different grids.

• For one carrier user, the Basic plan on Truckstop is listed at $42 per user per month, and the Standard plan on 123Loadboard is listed at $39 per month for 1 user. Those are list prices, not a quote after taxes.

• Rate tools are not on the cheapest carrier seat at either company. Truckstop places rate insights on its carrier Pro plan. 123Loadboard places Rate Check on its Premium Plus plan.

• For a broker seat, Truckstop publishes $109, $239, and $369 per user per month. 123Loadboard publishes $129 per user per month on monthly billing and $99 per user per month when paid annually, and it leaves Enterprise as a sales conversation.

• August tonnage index: 112.7 according to American Trucking Associations (2026), and that release also said the index fell 0.5% from July and that trucks carried 72.7% of domestic freight tonnage. A load board is a way to find a truck or a load inside that market. It is not the market.

The board you pay for is a search seat, not a company

A load board is a shared list where a carrier posts an empty truck and a broker or shipper posts a load, so the two sides can find each other without already knowing each other's phone number. That is the whole product. Everything else on the bill, from days-to-pay to a mileage tool, is an add-on to that list.

TL;DR: an owner-operator who wants the lower published carrier bill starts with the Standard plan on 123Loadboard at $39 per month, and moves up only if credit scores or Rate Check are worth the extra dollars. A carrier who wants broker ratings and faster booking on Truckstop is looking at the Advanced plan at $135 per user per month, or the Pro plan at $159 if rate insights matter. A small brokerage comparing one paid seat is looking at $109 per user per month on Truckstop's broker Basic plan, against $99 per user per month on 123Loadboard when Growth is paid annually, or $129 per user per month when Growth is paid monthly. Enterprise on 123Loadboard is Quote-based.

The useful comparison is not "which logo is larger." It is which paid seat includes the search you will actually run, the screening fields you will actually read, and the rate hint you will actually use before you call. Contract freight still dominates the broad tonnage indexes, so a public board is a spot-market tool and a backfill tool, not a replacement for shippers you already haul for. A June 29, 2025 column named four public boards, Truckstop and 123Loadboard among them, and treated a desk that takes 99% of its freight from public boards as a warning, according to FreightWaves (2025). That 99% figure is the writer's red flag, not a census.

Neither product has to be explained as a rename. The pricing pages opened for this guide still sell Truckstop load board plans and 123Loadboard membership plans under those names. Pick the seat the same way you would pick a lane: what is included at the price on the screen, and what is held back for the next tier.

Who this is for

This comparison is for the owner of a small freight brokerage, or an owner-operator carrier, who has already decided to pay for a load board and is choosing between these two. You search under your own authority, you care what a month of access costs, and you want to know whether broker credit, carrier ratings, and lane rates are in the plan or parked on a higher one.

You are in the right place if you will log in yourself, if one to a few people will share the login rules the vendor actually publishes, and if you can live with a public spot list rather than a private shipper portal. You are also in the right place if you might later post the same load to more than one board and you want to know what each board will accept before you wire that up.

Red flags: you need accounting, settlements, and dispatch to live in one system of record, because a load board is not that system. You already cover your trucks with contract freight and you will not work a public list. You want a vendor to guarantee a load count or a rate per mile, which neither pricing page does.

Broker bond floor: $75,000 according to eCFR (2026), and the same section says a trust used for that security must hold assets that can be turned into cash within 7 calendar days. The section is effective January 16, 2026. A days-to-pay field on a load board does not replace that check. If you broker freight, the bond or trust is the legal floor. If you haul freight, it is one reason a broker rating on a screen is not the whole risk review.

How we evaluated these tools

The weights below are a buying order, not a lab score. Search and posting come first, at 25%, because a plan you cannot search is not a load board. Counterparty screening is 20%, because a cheap load from a broker who pays late, or a truck from a carrier you did not look up, is not cheap. Rate context is 15%. A book, bid, or book-now path is 15%, because phone tag is the cost these tools claim to cut. The published price of the seat you will actually log into is 15%. Seat caps and contract terms are 10%, because a $39 plan that covers one user is a different purchase from a per-user plan capped at three.

No booking test was run for this guide, and no star rating was invented. A cell is filled only from the public plan grids and help pages opened for this check. Eight carrier price lines and five broker price lines were read. "Plans read" in the table is that count, grouped under every criterion because each plan page was checked for search, screening, rates, booking path, price, and seat rules. It is not a quality score.

A plan fails the screen, for this reader, when the tool you think you are buying sits on a higher tier, when the price is per user and you counted it as a company license, or when Enterprise is treated as a known dollar amount. Those are disqualifiers for a sloppy comparison. They are not reasons to reject a vendor that is honest about the line.

What the paid seats include

Read the carrier grid and the broker grid as different products that share a logo. An owner-operator comparing a $42 seat with a broker comparing a $109 seat is not looking at the same shopping list.

On the carrier side, Truckstop's pricing page puts unlimited load search, truck and lane posting, private loads, backhaul search, and a free TMS on the Basic plan. Broker ratings, faster booking, fuel and routing tools, and the AVA carrier assistant sit on Advanced. Rate insights, live loads, lane planning, and load comparison sit on Pro. 123Loadboard's carrier pricing chart, opened the same day, puts unlimited load search, unlimited truck posting, the website and the mobile app, real-time updates, load alerts, document storage, and digital freight matching on every paid column. That matching line is bidding, messaging, and book now. Backhauls, a density map, a profit calculator, distance and driving time, credit scores, days-to-pay, and favorite or blocked companies show on the two higher columns, not the first. Maps, tolls, IFTA mileage, Rate Check, historical rate trends, negotiation strength, a search directory, trip builder, and a personal load assistant show on the right-hand column only. The chart labels that column as the best value and the middle column as the most popular. The dollar names for those columns are on the help article cited in the pricing section, not printed in the chart text that came through on the fetch.

The reading of that grid is simple. 123Loadboard puts a book-now style path on the entry carrier plan. Truckstop holds faster booking, broker ratings, and rate insights for the higher carrier plans. That is a difference in what the invoice includes. It is not a count of loads in any city, and neither page published a lane-by-lane load total that this guide can repeat.

On the broker side, Truckstop's Basic plan lists truck and lane search, load posting, decision tools, private loads, a carrier authority-age filter, and a broker assistant extension. Load Boost on that plan is a per-use charge, covered with the price citation below. The Pro plan adds a basic carrier hub, rate insights, real-time updates, load insights, and the ability to post Book It Now loads, plus a bundle of Load Boost uses. The Premium plan adds an advanced carrier hub and predictive carrier sourcing, and it says an additional user is included at no charge. 123Loadboard's Growth plan lists a web portal, unlimited load posting, unlimited truck and load search, market rate data with no stated cap on lane-price searches, messaging, bidding, and Book Now, carrier ratings, cascading visibility rules, and load tracking. Enterprise adds user administration, live matching agents, a dedicated link into the broker's own platform, onboarding, custom integrations, and a named support relationship. The price for that last package is not on the page.

The broker who feels this gap is the one posting the same load twice and then answering the phone. A configurable path, not a claim about a live customer, looks like this. When a dispatcher marks a load ready, a proposed US Tech Automations workflow can read the pickup, delivery, equipment, and rate already typed in the office system and prepare one draft for Truckstop and one draft for 123Loadboard. Truckstop's side needs API access, and the all-in amount is written to rateAttributes.postedAllInRate only after a person confirms the dollars. 123Loadboard's side needs its posting API or a file export, using the pickup, delivery, date, and equipment that its developer page already asks for. The output is two drafts plus a short list of missing fields. Nothing is public until someone approves it. Shops that want the posting steps written out can follow posting a broker's loads to more than one board.

What the public pages charge

Pricing checked October 10, 2026.

Basic carrier price: $42 per user according to Truckstop (2026), and that same page lists the Advanced plan at $135 per user per month, the Pro plan at $159 per user per month, Heavy Haul Pro at $299 per month, a dry-van Basic listing at $35 for up to 3 users per month, and a $42 application fee that is non-refundable and is credited toward the first month if the signup is approved. The page says the amounts exclude applicable fees and taxes, and that the per-user price applies up to 3 users. The dry-van line is a separate listing for dry van carriers, not a discount off the $42 Basic plan.

The Basic plan for brokers on Truckstop costs $109 per user per month and lists Load Boost at $1 per use, the Pro plan costs $239 per user per month and includes 20 Load Boost uses, and the Premium plan costs $369 per user per month with an additional user at no charge, according to Truckstop (2025). That page also says the price is per user, up to 3 users, and that the amount excludes applicable fees and taxes. Do not subtract the carrier application fee from a broker seat. The fee sentence above is on the carrier page.

The Standard plan on 123Loadboard costs $39 per month for 1 user, the Premium plan costs $59 per month for up to 2 users, and the Premium Plus plan costs $79 per month for up to 3 users, according to 123Loadboard (2024). That help article says the plans are billed monthly, with no contract, and that you can unsubscribe at any time. The carrier pricing chart opened on the check date says prices are in U.S. dollars and that prices and promotions are valid for fleets of up to 10 trucks. The help article's user caps and the chart's fleet line are both on vendor pages, and they are not the same sentence. Confirm the seat count on the signup screen before you assume a $39 plan covers a second person.

Monthly billing on the Growth plan is $129 per user, yearly billing saves 23%, Enterprise is Quote-based, and the Growth annual price: $99 per user according to 123Loadboard (2026). The $99 figure is the annual per-user rate on that page, not a second product. A broker help page has also described Growth as starting as low as $99 per month when paid annually, which matches this grid and does not publish an Enterprise dollar.

The 12-month column is the monthly list price times 12 for the seats the price covers. It is arithmetic, not a vendor annual discount, except on the Growth annual row, where $99 times 12 is the yearly per-user total the page is describing. Taxes, Load Boost overages, and the carrier application fee are not inside that column.

If the carrier application fee is credited to month one after approval, it replaces that month's subscription charge rather than stacking on top of it. If the application is not approved, the page says the fee is not refunded. That is a cash risk on day one, separate from the $504 twelve-month list for one Basic user.

An illustrative month of list prices

Take an illustrative one-person brokerage that posts 40 loads a week and is choosing a single broker seat, using only the list prices already cited. The Basic plan on Truckstop costs $109 per user per month, and 12 times $109 is $1,308. The Growth plan on 123Loadboard costs $129 per user per month when paid monthly, and 12 times $129 is $1,548, while the annual rate of $99 per user per month comes to 12 times $99, or $1,188. The annual Growth total is $360 less than the monthly Growth total, because $1,548 minus $1,188 is $360, and it is $120 less than 12 months of the Basic plan on Truckstop, because $1,308 minus $1,188 is $120. Forty posts a week over 52 weeks is 2,080 posts, so the $120 gap is about 6 cents a post at that made-up volume, which is not a reason to ignore rate tools if you use them, and not a measured saving from any office. If that desk later sends the load through Truckstop's documented load object, the all-in amount belongs in rateAttributes.postedAllInRate on the load returned for a posted load, and a person still approves the dollars before the post is final. The field is a slot for a rate. It is not evidence that the rate is a good one.

Truckstop, for this buyer

Truckstop fits an owner-operator who will pay past the Basic plan for broker ratings, faster booking, and fuel or routing tools, and it fits a brokerage that wants rate insights and Book It Now posting on a published Pro seat. Heavy Haul Pro is the seat to read if the work is oversized and the $299 line, with its permit-quote mention, matches the freight. A new carrier who only needs search, truck posts, private loads, and backhaul search can stay on Basic at $42 per user per month and skip the tools the page holds for later tiers.

The limits are on the same pages. Rate insights and live loads are Pro features, not Basic features. Broker ratings are Advanced features. The per-user price stops at 3 users on the lines quoted above, so a fourth person is a different conversation. Amounts exclude fees and taxes. The $42 application fee is real money before the first approved month. Dual-authority accounts are mentioned, and the grid that was read did not publish a separate dollar figure for them, so that price stays unknown rather than guessed. A dry-van-only Basic listing at $35 for 3 users is not the same product as the $42 per-user Basic plan. Mixing those two rows is how a budget gets written down wrong.

Implementation is an application, a fee, and a seat count, then a login. For a shop that wants posting tied to the office system, Truckstop documents a load-management call that accepts equipment, stops, and rate attributes, and returns the load with rateAttributes.postedAllInRate among the fields. The prerequisite is API credentials for that integration, plus a person who can reject a post when the rate, the equipment, or the stop count looks wrong. The board does not know your fuel cost. Carriers who live in the cab and only need the truck kept visible can start with keeping truck posts current before they add a second tool. Pairing the board with a dispatch desk is a separate buying choice, closer to dispatch and scheduling tools than to another month of load search.

What the public pages do not say is as useful as what they do say. They do not promise a number of loads in your lane. They do not promise that a broker rating predicts the next payment. They do not show a tested on-time result for AVA or for Book It Now. Treat those as named features on a tier, then judge them on your own freight after you can see the screen.

123Loadboard, for this buyer

123Loadboard fits an owner-operator who wants search, truck posting, alerts, and a bid or book-now path on the $39 Standard plan, and who will move to $59 or $79 only when mileage, credit scores, or Rate Check earn the difference. It fits a small brokerage that wants unlimited posting, truck search, market rates, carrier ratings, and Book Now at a published Growth price, especially if the desk can pay annually at $99 per user per month. It is a weak fit if you need a public Enterprise price today, because that plan is Quote-based.

The limits follow the columns. Credit scores and days-to-pay are not on the Standard column of the pricing chart. Rate Check, PC*Miler routing and tolls, IFTA mileage, historical rate trends, and trip builder are on the Premium Plus column. The help article caps Standard at 1 user, Premium at 2, and Premium Plus at 3, while the pricing chart says its prices and promotions are valid for fleets of up to 10 trucks. Do not average those sentences into a new cap. Ask which one the signup screen enforces. Growth is per user. A three-person brokerage on monthly Growth is 3 times $129, or $387 a month, at the list rate, before any Enterprise conversation. There is no heavy-haul plan with a published dollar on the pages read for this guide.

Getting on is a monthly membership for carriers, with the no-contract language on the 2024 help article, or a Growth checkout for brokers at the monthly or annual toggle. The developer page describes posting loads and trucks, searching either side, checking a lane rate, and reviewing messages, bids, and book-now requests so a person can approve or reject them. That last verb matters. An integration that auto-accepts every book-now request has skipped the review the product itself exposes. Prerequisites are developer access or a file the board will accept, a field map for pickup, delivery, date, and equipment, and a named person on the bids. The help-page prices carry a February 21, 2024 date. They still matched the plan names on the chart during this check, and they are the vendor figures used here. If the signup screen shows a different dollar, the screen wins.

The pages do not publish a load-count trophy that this guide can repeat without leaving the pricing and help sources above. They do not show a case study with a measured empty-mile cut. Judge the board by whether your lanes appear and whether the credit and rate fields you need are on the tier you bought.

Mistakes that cost a month of fees

Buyers miss the same few lines on these two grids.

• Comparing a carrier seat with a broker seat, then calling the cheaper logo the winner. A $39 carrier plan and a $109 broker plan are not substitutes.

• Buying Truckstop Basic and expecting rate insights, or buying 123Loadboard Standard and expecting Rate Check. Those tools are on higher rows.

• Forgetting the $42 carrier application fee, or treating the dry-van $35 listing as the price of the $42 Basic plan.

• Treating days-to-pay as a stand-in for the $75,000 bond or trust. The federal floor is still the federal floor.

• Letting a robot publish a rate nobody looked at. The list price of the board is smaller than one bad load.

• Writing Enterprise down as $99 or as any other guessed number. On the broker page opened for this check, Enterprise is Quote-based. The $99 figure is the annual Growth rate.

A second gap shows up after the truck is offered, not when the load is typed. A proposed US Tech Automations workflow can start when a carrier asks to take a load. It pulls the screening fields the desk already pays for, such as days-to-pay on a 123Loadboard Premium plan or broker ratings on a Truckstop Advanced plan, sets them next to the $75,000 bond checklist a person maintains outside the board, and writes a pass, hold, or reject note on the load. Prerequisites are an export or API from the board you actually subscribe to, and a human review before anyone is tendered. The output is a decision record. It is not an automatic booking, and it is not a result measured at a real carrier.

Stitching that yourself in Zapier, Make, or n8n is a fair alternative. Those tools can keep run histories, retries, error branches, and audit evidence when someone configures them. The buyer then owns observability, idempotency so the same load number cannot post twice, escalation when a board rejects a call, access controls, and the maintenance when a field name changes. A proposed US Tech Automations design can configure the refusal of a duplicate load number, a hard stop when the rate is blank, and an alert to a named person when either board returns an error. The prerequisites do not change: each board's API or file export, and a reviewer on the posts until the map has been clean for a stretch you choose. The boards remain the systems of record for the public listing.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations

Skip the extra workflow when one person searches a single board from the cab and books by phone, when the only job is a one-time look at a plan price, or when a transportation system you already pay for posts to the one board you use and the staff is content reviewing the post there. In those cases the vendor login is the simpler tool, and adding a second layer only creates another queue to watch.

Glossary

• Load board. A shared list of loads and trucks that carriers and brokers search. It is not a full accounting system.

• Days-to-pay. A vendor's figure for how long a broker has taken to pay. It is a screen field, not the $75,000 bond.

• All-in rate. The total rate attached to a load, which Truckstop's load object can carry in rateAttributes.postedAllInRate.

• Backhaul. A return load that keeps a truck from running empty after a delivery. Both carrier grids mention a backhaul or return-load tool, on different tiers.

• Authority age. A filter Truckstop lists on the broker Basic plan so you can limit carriers by how long their authority has been on file.

• BMC-84. The form the federal rule names for a broker surety bond. BMC-85 is the trust form in the same section.

• Book now. A path to accept a posted load in the product. On these grids it is plan-specific, not a promise of a better rate.

• Deadhead. Miles with no paying freight. A backhaul tool is one way boards say they help you cut those miles. Neither page guarantees a cut.

Questions before you subscribe

Is Truckstop cheaper than 123Loadboard for one truck?

No, not on the entry carrier lists. The Standard plan on 123Loadboard is $39 per month for 1 user, and the Basic plan on Truckstop is $42 per user per month, before the $42 application fee and before taxes. The dry-van listing at $35 covers up to 3 users and is not the general Basic plan.

Is 123Loadboard cheaper for a one-person brokerage?

On the published annual rate, yes. Growth paid annually is $99 per user per month, against $109 per user per month for the Basic broker plan on Truckstop. Paid monthly, Growth is $129 per user per month, which is higher than that Basic broker seat. The comparison flips again if you need Truckstop Pro tools and you price those at $239.

Where do the rate tools start?

They start above the cheapest carrier plan at both companies. Truckstop lists rate insights on the carrier Pro plan at $159 per user per month and on the broker Pro plan at $239 per user per month. 123Loadboard lists Rate Check on the Premium Plus plan at $79 per month, and it lists market rate data on the Growth broker plan.

Does either board replace a bond check?

No. A property broker still needs a surety bond or trust fund of $75,000 in effect, and a trust used for that must be convertible to cash within 7 calendar days. A credit score or a days-to-pay field can help you decide who to call. It does not satisfy the rule.

Can one workflow post the same load to both boards?

It can prepare both posts only if you have each vendor's API or an accepted file export, and only if a person reviews the rate and the stops first. The boards do not include that bridge in the monthly seat. The output you want is two approved posts, not two silent ones.

Is Enterprise on 123Loadboard a published price?

No. Enterprise is Quote-based on the broker pricing page. The $99 figure on that page is the annual per-user Growth price, and $129 is the monthly per-user Growth price. Do not paste either number into an Enterprise budget.

Did either product get renamed or shut down?

No. Both still sell load-board access under these names on the pages checked October 10, 2026. Truckstop's broker grid carries a 2025 publish stamp and 123Loadboard's carrier dollar help article carries a 2024 date, so the names are current and some of the fine print is older than this year. Re-open the signup screen before you pay.

The short list

Choose the seat whose included tools match the call you make every morning. An owner-operator who will live in search, alerts, and book now can start on 123Loadboard's Standard plan and step up only for credit data or Rate Check. An owner-operator who wants broker ratings and faster booking on Truckstop is shopping Advanced or Pro, not Basic. A small brokerage that wants a published annual per-user price, unlimited posting, and market rates can take Growth. A brokerage that wants Rate Insights and Book It Now posting on a known invoice can take Truckstop's broker Pro plan, and can look at Premium if the carrier-hub tools and the extra user are the point. Enterprise is a sales quote, so it is not a number in this table.

If the real pain is the second copy of the same load, and the missed rate check between the two logins, the boards stay the places the freight is posted. The layer above them is the review queue. You can see how US Tech Automations configures this as a proposed workflow with an API or export from each board and a person on the approve button. Until that map exists, pay for the one seat you will use this month, and leave the other logo off the card.