Every shipment above a few hundred kilos raises the same question: book a full truck, or share space on someone else's? The honest answer is that it depends on how much you're moving, how fast it needs to arrive, and how many times you're comfortable having it handled along the way.
Full Truck Load (FTL) means one truck is booked entirely for your consignment. Nobody else's cargo goes in with it. The truck loads at your dock, drives to the destination, and unloads — no intermediate hubs, no transferring boxes from one vehicle to another along the way.
That directness is the whole point. Less handling means less damage risk, and a fixed departure and arrival window instead of a delivery estimate that depends on how many other stops the route has.
Part Load — sometimes called LTL, or less-than-truckload — means your consignment shares a truck with other shippers' cargo. The transporter consolidates several part loads heading in a similar direction, which usually means a stop at a transshipment hub where cargo gets sorted and reloaded onto the next leg.
That consolidation is what makes part load cheaper for small shipments — you're only paying for the space you use, not the whole vehicle. The tradeoff is transit time (waiting for the truck to fill, or for a hub transfer) and more handling of your goods.
Part load is priced by weight or volume, which makes it cheaper for genuinely small shipments. But the math flips once you're filling a meaningful share of a truck's capacity — at that point, FTL's flat rate per truck usually works out cheaper per kilo than paying part-load rates for the same volume, and you avoid the accessorial charges that part-load consignments often pick up at transshipment points.
FTL is generally faster point-to-point, since there's no waiting to consolidate with other cargo and no hub transfer. It's also the safer choice for fragile, high-value, or time-sensitive goods, precisely because fewer hands touch it between pickup and delivery.
Part load can still work well for time-insensitive shipments where cost per kilo matters more than a guaranteed delivery window.
| Situation | Better fit |
|---|---|
| Shipment fills half a truck or more | Full Truck Load |
| Small parcel, no urgency | Part Load |
| Fragile or high-value cargo | Full Truck Load |
| Fixed delivery date matters | Full Truck Load |
| Cost per kilo is the main driver | Part Load, if shipment is small |
If you're unsure which side of that line your shipment falls on, tell us the load and we'll size it honestly — including saying so if part load would actually work out cheaper for you.
Share pickup, destination and load details — we'll confirm a truck and rate the same day.
