What is LTL shipping?
LTL shipping, short for less than truckload, is how palletized freight moves when it is too big for a parcel carrier and too small to fill a trailer. Your pallets ride with other shippers’ freight, and you pay for the weight and space they take rather than for the whole truck. NMFTA, which publishes the freight classification LTL carriers use, describes one to six pallets as LTL, and carriers generally put LTL shipments at about 150 to 15,000 lbs.
The trade-off is handling. An LTL carrier collects your pallets, sorts them at a terminal onto a linehaul trailer, unloads them again at a terminal near the destination, and sends them out on a local delivery truck. Every transfer is another forklift move, so LTL freight has to be square, stretch-wrapped and clearly labeled.
LTL freight shipping fits when the shipment:
- weighs 150 lbs or more (lighter freight usually goes as parcel)
- is six pallets or fewer and does not need a truck to itself
- can spend a few business days in transit
Past six pallets, compare volume LTL with truckload shipping before you book.
How does LTL freight shipping from Los Angeles work?
Which company handles your LTL depends on where it is going, and you can ask which one is handling any shipment.
Leaving Southern California. LTL to the Bay Area, Sacramento, Phoenix, Las Vegas or elsewhere in the West is arranged through Accurate Freight Systems LLC, the licensed property broker in our group (MC-572734); see freight brokerage services. It books an authorized LTL motor carrier, whose terminals and trucks move the freight. For that shipment, the broker is Accurate Freight Systems LLC.
Staying inside Southern California. Pallets that start and end in Los Angeles, Orange County or the Inland Empire rarely need LTL. Alvy Logistics hauls them as the motor carrier, on a 20 to 26 ft box truck that runs straight from pickup to delivery. Pallet shipping has the local prices and route examples.
Should you ship parcel or LTL?
Parcel networks are built for cartons that one person can lift, shipped one at a time. Once a shipment is several cartons that can be stacked and wrapped on a pallet, and weighs more than about 150 lbs in total, LTL is usually cheaper per pound and the cartons arrive together instead of in separate deliveries. Inside Southern California, a box truck from $200 for the first 20 miles can be quicker still, because it goes straight to the receiver with no terminal stop.
How do you calculate LTL freight rates?
LTL shipping rates are built from the same inputs on every lane:
| Rate factor | What it is | What you can do about it |
|---|---|---|
| Lane | Origin and destination ZIP codes | Give exact addresses, and say if the pickup date is flexible |
| Weight | Total shipment weight, pallets included | Weigh it rather than estimate |
| Freight class | The NMFC class, from 50 to 500 | Build dense, square pallets with no wasted space |
| Accessorials | Liftgate, appointment, residential, limited access, inside delivery | Ship dock to dock where you can |
| Fuel | A surcharge that follows fuel prices | Nothing, but it should be on the quote |
LTL carriers inspect what you declare. When a pallet is reweighed or remeasured at a terminal and comes out heavier or less dense than the bill of lading says, the carrier reissues the charge at the corrected weight or class. Accurate numbers at quote time are the cheapest saving in LTL.
How is freight class set for LTL?
Freight class comes from the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC), published by NMFTA, which gives each commodity a class from 50 to 500 based on density, handling, stowability and liability. Lower classes cost less per pound. Since NMFTA’s Docket 2025-1 took effect on July 19, 2025, many more items are classed by density alone, on a 13-step scale that runs from class 400 (under 1 lb per cubic foot) to class 50 (50 lbs per cubic foot or more).
Density is worked out per handling unit, pallet included: multiply the length, width and height at their widest points in inches, divide by 1,728 to get cubic feet, then divide the weight by that figure. A worked example:
- A 48 by 40 inch pallet built to 48 inches tall is 92,160 cubic inches, or 53.3 cubic feet.
- At 500 lbs, that is about 9.4 lbs per cubic foot, which is class 100 on the current scale (8 to under 10).
- Pack 700 lbs into the same footprint and density rises to about 13.1, which is class 85 (12 to under 15).
Some commodities still carry their own NMFC item and class, so check yours. The freight class guide has the full density chart.
Which LTL delivery accessorials change a quote?
Accessorials are services on top of the linehaul rate. The common ones for LTL delivery:
- Liftgate, at pickup or delivery, when there is no dock or forklift, which is common at small industrial units around Los Angeles.
- Residential delivery, for any address that is not a business with receiving.
- Limited access, for sites that are hard to reach or have security checks, such as schools, construction sites, self-storage, military bases and gated facilities.
- Delivery appointment, or a call ahead before the truck arrives.
- Inside delivery, when the pallet has to go past the dock or the front door.
Declare them when you ask for the quote. An accessorial the driver discovers at the door is added to the bill afterwards.
When do volume LTL and freight consolidation make sense?
Freight consolidation means combining smaller shipments into one larger one, so they move on one bill instead of several separate LTL charges. Alvy Logistics runs a 58,000 sq ft warehouse in Valencia, on the I-5 in the Santa Clarita Valley. Pallets from several suppliers can be received there (handling from $12 per pallet), held in the warehouse until the order is complete (storage from $25 per pallet per month) and released together for the outbound lane. Freight that only needs a quick transfer between trucks can be cross-docked.
Above six pallets, or more than about 12 linear feet of trailer, standard LTL is no longer the obvious choice. Ask for a volume LTL quote and compare it with partial and full truckload. The LTL vs FTL guide shows where each one wins.
What do I need for an LTL freight quote?
- Pickup and delivery addresses with ZIP codes, and whether each end is a business with a dock.
- The pallet count, with the length, width, height and weight of each, pallet included.
- What the freight is, plus the NMFC item or class if you already know it.
- Any liftgate, appointment or inside delivery, and whether either end is residential or limited access.
- The ready date and any delivery deadline.
With those in hand, request an LTL freight quote or phone a coordinator during business hours.
Every freight option we run from Los Angeles, from one pallet to a full trailer, is on our freight shipping page.
