Six ways to find shippers, compared
Updated 21 October 2026
If you sell freight capacity, every method of finding shippers answers the same three questions differently: who to call, why to call them today, and what it costs you in time or money. Here is how the six common ones compare. We make one of them, and it is marked.
| Method | What you get | Reason to call? | Cost | What is still on you |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Load boards (DAT, Truckstop) | Loads posted by brokers and some shippers, plus lane rates. | No. A posted load is a job, not a relationship. | About $40 to $60 a month per seat on the entry plans; more with rate tools. | Finding the shipper behind the broker, and the research before the call. |
| Contact databases (ZoomInfo, Apollo, Lusha) | Names, titles, emails and phone numbers at scale. | No. A record says who, not why. | Free tiers with low limits. ZoomInfo is reported at roughly $15,000 a year (an estimate, from reported contracts). | Deciding who fits, and researching each company before you dial. |
| Google Alerts and trade news | Announcements: a new plant, a warehouse lease, a contract won. | Yes, when an alert fires. | Free. | Reading everything, judging fit, finding the person, keeping a list. |
| ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot | A researched list on demand, in your own words. | Yes, if you ask for it. | Your existing subscription. | Explaining your business every time, checking fleet facts, avoiding repeats, saving the answer somewhere. |
| Federal fleet records | Whether a company runs its own trucks, how many, and whether it crosses state lines. | Partly. A private fleet is a fact worth knowing before you call. | Free. | Everything else: who, why, and the call itself. |
| prospects.fyiours | Five researched prospects every weekday at 7:30, each with a reason to call, who to ask for, the fleet facts, website, LinkedIn and a phone number when available. Never one you already have. | Yes, on every one. | Free to start. Paid plans from $29 a month add credits for more. | Making the call. |
When each one wins
A load board wins when you need freight moved this week. It is a market, not a prospect list, and the best reps use it for rates and then prospect somewhere else.
A contact database wins when you already know exactly who you want and need two hundred of them by Friday. It is the fastest way to a big list and the slowest way to a good call, because every record still needs the homework.
Google Alerts wins on cost and on timing. The catch is volume: an alert for “new distribution center” fires fifty times a week, and forty-five of them are not in your lanes.
ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot wins on flexibility. It will research anything you describe. What it does not do is remember yesterday, so the same twenty names keep coming back, and it does not check a fleet count against the federal record unless you ask, and then check that it did. If you prefer to prospect there, prospects.fyi writes the research prompt for free.
The federal register wins as a check, not a source. Look up every company before the call. A shipper with 40 trucks of its own is a different conversation from one with none.
prospects.fyi wins when you want the homework done before you sit down. Five a weekday is deliberately small: it is a morning’s calls, not a database. If you need two hundred names by Friday, use a database. If you want to pick up the phone knowing why you are calling, start free.
What to ask any of them
- Does it tell me why to call today, or only who?
- Does it check whether the company runs its own trucks?
- Does it remember what I have already called?
- What does it cost before I know whether it works?
Sources and notes
Load board and database prices were read on 21 October 2026 and change often; check the day you buy. The ZoomInfo figure is an estimate from reported contracts, not a list price. Cold calls that open with a reason are 2.1x likelier to book a meeting (Gong Labs, “Cold call opening lines”, 2018, 90,380 calls).