A transportation company offers you a truck for a month at one price. Or you can keep booking a truck for each trip. Both are normal. Which one costs less depends on one thing: how often you would actually use the truck.
This article gives you the arithmetic for that, a way to test it on your own trip log, and the questions that make a monthly quote comparable with a per-trip one.
What you are really choosing
With a monthly price, you are buying a vehicle and a driver for a period of days. The truck is yours on those days whether it moves or not. This is the same logic as any rate: a large part of a truck's cost is owed whether it moves or not, and someone has to carry it.
- Monthly price. You carry the idle days. In return you get a truck that is there when you want it.
- Per trip. The transportation company carries the idle days, and charges for that risk inside every trip price. In return you pay only for what you use.
The textbook's general rule for dedicated against shared service fits this exactly. A dedicated arrangement can give better service at a higher cost, because the whole cost lands on one customer. A shared one gives lower cost with some compromise on service, because the carrier spreads the truck across customers with different busy weeks.
So the question is never "which price is lower". It is "how many days will the truck earn its place".
The one number: break-even trips
Divide the monthly price by the per-trip price on the same route. The answer is the number of trips a month at which the two cost the same.
An illustration, with made-up prices, not market quotes:
- Monthly price: 95,000 baht, one truck and driver, covering about 26 working days
- Per-trip price: 4,200 baht for one round trip on your route
- Break-even: 95,000 ÷ 4,200 = 22.6, so 23 trips a month, or 23 of 26 days, about 88% of working days
| Trips you actually run in the month | Pay per trip | Monthly truck | Monthly truck, cost per trip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | 67,200 | 95,000 | 5,938 |
| 20 | 84,000 | 95,000 | 4,750 |
| 23 | 96,600 | 95,000 | 4,130 |
| 26 | 109,200 | 95,000 | 3,654 |
The monthly truck looks like it has a price per trip, but that price moves with your use. At 16 trips it is 41% above the per-trip rate. At 26 it is 13% below. The monthly quote is a bet that you will be at the bottom of that table, not the top.
Notice how high the line sits. When a monthly price is only a little below 26 per-trip prices, you need a truck that is busy almost every working day before it wins. The threshold is worth working out before you read the sales pitch.
Test it on your own trip log, not on the average
An average hides the thing that decides this: how many trucks you need on each day.
Take the last eight weeks. For each working day, write down how many trucks that route needed. Then count days at each level.
Two operations can have the same average and very different answers. Using the same prices and 48 working days (eight weeks):
| Steady week | Lumpy week | |
|---|---|---|
| Days needing 0 trucks | 0 | 6 |
| Days needing 1 truck | 44 | 34 |
| Days needing 2 trucks | 4 | 8 |
| Truck-days needed | 52 | 50 |
| Everything per trip | 218,400 | 210,000 |
| One monthly truck, extra trips per trip | 192,185 | 208,985 |
| Difference | 26,215 less (12%) | 1,015 less (0.5%) |
The monthly truck is priced at 95,000 ÷ 26 = 3,654 baht a day over the 48 days (175,385), then every day that needs a second truck is booked per trip at 4,200.
In the steady case the monthly truck saves 12%. In the lumpy case it saves almost nothing, because six days of the truck standing idle (about 21,900 baht) eat the saving. With a tie, the per-trip route is the better choice: it costs the same and leaves you free to leave.
The method, in four steps:
- List the trucks needed per working day for eight weeks. Do not average.
- Find the level you reach on nearly every day. That is your base. Only the base is a candidate for a monthly truck.
- Price the base both ways, then price everything above the base per trip.
- Compare totals, not the headline monthly price.
Which level to commit to is a sizing question, and how much capacity to commit goes through it. The hybrid, with a monthly base and per-trip peaks, is the textbook's own advice: run your core assets as hard as you can and hire for the peaks. If you never need temporary capacity, the core is probably too big.
A truck-month is not 30 truck-days
The illustration used 26 days. That is not an accident. Read in Thai, the Labour Protection Act sets limits on how many days one driver can work.
- Section 28 requires a weekly holiday, with no more than six days between them. That is at least 52 days a year, leaving about 313 working days, or 26 a month.
- Section 29 requires at least thirteen traditional holidays announced in advance, and a substitute day when one lands on the weekly holiday.
- Section 30 gives at least six working days of annual leave after a year of service.
Take all three off and a single driver is available for about 294 days a year, or 24.5 a month. The truck can still run on the other days if the carrier supplies a relief driver, pays the driver to work a holiday, or uses the Section 28 allowance for transport work to accumulate rest days and take them within four consecutive weeks. All three are legal. Each one costs somebody money, and your quote should say who.
Ask this first: how many days does the monthly price cover, and what happens on the days it does not? A price that covers 24 days and one that covers 26 are not the same price.
What a monthly quote should state
Put these next to the number before you compare it with anything.
| Ask | Why it moves the cost |
|---|---|
| Days covered per month, and the price of an extra day | Sets the price per day, and what a Saturday costs |
| Relief driver on rest days, holidays and leave, or an idle truck | Decides whether the truck is really there |
| Daily distance or monthly distance included, and the price beyond | A cap you hit makes the cheap quote expensive |
| Fuel and tolls: in the price, or charged on top | If on top, you carry the fuel exposure |
| Replacement truck if it breaks down, and within how many hours | A dedicated truck with no cover is a single point of failure |
| Truck body and size, fixed for the term | You are tied to a vehicle that suits today's load |
| Minimum term and notice to stop | Your real cost if volume falls |
| Whether the carrier may use the truck for other work on your idle days | The cheapest way to cut idle cost, if the carrier agrees and you keep priority |
| Who pays for waiting and for extra drops | A dedicated truck is easier to keep busy, so waiting becomes your cost |
The clause wording belongs in a contract, covered in what a road freight contract should say.
What the monthly truck buys that the table does not show
The arithmetic above is the cost side. A dedicated truck also changes the service.
- It is there. No booking, no declined job. The textbook lists focus on your account as the main service advantage of dedicated operation.
- The driver learns your dock and your addresses. This only holds if the same driver comes back. Ask whether the driver is fixed or rotates.
- It limits you. A fixed body and size, a fixed term, and a driver who is on the clock whether you load or not.
If the main reason is service, price the service. If the main reason is cost, the table above is the whole case.
Where the evidence stops
No Thai study was found that compares monthly hire with per-trip hire for full truckload, and no public body publishes monthly truck prices. The method comes from the textbook, the day-count limits come from the Labour Protection Act read in Thai, and every price in this article is an illustration. Your own quotes and your own eight-week trip log are the real data, and they decide the answer.
What to do on Monday
- Pull eight weeks of trips and write down trucks needed for each working day.
- Find the level you reach on nearly every day.
- Ask for a monthly quote for that level only, and a per-trip quote for everything above it.
- Ask for the days covered, the relief arrangement and the distance cap before you compare prices.
- Work out your own break-even in trips, and compare it with your busiest and quietest weeks.
- If the two come out within a percent or two, choose per trip and keep the flexibility.