How to set up a carrier QuickPay program 

A carrier QuickPay program lets freight brokers pay carriers faster than standard terms, typically within 24 to 48 hours, in exchange for a small fee the carrier agrees to upfront. Done right, it generates revenue for the brokerage, improves carrier retention, and runs automatically once it is configured.

The challenge is that most brokers cannot fund QuickPay from their own accounts. A carrier finishing a load on Friday and needing fuel money for the weekend run cannot wait 30 days. Neither can the broker’s cash flow absorb paying out before the shipper settles. That is why a well-built QuickPay program starts with the right financial partner, not a fee schedule.

Here is how to build one from scratch.

1. Understand what QuickPay requires from you financially

Most brokers cannot float QuickPay out of their own accounts. If you pay a carrier on day one and your shipper pays you on day 30, you are covering that gap from working capital you may not have. Multiply that across every carrier who requests QuickPay and the exposure adds up fast. The freight billing process makes that timing gap clear: brokers are routinely caught between fast carrier payment expectations and slow shipper settlement cycles.

This is why most brokers who offer QuickPay use a factoring company to fund them. The factoring company advances the cash, the carrier gets paid quickly, and you receive the remaining balance after the factoring fee.

But not all factoring arrangements work the same way. Some factoring companies advance money to the broker and stop there, leaving the broker to handle carrier payments separately. That still requires you to manage timing and cash exposure.

Other factoring companies pay carriers directly but charge the broker a fee to do it, cutting into the QuickPay revenue you collected. Some operate on a profit-sharing model, taking a portion of the QuickPay fees you charge carriers. That can work at low volume, but the split compounds quickly as the program scales.

The better arrangement is a factoring partner that pays the carrier directly and advances you the net balance. You are not extending your own capital, and you are not caught in the middle of two payment obligations at once.

2. Choose a factoring partner that pays carriers on your behalf

Before you build anything else, confirm that your factoring partner pays carriers directly. This is the structural decision that determines whether your program runs cleanly or creates new, ongoing back-office work.

When evaluating a factoring partner for QuickPay, the questions worth asking are:

• Does the factoring company pay the carrier, or does it advance funds to me and expect me to handle the carrier payment?
• What is the funding speed on carrier payments: same day, next day, 48 hours?
• Does the platform let me set QuickPay fees and eligibility rules, or do I manage that manually?
• Can carriers opt into their preferred payment terms without me doing data entry for each one?

Broker factoring from Truckstop Financial pays carriers directly on your behalf and advances you the remaining balance. The QuickPay fees you charge go entirely to you. Broker Factoring does not take a cut of those fees.

3. Set your eligibility rules before you open the program

Not every carrier in your network should have access to QuickPay from day one. The same patterns that show up in freight fraud show up in QuickPay abuse: a bad actor requests QuickPay, collects payment quickly, and disappears before anyone confirms the load was delivered legitimately.

The Q1 2026 Freight Fraud Report documents how fraud continues to evolve in the freight market, making pre-payment eligibility controls a baseline requirement, not a precaution. Two rules cut most of that exposure.

Withhold QuickPay eligibility on any carrier’s first transaction with your brokerage. One completed, verified load before faster payment becomes available is a reasonable baseline.

Double brokering schemes in particular exploit new carrier relationships before a broker has enough transaction history to spot red flags. Broker factoring lets you set a first-load hold as a default rule so it applies automatically across every new carrier without manual review.

Carriers who have completed your carrier onboarding process, cleared carrier vetting, and moved at least one load without issue are the right starting point for QuickPay access. You are not obligated to offer it to every carrier in your system. Restricting QuickPay to carriers with at least one completed load is a low bar that can save thousands in fraud.

4. Build your fee structure

QuickPay is a revenue line. A brokerage running $500,000 in monthly carrier payables with 40% QuickPay participation at a 3% average fee generates $6,000 per month in additional revenue. The fee structure you set determines how much of that you capture.

A tiered approach based on payment speed works well for most brokerages. Here is a straightforward example:

• Next-day payment: 5% of the invoice amount
• 2-day payment: 3% of the invoice amount
• 5-day payment: 2% of the invoice amount
• 10-day payment: 1% of the invoice amount
• Standard 30-day payment: 0%

These are illustrative ranges. Your actual rates should reflect your carrier market, the volume you process, and what carriers in your network are willing to pay for faster access to cash. Tiered options matter because carriers have different cash flow needs. Some will always take next-day. Others will choose a mid-tier depending on the load size. Either way, the fee was their choice and the terms were clear.

Always communicate the fee structure to carriers before they opt in. Surprises after delivery create disputes that cost more to resolve than the QuickPay fee was worth. QuickPay fees work similarly to accessorial charges in one important way: the fee is only defensible if it was disclosed and agreed to before the load moved.

5. Configure the program so carriers opt in without your involvement

A QuickPay program that requires a broker to manually apply fees, look up carrier preferences, or update spreadsheets on every invoice is not scalable.

If you are still running freight broker back-office operations on disconnected tools, QuickPay is one more workflow that gets mismanaged. The better path is building it into freight broker software that handles payments, carrier management, and factoring under one system.

The target configuration looks like this: default QuickPay fees are set at the account level and apply automatically to qualifying invoices. Carriers can log in and select their preferred payment speed without calling anyone. Their preferences carry forward to every future invoice. Eligibility rules like the first-load hold run in the background without anyone checking them manually.

Broker Factoring supports all of this. Carriers can elect their QuickPay preferences directly in their settings. Default fees and eligibility rules are configured once and applied consistently from that point forward.

6. Tell your carriers the program exists

QuickPay is one way a broker can build better carrier relationships. Faster payment does not just improve cash flow for the carrier. It signals that the broker understands how trucking operations actually work and is willing to build a program around it. Brokers who offer QuickPay consistently tend to see stronger carrier loyalty and more repeat capacity as a result.

The fee structure is yours to set, and sometimes the right call is not charging for it at all. Waiving the QuickPay fee for a high-volume carrier, a long-term partner, or someone you are trying to bring into your network is a relationship investment. The revenue you forgo on that transaction often comes back in the form of a carrier who picks up your loads first.

A QuickPay program no one knows about does not retain carriers. Once the configuration is in place, make sure your active carrier network knows they have access and what the terms are.

QuickPay fees and payment speed options should be disclosed in your carrier packet alongside your standard payment terms. That is where carriers expect to find this information, and getting it in front of them at onboarding avoids the back-and-forth later. Beyond the packet, an email to your active carrier list and a note in your rate confirmation template covers the communication work for carriers already in your network.

Put the program to work

A QuickPay program that is funded by a factoring partner, built on clear eligibility rules, and configured to run automatically is one of the few brokerage revenue lines that requires almost no ongoing effort after setup. Carriers get faster payment. You generate margin on every transaction. The back-office work is handled by the platform.

Broker Factoring from Truckstop Financial handles the carrier payment, advances you the balance, and keeps 100% of the QuickPay fees on your side. Setup takes one conversation.

START QUICKPAYING NOW