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Haul Math

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Detention Pay Calculator

Enter your time in and out and your rate con terms. Get billable hours, the amount to bill, and a detention invoice PDF.

Time in

When you checked in. If your rate con starts the clock at the appointment time and you were early, use the appointment time.

Time out

When you were released with paperwork. Left after midnight? Change the date too.

Your rate con terms

Hours before detention starts. Use what your rate con says.

If the rate con doesn't say, 15 minutes rounded down is easy for a broker to check and hard to argue with.

Most the rate con pays per 24 hours of detention. Leave blank if there's no cap.

Your result

Enter your time in, time out, and rate con terms, then tap "Calculate detention pay". The example numbers are already filled in.

How this calculator works

Detention pay = (time on site − free time, rounded to your billing step) × hourly rate, limited by a daily cap if your rate con has one.

  1. Time on site is time out minus time in. The calculator uses dates as well as times, so a stop that runs past midnight works. Just set the time-out date to the next day.
  2. Free time comes off the top. Two hours is filled in as a starting point. Use whatever your rate con says.
  3. Billing steps. Some rate cons pay in 15-minute, 30-minute, or whole-hour steps. Pick the step and whether to round down, up, or to the nearest step. The default is 15 minutes, rounded down. It never bills time you weren't there, and a broker can check it against the gate times without arguing over a few minutes.
  4. Daily cap. If the rate con says detention pays no more than a set amount per day, enter it. The calculator applies the cap to each 24 hours of billable time.

Example

You check in at 6:45 a.m. and get your paperwork at 12:20 p.m. That's 5 hours 35 minutes on site. Take off 2 hours of free time and 3 hours 35 minutes are left. In 15-minute steps, rounded down, that's 3 hours 30 minutes. At $50 an hour, you bill $175.00.

Read your rate con for how to request detention. If it says to call before free time runs out, do it while you're still at the dock, get a detention number if they give one, and keep proof of your times (gate log, signed BOL, or ELD). Then send the invoice with the rest of your paperwork. For the full invoice for the load, use the freight invoice generator. To see what the wait did to the load's profit, run it through the load profit calculator with the hours included.