Drayage — Seattle & Tacoma
Everyone quotes a per-pull rate. Almost nobody quotes what happens when the terminal changes an appointment rule at 4 p.m., your chassis is stuck under someone else's box, and your free time runs out on Saturday.
If you're shopping drayage at the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma, here's an honest way to compare carriers — the questions that separate a partner from a rate on a spreadsheet.
Compare two quotes fifty dollars apart and the cheaper one looks obvious. Then add a day of demurrage because nobody was watching the Last Free Day, a chassis split fee because the box and the frame were at different locations, and a prepull because the appointment got missed. The fifty dollars stopped mattering somewhere around the first line item.
The carriers worth keeping are the ones whose invoices are boring. That's the whole test.
Do you own the trucks? A broker re-brokers your load and hopes. An asset-based carrier decides. When Seattle and Tacoma get tight — peak season, a vessel bunching, a chassis shortage — that difference shows up the same week.
Who watches my Last Free Day? There should be a name and a system, not "we'll keep an eye on it." Demurrage is charged by the terminal and per-diem by the steamship line, and both start quietly. If you're unclear on the difference, we broke it down in demurrage vs detention.
Which terminals do you actually work? Seattle and Tacoma are not one gateway with one set of rules. T5, T18, Husky, WUT, EB1 and the rest each have their own appointment behavior. A carrier who lives at those gates already knows this week's quirk.
What's your chassis situation? Pool membership, owned chassis, or "we'll figure it out"? The frame under your container has its own clock and its own bill. See chassis pools explained.
Can you handle the awkward boxes? Overweight, out-of-gauge, hazmat, reefer. Most carriers are fine until the load isn't standard, and then you're calling around at the worst possible time.
What happens after the port? If the box has to be stripped, stored, sorted or delivered, a carrier who stops at the yard gate hands you a second vendor and a gap between them. The gaps are where free days get burned.
Who picks up the phone at 9 p.m.? Freight doesn't keep office hours. Ask what after-hours looks like before you need it.
The real measure
No surprise demurrage, no mystery accessorials, no calls that start with "so there's a problem with your container."
Talk to usWe're asset-based at both ports: our own trucks, our own drivers, our own dispatch. We run standard container drayage, overweight and oversize moves, hazmat, transloading and warehousing — which means the box can go from the terminal to the dock to the shelf without changing companies, and it lands on one invoice with one person on your account.
What we're not: the cheapest quote in your inbox. If per-pull price is the only variable you're optimizing, someone will always beat us by thirty dollars. We'd rather compete on the number at the bottom of the invoice than the one at the top.
We're also honest about geography. Our depth is the Puget Sound — Seattle, Tacoma, and the corridor between them. If your freight lives somewhere we can't serve properly, we'll say so instead of stretching.
Before you commit a lane to anyone at these ports, get straight answers on: asset-based or brokered · who monitors LFD and how you'll hear about it · terminal coverage · chassis access · overweight and out-of-gauge capability · whether warehousing sits under the same roof · after-hours contact · and how accessorials get quoted before they land on the invoice. A carrier who answers all eight without hedging is worth a trial lane.
Consistency, not price. Owning the equipment, knowing each terminal's rules, watching Last Free Day for every container, and having chassis when the pools are tight — those four things prevent most of what makes drayage expensive.
For port drayage, usually yes. An asset-based carrier controls its own trucks and can commit capacity. A broker is re-selling someone else's — fine when things are calm, thin when the ports get busy.
Have someone accountable for the Last Free Day on every container, and pull the box before it. Most demurrage is not a capacity problem — it's a nobody-was-watching problem.
Yes — overweight boxes, out-of-gauge and flatbed or stepdeck moves at both ports, permits included where the load needs them. See heavy-haul and oversize drayage.
Yes. We transload, warehouse and deliver, so a container can go terminal → dock → shelf → customer without switching vendors. One account, one invoice.
Send the terminal, container size and count, the delivery ZIP and whether it's live-unload or drop. Call +1 (253) 528-4571 or use our contact page.