Freight broker salaries in 2026.
Brokerage is the most commission-leveraged corner of logistics. Base salaries look modest next to what strong producers actually take home, and the gap between the two is the whole story of broker pay. Here is what freight brokers earn in 2026, from first desk to VP of Brokerage, built from the HartFelt Careers 2026 Compensation Benchmark.
Freight broker salary table.
The three percentile columns are base salary only. The final column shows median total earnings once commission is in: that is the number a broker actually lives on, and the distance between base and total grows at every level.
| Role | Base (25th) | Base (Median) | Base (75th) | Total Earnings (Median) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broker (Entry/Mid) | $45,000 | $55,000 | $65,000 | $85,000 |
| Senior Broker | $60,000 | $72,000 | $85,000 | $145,000 |
| Brokerage Team Lead | $85,000 | $100,000 | $120,000 | $185,000 |
| Brokerage Manager / Director | $110,000 | $135,000 | $160,000 | $225,000 |
| VP of Brokerage | $170,000 | $210,000 | $260,000 | $360,000 |
How broker pay is structured.
Nearly every brokerage comp plan has the same shape: a base salary plus commission on the gross margin a broker produces. What changes by level is which piece carries the paycheck. Entry brokers lean on the base while they build a book. Senior producers earn most of their W-2 from commission, which is exactly what the widening gap between the base and total earnings columns in the table shows.
The common structures are salary-plus-commission, draw-against-commission, and the occasional pure-commission seat, which is rare and usually reserved for proven producers who want maximum upside. Team leads and managers typically keep a personal book and add overrides on team production, which is why their total earnings pull well ahead of their base. None of these structures is better in the abstract: the right plan depends on where a broker is in building their book and how much risk they want to carry.
Regional adjustments.
The ranges above are national. To localize them, apply the regional multipliers from our full 2026 salary guide: plus 12 percent in the Northeast, plus 10 percent on the West Coast, the Midwest as baseline, and minus 4 percent in the Southeast. If the seat can be remote, regional variance compresses by roughly 40 percent, so the multipliers matter far less than the plan itself.
Common questions.
What does a freight broker actually take home?
At the median, an entry to mid-level broker takes home $85,000 in total earnings and a senior broker takes home $145,000. Base salary is only the floor: the base columns in the table show what is guaranteed, and commission carries the rest.
How does the split between base and commission change by level?
Early on, base does most of the work while a broker builds a book. As production grows the mix flips, and by the senior producer level commission is the larger share of the W-2. The table tells that story in plain numbers: the gap between median base and median total earnings widens at every step up. Leadership roles add overrides on team production on top of their own book.
What makes a broker worth more than the 75th percentile?
A book of business that actually moves with them, carrier relationships that hold under pressure, and deep lane expertise. Those three travel; a big year on house freight does not. Brokers who can prove all three routinely command offers above the ranges in this guide.
How were these ranges compiled?
They are drawn from the HartFelt Careers 2026 Compensation Benchmark: our role-by-role read of the logistics talent market, informed by live searches, conversations with operators and candidates across the vertical, and public market data. Ranges reflect solid producers, not top-one-percent outliers.
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