Comparison · checked 2026-08-31

Factoring cannot be compared on price, because nobody publishes one

So this compares the clause that actually decides who absorbs an unpaid load.

We went looking for factoring rates to build a table. The major factors do not publish them. Rather than reprint someone else's summary of private quotes, this page compares the thing that is written down and that you can hold a factor to.

Why this page has no price table

On 2026-08-31 we read the freight factoring page of one of the largest factors in the market. It carries no rate, no advance percentage and no fee schedule; the call to action is a phone number. Several competitors' pricing URLs do not resolve at all. Factoring is quoted per applicant, on volume, customer mix and credit, and none of that is on a public page.

Plenty of articles will still give you "2 to 3.5 percent". Those figures are summaries of private quotes, and we have just been through this on load boards, where seven published comparisons quoted subscription tiers that do not exist on the vendor's own rate card. A number with no publisher is not a fact we are willing to lend our domain to.

A number nobody published is not a number you can hold anyone to.

What recourse and non-recourse actually mean

SituationRecourseNon-recourse
Broker goes insolvent or bankrupt on an invoice the factor approvedYou buy the invoice backThe factor generally absorbs it. This is the event the word names.
Broker disputes the load, files a damage or shortage claimYou buy it backUsually still you. A dispute is not a credit failure.
Detention, accessorials or a short payYou buy it backUsually still you.
Broker the factor declined before you hauledYou buy it backNot covered. Approval before the load is the condition.
Broker loses FMCSA operating authorityYou buy it backDepends on the wording. Ask. An authority action is not automatically insolvency.
This table describes the common shape of these agreements, not yours. Non-recourse is not a regulated term and factors define the covered event differently. The row that matters is whichever one your contract addresses, and the useful question to a salesperson is not "is this non-recourse" but "name the exact events you pay out on, and the exact events you do not".
The gap

The event we can measure is not the event non-recourse pays on

FMCSA publishes every revocation of broker operating authority. Non-recourse pays on insolvency. Those are different registers of the same underlying trouble, and the difference lands on the carrier.

The federal record holds 110,130 broker authority revocations across 94,250 distinct dockets, 98,369 of them involuntary. A revocation is usually administrative, most often a lapsed insurance filing, and is frequently reinstated. It is not a bankruptcy filing, and a non-recourse agreement written around insolvency may not treat it as a covered event at all.

2013 to 2026 2013 is MAP-21, not a trend hover a point for its value involuntary only
10,89813 1,73314 2,01915 2,12416 2,58917 2,65818 3,40619 4,06420 4,21421 6,32322 8,69423 7,57224 4,82325 1,72226

This chart counts involuntary revocations only, and that is a property of the source rather than a choice. FMCSA populates the effective-date field for 96.6% of involuntary revocations and for 92 of 200,017 voluntary ones, so any series grouped by year excludes voluntary surrenders almost entirely. Do not read their absence here as evidence they are rare: across all licence types voluntary surrenders are 12.3% of every revocation order on file. The 2013 peak is a regulatory event rather than a trend, when MAP-21 raised the broker surety bond from $10,000 to $75,000 on 1 October 2013. The final points are the current and previous year, which understate because orders are entered with a lag.

The practical consequence is small and cheap: before you haul, confirm the docket is active that day, and confirm your factor has approved that broker. Both checks take a minute and they are the two conditions most non-recourse cover actually turns on.

Questions this page answers

What does freight factoring cost?
No major factor publishes a rate. Checked on 2026-08-31, Apex's freight factoring page carries no percentage and no advance rate, only a phone number, and several competitors' pricing URLs do not resolve at all. Widely quoted ranges come from summaries of private quotes rather than from a published rate card, so we do not reproduce them as if they were.
What is the difference between recourse and non-recourse factoring?
Recourse means you buy the invoice back if it is not paid. Non-recourse means the factor absorbs the loss, but only for the specific reason named in the agreement, which is almost always the customer's credit failure: insolvency or bankruptcy on an invoice the factor approved before you hauled.
Does non-recourse factoring protect me if the broker just refuses to pay?
Generally no, and this is the most common misreading of the word. Disputes, freight claims, damage, detention and short-pays are not credit failures, so they typically fall outside non-recourse cover and come back to you. Read the definition of the covered event in your own agreement rather than relying on the label.
If a broker loses its FMCSA authority, does non-recourse cover me?
Not necessarily, and it is worth asking your factor directly. An authority revocation is an administrative action, most often a lapsed insurance filing, and it is not the same event as insolvency. FMCSA has recorded 110,130 broker authority revocations across 94,250 dockets, so this is not a rare edge case.
What should I check before hauling for a broker?
That the docket is active on the day you book rather than the day you were onboarded, that your factor has approved that specific broker in advance, and that you know which of the two of you carries the loss if the load is delivered and the invoice is not paid.
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If you are a factor and you do publish a rate card, send it and we will table it here with the date we read it.

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Method

Rate availability was checked on 2026-08-31 by reading factors' own pages. Broker revocation counts come from the FMCSA FMCSA, Revocation - All With History dataset, filtered to type_license = BROKER; source last updated 2026-08-30, retrieved 2026-08-31. The recourse table describes the common structure of these agreements from published explanations of the products and is not legal advice, not a review of any factor, and not a substitute for reading your own contract.

No factor named or unnamed here is a sponsor, and we take no commission on a factoring referral. If that changes it will be disclosed on this page before it changes anywhere else.

Cite this page

FreightProbe. "Freight Factoring Compared On The Clause That Decides Who Eats The Loss." Rate availability checked 2026-08-31; broker revocation counts from FMCSA, retrieved 2026-08-31. https://freightprobe.com/factoring

Quote the retrieval date with any figure. Vendor pricing changes without notice and we re-read it rather than carrying it forward.

Also on FreightProbe
Load boards comparedPrices read from each vendor, and why the headline numbers are not comparable. What coverage is requiredThe federal floor, what it does not cover, and what a broker will demand on top. ELD vendors comparedRanked by what the FMCSA registry shows rather than by marketing copy. Authority revocationsCarrier and broker revocations peaked together in 2023. The full federal series.
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