LTL Freight Delivery Across Georgia

You do not need a freight class to get a price from us

We price class-based, like everyone else in LTL. The difference is where the burden sits: working out the class is our job, not yours.

That sounds like a small convenience. In 2026 it is not, and the rest of this page explains why — because freight class has become the single most expensive thing a shipper can get wrong, and the rules changed underneath everybody in July 2025.

What happened to freight class in July 2025

Freight class is the number that decides what an LTL shipment costs. It comes from the National Motor Freight Classification, published by the NMFTA, and it is set by four things: density, handling, stowability and liability.

On 19 July 2025, under Docket 2025-1, the NMFTA restructured it. Density became the primary factor, and the density scale expanded from 11 steps to 13 — adding class 60 for freight at 30 to 35 pounds per cubic foot, class 55 for 35 to 50, and class 50 for anything 50 and above.

Two things follow from that, and both land on the shipper.

Getting a class now requires a measurement you may not take. Density needs accurate dimensions and accurate weight. Under the old commodity-based items, an honest description was usually enough. Now the tape measure matters.

And it is not finished. Anyone telling you the change is done is wrong. Docket 2026-1 took effect on 23 May 2026, and Supplement 2026-2 is effective 12 December 2026. The NMFTA runs this on a twice-yearly cycle. The class that was right for your product last year may not be right next year.

The carriers no longer agree with each other

This is the part that surprises people, and you can verify it yourself in ten minutes from two public PDFs.

Old Dominion’s rules tariff, ODFL 100-Q Item 171, publishes the full 13-step density scale, classes 50 and 55 included. Southeastern Freight Lines’ tariff, SEFL 1090 Item 170, revised 1 December 2025, still publishes eleven steps, ending at “30 or greater” mapping to class 60. There is no class 55 and no class 50 in it.

So a pallet at 40 pounds per cubic foot is class 55 at Old Dominion and class 60 at Southeastern. Same freight, same day, two different answers from two carriers both working off the same national standard.

If you are the shipper trying to put one number on a bill of lading that several carriers will accept, that is not a solvable problem. Which is the argument for not having to.

What it costs when a carrier disagrees with your class

Every major carrier reserves the right to inspect, reweigh and reclassify. When they do, there is a fee, and then the shipment is rebilled at the corrected class.

The fees, from each carrier’s published rules tariff:

A corrected bill of lading can be billed on top of that — $35.00 at Southeastern, $45.90 at R+L.

The correction does not run both ways at the same speed. ABF’s Item 992 puts it in writing: the carrier “will only process freight charge reductions that exceed the sum of the standard reweigh fee and other processing and administrative charges.” A correction that increases your bill applies at ten dollars. A correction that decreases it has to clear fifty-five dollars plus administration before ABF will process it at all.

And on a mixed pallet, added weight is usually charged at the most expensive class on it. AAA Cooper’s Item 970 charges the difference “at the rate of the highest classed article in the shipment.” TForce Item 990 and R+L Item 992 say the same thing in their own words. Saia is the one carrier that goes the other way and uses the lowest-rated commodity.

A vague description has its own penalty. ABF Item 420 rates an inadequately described commodity at class 500. Southeastern’s Item 170 applies class 150 where density cannot be determined from the paperwork. AAA Cooper assumes each pallet occupies 72 cubic feet when an inspection is inconclusive, or class 250 if the freight is not palletized. None of those numbers are punitive by accident.

The part almost nobody has noticed about classes 50 and 55

Here is what makes the 2025 change genuinely worth understanding rather than just complying with.

Carriers cap what they will pay you for damaged freight, per pound, and the cap varies by class. Look up where the two new classes sit in those tables and the pattern is consistent across the industry: classes 50 and 55 carry the lowest cargo protection the carrier offers.

Take a 600-pound pallet and compare what it is covered for at class 100 against class 50, using each carrier’s own released-value item:

Dense freight that moved down to class 50 or 55 in July 2025 got a cheaper rate and, at the same moment, between 80 and 93 percent less cargo protection. Nobody sent a letter about it. It is in the released-value items: ABF Item 780, Southeastern Item 848, R+L Item 170, AAA Cooper Item 570, TForce Table 166-2.

If your product is dense — tile, flooring, fasteners, machined parts, anything heavy for its size — this is worth ten minutes of your time before your next shipment. Ask your carrier what class it is moving at now and what that class covers per pound. If a pallet worth $8,000 is covered for $600, you want to know that before something happens to it, not after.

Two handles, not four

A national LTL carrier moves your freight through a terminal network. Old Dominion’s own annual report describes the model plainly — “each night, our service centers load outbound freight for transport to our other service centers for delivery,” across 260 service centers, with “major breakbulk facilities” where freight is re-sorted along the way.

Count the touches in that structure and a shipment is picked up, unloaded at an origin service center, reloaded for linehaul, possibly broken and re-sorted at a breakbulk, unloaded again at a destination service center, then loaded for delivery.

Here, a Georgia shipment is picked up, spends the night in our Buford warehouse, and goes out for delivery. Two handles.

We are not going to attach a damage statistic to that, because no credible published data links handling counts to claim rates, and the numbers floating around the internet on this all trace back to companies selling something. What we will say is the mechanism: every handling is one more opportunity for a forklift to meet your freight, and we have removed most of them by not owning a terminal network in the first place.

Transit, stated plainly

Next day, anywhere in Georgia.

We are not going to pretend that is unusual, because it is not. Southeastern’s published Atlanta transit map shades the whole state next-day, and AAA Cooper’s map puts all of Georgia in its one-day band. Any competent LTL carrier gets across Georgia overnight. It is worth stating as a fact and not worth dressing up as an advantage.

The things a national carrier says no to

This is where the real difference shows up, and it is less about capability than about whether the answer is yes.

Delivery windows. If your receiver can only take freight between 7 and 9 in the morning, we will work to that.

After hours. Outside normal delivery times, when that is what the site requires.

Inside delivery. Past the threshold rather than stopping at it.

Will-call. Come and collect it from us in Buford if that suits you better.

And our drivers will wait. A driver who has been told the freight will be ready in twenty minutes will generally wait twenty minutes. Waiting time is billed — 30 minutes free, then $1.00 a minute with a $30 minimum, so anything from 31 to 60 minutes is $30 flat. At one hour of detention the major carriers’ published tariffs run from $69 to $185. The full comparison is on our warehouse and distribution page.

Any size shipment

One pallet, one carton, one awkward crate. There is no minimum size here.

Worth knowing what that is measured against: of the major carriers, only three publish an absolute minimum charge at all. Old Dominion’s is $141.00 for an intrastate Georgia shipment (Item 180), TForce’s is $186.00 (Item 610-A) and ABF’s is $290.00 (Item 615) — before fuel and before any accessorial. That is the floor a single small pallet hits regardless of how little it weighs or how short the trip is.

What you actually need to give us

Pickup address. Delivery address, and whether it has a dock. Number of pallets, rough dimensions, total weight. What is on them, in plain English.

That is it. No class code, no density calculation, no NMFC item number. If the class matters to the price, we will work it out and tell you what we used.

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