What the Mastio Rankings Actually Tell Shippers

When a shipper puts an LTL lane out to bid, price is the number everyone can compare in five minutes. Price, however, doesn’t say much about what happens six months into the contract. A rate quote doesn’t indicate whether a shipment arrives on the dock when it’s supposed to, whether the weight matches the bill of lading, or whether a claim gets resolved in two weeks or two months. Those costs simply show up in a shipper’s bottom line in the form of detention charges, rebooked appointments, and customer service hours.

The Mastio & Company LTL Carrier Customer Value & Loyalty Study is one of the best resources for quantifying what happens after the contract goes into effect. Now in its third decade, the survey interviews more than 1,600 shippers directly and scores national LTL carriers across 28 performance attributes. It’s one of the few datasets shippers can use to parse out marketing language from measurable performance.

Mastio’s methodology does not rely on a self-reported scorecard, and it isn’t built from carrier marketing claims. Each year, researchers conduct detailed interviews with shipping decision-makers (more than 1,600 of them for the 2026 edition) and collect thousands of additional data points from open-ended questions about specific carriers. The result is a grade across 28 attributes that roughly sort into four groups.

This story was originally published by FreightWaves. Read the full story at FreightWaves →