Same evidence. Same standards.

Our funding and neutrality

We believe in what we offer our drivers so strongly that we built a free tool to help you compare us with other trucking companies. Explore published pay, benefits, home time, and job requirements, check the sources, and apply directly with whichever carrier fits you best. Every carrier is assessed using the same evidence-based rubric. Grades reflect each offer’s documented pay, benefits, home time and source quality, not sponsorship.

An offer is the unit of comparison

Route scope, freight/equipment, operation, driver setup, tax arrangement, and truck/business arrangement are independent dimensions. A job can be both regional and refrigerated. W-2 wages, 1099 driver compensation, owner-operator revenue, and lease-purchase arrangements are not interchangeable.

Published pay keeps its meaning

Base pay, guaranteed minimums, averages, and conditional maxima remain separate. We store monetary values as integer cents with explicit units: 70 CPM is 70 cents per mile, or $0.70/mile. Missing values are unknown, not zero. Team-per-truck figures cannot rank as individual pay. Sign-on bonuses do not become recurring salary.

How numeric comparisons work

Pay groups fix engagement, business arrangement, driver setup, route scope, equipment, experience context and pay basis. Expected weekly gross pay is the common comparison: CPM × weekly miles for that role; annual earnings ÷ 52; monthly earnings × 12 ÷ 52. Each rate and workload range uses its arithmetic midpoint, not a measured driver average. Expected-pay estimates include cited recurring performance or mileage bonuses, assuming their conditions are met. Advertised base rates remain separately identified; one-time sign-on or referral bonuses and short-run premiums without a disclosed qualifying mileage share are not added to every week. Original advertised rates, ranges and qualifications stay visible. Carrier-stated weekly workload is preferred; otherwise assumptions are labeled (2,300 OTR or 2,100 regional miles, 40 hours or 5 days per week). Maximum-only ads cannot establish expected earnings and are excluded from expected-pay rankings. Unknown and incompatible offers do not receive numeric ranks. Carrier identity is never a pay factor.

When a carrier does not specify weekly mileage, Driver Pay Atlas uses default estimates of 2,300 miles for OTR and 2,100 miles for regional. These are platform assumptions; Samsara provides general industry context of 2,000–3,000 miles per week. Actual mileage varies. sourcesAI continuously researches published U.S. trucking offers in the background. Carrier-specific figures are refreshed as supported evidence changes. Industry-wide shifts can inform revisions to platform assumptions; these defaults are not a live national average and do not automatically change with each source refresh.

Discovery order

Explore defaults to Atlas Favorites: all qualifying favorites appear first, ordered by their combined pay, offer-grade and Google Reviews score, followed by other matching offers ordered by grade. There is no sponsor priority or guaranteed position. Favorite qualification uses 59.5% normalized expected weekly pay, 25.5% offer grade and 15% Google Reviews, with an award threshold of 85/100. The remaining 85% preserves the prior 70:30 pay-to-grade ratio. A current verified rating for the matched carrier location is converted from stars to 100 points (rating ÷ 5 × 100); at least one review is required. Missing, expired, unmatched or unverified ratings use a neutral 50/100 placeholder and make the award provisional, rather than treating missing reviews as zero. Google Reviews are not necessarily driver reviews and do not assess a particular job. This affects Atlas Favorites only, not the separate A–F offer grade. Scores are recalculated when stored Google ratings refresh and during offer indexing. Highest expected weekly pay is a separate sorting option, using rate and workload range midpoints. This is discovery sorting, not a take-home-pay ranking; owner-operator revenue and team totals retain their labels. Carrier name and most-recently-checked sorts remain available. State mentions are not ZIP-level eligibility.

Confirmed and potential category matches

Exact filters previously hid jobs with unconfirmed solo/team, equipment or tax arrangement. Explore now labels potential matches separately and offers a confirmed-only switch. A missing category is not confirmation of a match or mismatch. Company driver does not automatically mean W-2. If solo/team setup is not specified, Atlas defaults the offer to solo for filtering and comparisons and labels it Solo (assumed), rather than presenting the assumption as source-verified. Explicit team, trainer and trainee classifications take precedence; conflicting setup statements remain unconfirmed. Fresh official-source audits repair quote-supported facts without treating this default as evidence.

Offer report cards, not company ratings

Each offer receives an explainable A–F assessment: comparable recurring pay 45%, pay credibility 20%, documented benefits 15%, home time 10%, and source quality/freshness 10%. Numeric pay comparisons require matching tax, truck/business arrangement, solo/team setup, route, equipment, operation and experience band, with at least three other carriers. Each other carrier contributes one average so repeated location ads do not dominate. Expected weekly amounts are compared using rate and workload midpoints; ceiling-only up-to amounts are not treated as expected earnings. Maximum-only amounts and assumed work volume reduce pay credibility. Advertised averages receive a modestly lower pay-credibility score than a published rate with a source-backed weekly workload. Advertised base rates, averages and guarantees are distinguished; none is called verified payroll without payroll evidence. Missing facts use disclosed neutral placeholders, with unconfirmed details explained alongside the grade. Benefits are scored against a published package rubric: health coverage 25 points, dental/vision 15, retirement plan 20, employer retirement match 15, paid leave/holidays 20, and life/disability insurance 5. A benefit must be supported by its cited excerpt. GP Transco’s published benefits informed this example of an A-level benefits package, not a guaranteed overall A or a ranking boost; identical criteria apply to every carrier. Unlisted benefits remain unknown, not confirmed absent; entirely undisclosed benefits use a labeled neutral placeholder. These are transparent research heuristics, not predictions or personalized recommendations; insurance costs, personal preferences and actual working conditions may change the result. The final score is the weighted assessment itself, with the same A–F thresholds for every carrier. No carrier receives a guaranteed A, a sponsor adjustment or an identity-based override. Multiple carriers can earn A-level grades when their documented offers meet the rubric. Unconfirmed individual pay or missing categories keep an offer outside numeric pay ranks until the required information is available. Source-backed home-time statements within a recruiting compensation table count as home-time evidence, even when cited under the table’s pay evidence.

What qualifies for publication

An official career/job source, a checked official application destination, and claim-specific supporting excerpts are required. Authorized recruiting portals may be used when linked from the official carrier. We preserve unknowns and withhold uncertain claims. Model memory and generic search snippets are not evidence. Specifically identified Indeed employer job ads may be shown separately with exact search-retrieved excerpts, their location and direct posting link; they are labeled as search-retrieved rather than independently fetched, and are excluded from individual-pay rankings until setup is verified. Indeed salary estimates are not employer-advertised pay.

Freshness and conflicts

A check timestamp belongs to the supported claim, not its logo. After 7 days, claims are stale and excluded from current pay rankings. A failed fetch never advances a successful-check date. Changed pages go to review, not automatic averaging or publication. The pilot retains accepted data until a supported replacement is approved.

Coverage and publication gates

Inclusion depends on source quality, application access, and geographic/category diversity, not paid placement. Carrier-directory growth and individually evidenced job coverage are different measures; consult the live Data Coverage totals. Category and location pages need at least five relevant active offers across three carriers and meaningful editorial context before indexing.

Corrections

Carrier submissions and corrections are privately queued for review. Submitting a claim does not publish it or purchase placement. No automated source instruction can change the ranking policy.