What is the best load board for cargo vans? The honest answer

Checked October 2026

The short answer: there is no best board for cargo vans, because boards were built for trucks and freight brokers first. A board can fill a gap. It cannot be your plan. Here are the real boards, their real prices, and who each one shuts out.

The boards, with their prices

• DAT — the big truck board. The standard plan runs about $59 a month. Cargo van work is a small corner of it, and the good freight moves fast.
• Truckstop — the other national board, and the one drivers ask about by name. Is it good for cargo vans? It is a real board with real freight, and the same warning applies as on DAT: the filter that carries your vehicle's name on a truck board usually means a 53-foot trailer, not your cargo van. Drivers who run both national boards usually find one of them earns its fee in their lanes and the other does not — paying for both is a fleet move, and only worth it when the second board provably adds booked miles.
• ExpedAi — built for expedite and cargo van work. Plans run about $29, $59, or $149 a month by level.
• Expedite Load Board — cargo van and expedite focused. About $50 to $100 a month.
• E2U — a smaller board, about $24.99 a month.
• Sylectus — a closed network. You cannot just buy your way in; carriers get in by invitation and history, and its load board tier asks for a DOT number and a vehicle, with higher tiers asking for authority that has been active for months. Drivers report paying around $500 a month and booking nothing: "$500 a month and I haven't booked not one load yet" is a real review, in a driver's own words.

Prices checked October 2026. Boards change prices; the shape of this page does not.

Can you use a board with no experience?

Yes — a board will take your money on day one. What experience changes is your eye. New drivers lose money on boards by taking loads that pay well per loaded mile and badly per real mile, because the empty drive home is not in the headline number. Run every load through the all-miles math in our rate-per-mile guide before you bid, and a board becomes a tool. Skip the math, and the board is a slot machine with a monthly fee.

The deadhead question

Drivers ask how to avoid empty miles. The honest answer is that you cannot avoid them — you can only price them and shrink them. Price them by counting every mile your cargo van turns, loaded and empty, before you accept the load. Shrink them by delivering toward freight instead of away from it, and by having companies in the city you deliver to, so the way home can be loaded too. A driver whose book of companies covers several cities deadheads less than a driver gambling on one board, because his next load is a phone call, not a posting.

The "no DOT" question

Drivers ask for boards with no DOT number. A board can show you any freight it wants — the law question is about running the freight, not seeing it. Our DOT number guide gives the plain rule. A board that sells you freight you cannot legally run has sold you nothing.

The line board sellers never print

A board shows you freight that other drivers are fighting over, and charges you every month for the fight. The companies in this book give work to drivers they know — no monthly fee, no crowd. Boards rent you a crowd. The book gives you the doors.