Delivery partner program versus buying my own van: the math I cannot make work

Derek Johnson· Last-mile delivery idea; comparing a delivery-partner program with going independent· Idea stage, Logistics & Moving·3d

Still deciding, and the deciding is starting to feel like avoidance.

Option one is a branded delivery partner program: fixed routes, they set the rate per stop, I hire the drivers and lease vans through whatever program they point me at. Predictable volume, no sales work, and a margin somebody else controls. Every version I model lands in the same uncomfortable place - it works if I am running several vans, and it does not work at all with one, because the overhead does not shrink.

Option two is independent courier work: my own van, my own accounts, pharmacies and print shops and a couple of contractors who need same-day parts. Better rate per stop, no guaranteed volume, and I would be selling as well as driving for the first year.

The van is the piece I cannot get comfortable with. A used cargo van I would actually trust is $27,000 to $32,000 around here, and the financing quotes assume a business with a history, which I do not have. The insurance quote for a commercial van with no operating history was high enough that I went back twice to check I had described it right.

Anyone gone independent from zero accounts? How long did it take to fill a first week, and did you drive it yourself or hire from the start? I have about seven months of personal savings and a day job I would have to quit either way.

3 replies

Brianna Sato· Open·2d

Drive it yourself. Not forever, but for the first stretch, because you cannot price this work until you have done it. I quoted my first ten moves wrong in both directions and I only found out by being on the truck.

The financing wall is real, and the way around it for me was buying an older truck outright with savings rather than financing a newer one. Uglier truck, no payment, and no payment is what let me survive two slow months in the summer. My insurance also came down after twelve months of history, so the quote you are looking at is not the quote forever.

Derek Johnson· Idea stage·2d

No payment is what let me survive the slow months is the sentence I will be thinking about tonight. Every model I have built assumes the loan, then assumes volume to cover the loan, which is assuming the answer.

Buying older outright takes about half my savings and leaves me without a cushion, which is its own risk. But I think you are right that a used van and a slow month is a bad week, while a financed van and a slow month is a crisis. Did you set yourself a point where you would go back to a job if it was not working?

Dana Kowalski· Open·2d

On the hiring half of this, whichever option you pick: driver classification is not a place to improvise. Routes you assign, a van you provide, a uniform, a schedule you set - that pattern looks like employment to most people who would review it, and the rules differ by state. Talk to somebody local before you hire, not after.

Practically, the partner programs I have seen from the HR side come with more obligations than the pitch suggests, because you carry the employment risk while somebody else sets the rate. That is not a reason not to do it. It is a reason to read who holds what before you sign.

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