Estimates, not a price list. About 2 weeks (6-20 Oct 2026) of ONE courier's Courier Exchange board searches, based near Gloucester (GL), SWB electric van. Every £ figure here is an ESTIMATE. CX hides what loads sold for, the log only holds loads that matched one courier's own searches (a biased sample), and 2 weeks is thin. Treat it as a starting point, not a price list.
💷 Prices that win
Won at ~£1.23/loaded mile · lost at ~£1.40
About 1 in 5 decided quotes won (12 of 60). On jobs over ~40 loaded miles, quoting around £1.20-1.30 per loaded mile has won; quotes above ~£1.35 mostly lost. Never go below the courier's own floor or minimum job price.
Win rate by £ per loaded mile
| £ per loaded mile | Won | Lost | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| under £1.10 | 2 | 2 | 50% |
| £1.10–1.20 | 2 | 2 | 50% |
| £1.20–1.30 | 3 | 9 | 25% |
| £1.30–1.40 | 1 | 5 | 17% |
| £1.40–1.60 | 1 | 7 | 13% |
| over £1.60 | 0 | 8 | 0% |
| short jobs (under 40 mi) | 2 | 8 | 20% |
From one courier's logged quotes (jobs of 40+ loaded miles, short jobs counted separately). Updates live as couriers log their results.
⚡ Speed beats planning
69% of loads were posted under 2 hours before collection
Median lead time 1.8 hours. Busiest posting 08:00-12:00 (peak 09:00-10:00); busiest days Fri, Mon and Tue; Wed and Thu about half as busy. Speed beats planning: check the board often in working hours and quote fast. Slow quotes lose.
🔋 Keep the day inside one charge
A public top-up costs ~4x home per mile (est.)
One courier's figures: home charging 18p/kWh ≈ 6.2p per mile, en route 77p/kWh ≈ 26.6p per mile, at 2.89 mi/kWh (from his van P&L). On a cheap overnight tariff (e.g. 7p/kWh ≈ 2.4p/mi) a public top-up costs ~11x home. Energy for a job or day = miles covered by the charge you leave home with (up to your real range) at the home rate, plus only the miles that need a public charge stop at the en-route rate. Show est. energy £ and net £/loaded mile after energy on every suggested job; a job that forces a charge stop loses 0.5 score by default. Rates can auto-update from logged charging sessions (30-day kWh-weighted average once 3+ sessions are logged).
🪃 Out-and-back pairs
On 8 of 11 weekdays, an out-job from near home had a same-day backload towards home that still met the home-by time.
| Drop area | Days | Round trip | Est. pay, both legs | Charge stop |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Birmingham & West Mids | 6 of 11 | ~149 mi | £132-154 | rarely (1 in 5) |
| East Mids & Northants | 6 of 11 | ~203 mi | £155-192 | always |
| Oxford, Reading & Swindon | 4 of 11 | ~166 mi | £140-170 | often (3 in 5) |
| London & Heathrow | 3 of 11 | ~231 mi | £224-280 | always |
| Bristol, Bath & S Wales | 3 of 11 | ~153 mi | £133-155 | rarely |
Birmingham/West Mids is the best all-rounder (most days, short, rarely needs a charge). London pays most but lined up on only 3 days. When an out-job books, look straight away for a back from near the drop.
Best example per area
- Birmingham & West Mids: Swindon SN5 → Birmingham B30 (09:00) + Cannock WS11 → Gloucester GL3 (11:45), home ~14:25
- East Mids & Northants: Malvern WR14 → Leicester LE8 (10:30) + Northampton NN5 → GL (13:00), home ~15:40
- Oxford, Reading & Swindon: Droitwich WR9 → Watlington OX49 (10:05) + Didcot OX11 → GL (13:40), home ~15:50
- London & Heathrow: Hereford HR2 → London SW18 (08:45) + London EC2R → GL (13:45), home ~17:40
- Bristol, Bath & S Wales: Droitwich WR9 → Newport NP10 (09:10) + Winscombe BS25 → GL (12:30), home ~14:50
🏠 Backloads home
151 backloads towards the home area (GL) were seen in 2 weeks. Mondays (49) and Fridays (45) carry the most; Tue–Thu about 17–20 each.
Collection times: before 09:00 31, 09:00-12:00 70, 12:00-15:00 37, 15:00 or later 13. Top origins: London (14), Bristol BS (9), Northampton NN (9), Oxford OX (9), Cardiff CF (8), Birmingham B (8).
Mondays and Fridays carry most backloads home. Nearly half collect between 9 and 12, so an early short job or a morning block can still catch one.
🔁 Regular lanes and areas
Some exact lanes repeat. Repeat posters can be worth asking for regular work direct.
- Witney OX29 → Gloucester GL2: seen 4 times (Mon, Tue, Fri), around 16:00, a regular backload
- Bridgwater TA5 → Bicester OX25: 6 days
- Bristol BS10 → Salisbury SP4: 4 days (Mon, Wed, Thu)
- Gloucester GL1 → Tewkesbury GL3: 3 days (Mon, Wed, Fri)
Near home: GL → London: 12 loads on 7 days, ~100 mi; Swindon SN → London: 12 loads on 5 days, ~87 mi; GL → Birmingham B: 9 loads on 6 days, ~65 mi; GL → Newport NP: 9 loads on 4 days, ~45 mi.
Prefer (out): West Midlands (B, WS, WV, DY, CV), Oxford (OX), Swindon (SN), Bristol and South Wales (BS, NP, CF), London West and North-West (W, NW). Prefer (backloads home): Gloucestershire (GL), Worcester (WR), Hereford (HR). Avoid: None yet. Common choices: central London congestion zone, ports with long waits.
Each courier sets a range mode per weekday: Stay local (within a radius of home, default 40 mi), Free range (anywhere, home by sign-out), or Can overnight (may finish away; then look for next-morning jobs back towards home, within a max overnight cost). Every bot reads it before suggesting anything.
🎯 Score rules (defaults)
Skip loads needing company ID, a driver app, printed paperwork, a tail-lift or a long-wheelbase van, or anything on the courier's own skip list.
Price: Price per loaded mile at the suggested quote: £1.20-1.30 is the sweet spot (can score 5). £1.10-1.20 or £1.30-1.40 scores up to 4. Above £1.40 scores 3 at most: likely to lose. £1.00-1.10 scores 3. Below £1.00 scores 1-2. Jobs under 40 loaded miles are judged on the job price against the courier's minimum, not £/mi.
Wins clustered around £1.23 per loaded mile and losses around £1.40 (estimate, 52 decided quotes), so the best score sits where jobs are actually won, and pricier quotes are marked as likely to lose.
- 5: Price in the sweet spot, clearly beats the courier's fallback work (e.g. a delivery-app block) after empty miles, payment terms up to 30 days (end of month OK), home by sign-out with 30+ min spare, within van range (or a charge stop priced in), poster feedback read and 95%+.
- 4: Price scores 4 or more, beats the fallback, terms up to 30 days, home by sign-out, poster feedback read and not poor.
- 3: Clears the £1.00 per loaded mile floor but marginal: priced above £1.40 (likely to lose), 45-day end-of-month terms, tight home-by, long empty legs, at the range limit or tight van dimensions. Ask the courier 'quote?'.
- 1-2: Doesn't qualify. Drop it silently.
Final score = base score + Prefer-area bonus (0.5) − Avoid-area penalty (1, or the load is blocked if the courier chose that) − charge-stop penalty (0.5), never above a cap or 5. A load auto-quotes at level N only if its final score is N or more.
- Poor poster feedback (under 90%, or late-payment comments) caps a load at 2.
- Unread feedback caps a load at 4.
- 45-day end-of-month terms cap a load at 3.
- A price above £1.40 per loaded mile caps a load at 3 (likely to lose).
Example fallback values from one courier: a 4-hour Amazon Flex block ≈ £74, 3.5 hours ≈ £65. Change any of these in your CX settings.
🤖 Auto-quoting
On CX a poster accepts a quote, so bots AUTO-QUOTE; the poster confirms the booking.
- A master 'pause all auto-quotes' switch overrides every level: when it's on, nothing auto-quotes.
- Only auto-quote at the score levels the courier has ticked, up to their daily maximum.
- Quote at the suggested price, never below the courier's floor or minimum job price.
- Never auto-quote a load that clashes with an accepted booking, a Flex block or a day off. Overlapping PENDING quotes are fine.
- Log every quote (load, poster, price, score, AUTO or not) and its outcome.
- If two clashing quotes are both accepted: tell the courier at once, keep the better one and withdraw the other straight away with a short apology.
- Each bot can be switched off in the courier's settings; a bot that is off does nothing and sends nothing.
📝 What changed
- 2026-10-20: First version, seeded from the 20 Oct 2026 lanes report (6-20 Oct data) and the auto-quote trial rules. Score sweet spot moved to £1.20-1.30 per loaded mile; prices above £1.40 marked likely to lose. Added areas, range modes and the live win-rate-by-band table from the quote outcomes log.