Getting Started with Fifth Wheel: Your First Load
Fifth Wheel gives every load its own AI voice agent that answers carrier calls 24/7, captures their offers, and lines them up for you to compare. This tutorial walks you through the whole setup: creating your account, finishing the quick onboarding, building your first load, and unlocking it so carriers can start calling in.
The entire product lives in your browser at broker.fifthwheel.ai—there's nothing to install. Set aside about ten minutes and you'll have a live load ready to post.
Step 1: Create Your Account
Head to broker.fifthwheel.ai and switch to the Create Account tab. You'll fill out four fields:
- Full Name
- Confirm Email
- Password (minimum 6 characters)
After you submit, Fifth Wheel sends a verification email. Open your inbox, click the link to verify your email, then return to broker.fifthwheel.ai and Sign In with the credentials you just created. Verifying your email is required before you can use the dashboard, so don't skip it.
Step 2: Finish the Quick Onboarding
The first time you sign in, a short onboarding flow launches to personalize your account. It moves through a few quick screens:
- A Welcome screen.
- A Company step, where you can enter your company name and pick a size (Solo, 2-5, 6-20, or 20+).
- An Experience level step (Just Starting, 1-2 years, 3-5 years, or 5+ years).
- A Quick Tour, then a Get Started button that drops you into the dashboard.
The company and experience details are optional. If you'd rather jump straight in, you can move through these steps quickly and update the information later.
Step 3: Create Your Load
From the dashboard, open the Create Your Load form. A quick note before you start: each account has one active load at a time. Once a load is finished, you archive it and create the next one—so the form is where every new job begins.
Required fields
These fields are marked with an asterisk and must be filled in before you can create the load:
- Origin (City, State)
- Destination (City, State)
- Pickup Date
- Delivery Date
- Equipment Type (Dry Van, Reefer, Flatbed, or Power Only)
- Target Rate ($)
What Target Rate does
Your Target Rate is more than a number on a form—it's the benchmark the dashboard uses to grade every carrier offer. When calls come in, any rate at or under your Target Rate is flagged In Range (shown in green), while anything higher is marked Above Target (shown in amber). Set it to the most you're realistically willing to pay so the color coding does the sorting for you.
Optional fields worth adding
You can create a load with just the required fields, but the optional ones give the AI more context to work with on each call. Consider adding:
- Load Name / Number (for example, a PO number)
- Commodity and Weight (lbs)
- Posted Rate Min / Max—the rate range you advertise on your posting
- Pickup and delivery Time Windows
- Temperature °F (shown only when Equipment Type is Reefer)
- Route Type, Load Type, appointment requirements, team requirements
- Additional Notes for anything else a carrier should know
When everything looks right, click Create Load.
Step 4: Unlock the Load
Your new load appears as a locked card with a blurred Call-In Number and Reference Code, along with a "Click to Unlock" prompt. Unlocking is the step that actually turns on the AI voice agent and lets carriers start calling.
Unlocking a load uses 1 credit. Here's how the pricing works:
- Load credits come in packs: $29 for 1, $75 for 3, or $199 for 10 ($19.90 per credit). Each credit covers one load with 20 inbound carrier calls, and credits never expire.
- On your very first load, enter the promo code TRIAL at checkout to unlock it for just $9.99.
If you don't have a credit yet, clicking to unlock sends you to a Stripe checkout to buy load credits—apply the TRIAL code there for your first load. Once the payment goes through, the credit is applied and the load unlocks.
After unlocking, the card reveals your Call-In Number—a shared phone number that carriers dial—and a unique 6-digit Reference Code tied to this specific load. Both have copy buttons so you can grab them in a click. This pair is what connects an incoming call to the right load, so keep them handy for the next step.
What's Next
You now have a live load with its own AI voice agent standing by. From here, two follow-up tutorials pick up the thread:
- Posting to load boards—where to drop your Call-In Number and Reference Code so carriers dial in and reach the agent.
- Reading the dashboard—how the KPI strip, the Inbound Calls table, and the Call Details drawer help you compare offers and pick the best In Range carrier.
Once offers start rolling in, you'll review them, run your own carrier vetting with the MC numbers the agent captures, and follow up directly to book. But it all starts with a live load—so if you haven't yet, go create yours.