Yes. No signup fee, no subscription, no per-engagement charge, no deduction from your pay, no processing charge. The platform fee is 7.5% of base daily-rate compensation and it is charged to the ISP, on top of your pay rather than out of it.

If an engagement ever turns into a permanent move to that ISP, you receive a $2,500 sign-on bonus. Money moves toward you, never away from you.

Section 4.4 of the engagement agreement: “No Driver ever pays any fee, charge, or deduction to ShiftSeat.”

You’re paid for the days you worked, plus Breakdown Pay at the rate posted on that listing — the amount and the per-24-hour increment are visible before you ever apply.

If the truck can’t continue, the engagement can end early with no penalty to anyone. No rating consequence, no effect on your standing. The remaining escrow goes back to the ISP and you keep what you earned plus the breakdown amount.

Sections 5.2 and 9.1. Breakdown Pay is the ISP’s obligation under its own posted terms and is transferred to you fee-free.

They can’t get that far. The ISP funds the full base compensation for the term into escrow before the engagement becomes active — before you’re obligated to do anything. If escrow isn’t funded, the engagement never starts and you were never on the hook.

Payouts release on schedule: one disbursement at completion for terms of seven days or less, weekly in arrears for longer terms with a final disbursement at the end.

Sections 4.2 and 4.3. “The engagement does not become active, and no Driver is obligated to perform, until escrow funding is captured.”

You’re not stranded and you’re not working for free. If an ISP becomes unreachable and no loads are assigned for a sustained period during the term, you can secure the truck at a safe, documented location, record what happened on the platform, and end the engagement without penalty.

The escrowed amount for the term through the end date is disbursed to you, and the ISP forfeits its right to dispute the truck’s condition for that engagement.

Section 9.5.

That’s what the entry inspection is for. Before you take the truck you complete a photo record — VIN photo, checklist, condition photos — and that record becomes the baseline for the whole engagement. The exit inspection is the other bookend.

If the ISP disputes condition afterward, they have 48 hours and they have to support it with photo evidence against your entry baseline. Only the cleaning and damage amount declared on the listing can be withheld — and that number was posted before you applied. Everything else releases to you immediately.

Sections 8.1 and 8.3. The declared amount is the maximum that may ever be withheld from driver compensation for condition claims.

The return location is posted on the listing before you apply, so you know where the engagement ends before it begins. Many listings return to origin; some don’t. Either way it’s disclosed, not discovered.

Plenty of drivers use this deliberately — taking an engagement that finishes near where they want to be for a holiday or a family week.

After all parties sign, a verification window opens. During that window you can check the truck’s status and the ISP can verify your standing with the carrier’s Safety department. Either of you can cancel by recording a reason — no penalty, no rating hit, no effect on standing.

Cancelling inside the window is a contemplated outcome of the agreement, not a breach. You’re never trapped in a seat you didn’t fully choose.

Sections 6.1 and 6.2.

Neither. The agreement states that each driver engages with the ISP as an independent contractor, and that ShiftSeat is not a motor carrier, not a broker, not an employer of any driver, and not an agent of any party. ShiftSeat provides matching, documentation, escrow, and evidence infrastructure — it does not direct, control, or supervise your work.

How that classification applies to your own tax and business situation is a question for your accountant or attorney, not for us. We can tell you what the agreement says; we can’t advise you on your own filings.

Sections 1 and 2.

Moving between ISPs within the carrier’s network is an established process — it runs through the carrier’s own fleet transfer, and every ShiftSeat engagement is conditioned on that transfer completing.

That said, your standing is between you and the carrier’s Safety department, and they are the only ones who can speak to it. If you have any doubt, ask them directly before you apply. We would rather you make that call than take our word for it.

Section 6.4 conditions every engagement on execution of the carrier’s standard fleet transfer.

A driver who ceases performance and fails to return the truck to the return location — or another location you or the carrier direct — has abandoned the engagement. That means removal from the platform with a documented incident record, forfeiture of unpaid amounts for unworked days, and responsibility for documented, reasonable recovery costs.

The platform also holds a GPS-stamped, timestamped record of every milestone, so the question of where the truck went isn’t a matter of opinion.

Sections 9.4 and 10.

Returning the truck as directed is never abandonment, whatever the reason for leaving early — we’re deliberate about that, because a driver who needs to go home should bring your truck back rather than park it somewhere.

Early termination outside of a no-fault breakdown or a mutual agreement is resolved by platform administration during the beta period, based on the platform record, with disbursements adjusted to reflect days actually worked.

Sections 9.3 and 9.4.

It works the way it already does. Your truck operates under the carrier’s DOT authority, and the coverages required for it to run in that network are deducted from your settlements and paid by the carrier directly to the insurer. That coverage is in force as a structural condition of the truck operating in the network.

Once the carrier’s fleet transfer completes, an engagement driver participates in the carrier’s required per-driver insurance programs on the same basis as anyone else on your fleet, through the same settlement mechanism. You agree not to take any action to exclude an engagement driver from carrier-required coverage.

Sections 13.1 and 13.2. ShiftSeat does not provide, broker, or administer insurance.

The opposite — Home Fleet Protection exists specifically to stop that. If you refer your own driver to ShiftSeat while your truck is down, that referral is recorded and you become their Home Fleet. If another ISP later converts them permanently, the $2,500 per-seat conversion buyout is routed to you, not retained by us.

And a driver returning to their own Home Fleet is always free. No buyout, no fee, no restriction on them coming home.

Sections 12.2 and 12.3.

They can try, and it costs them more than it saves. A conversion arranged outside the platform doesn’t extinguish the amounts owed — those remain due in full — and it’s grounds for removing the responsible ISP from the platform entirely.

It also costs the driver. A driver who converts off-platform forfeits their $2,500 sign-on bonus. So the off-platform conversation is asking a driver to hand back their own money.

Section 12.4.

The carrier dispatches them to you, exactly as today. ShiftSeat does not initiate, assign, or dispatch loads and is architecturally incapable of doing so. Drivers record carrier-assigned loads and milestones on the platform, which timestamps them. That’s the whole of the platform’s involvement with freight.

Section 7.2.

Reaching qualified drivers you wouldn’t otherwise find, a signed and version-stamped agreement generated the moment both parties sign, escrow handling through a regulated payment processor, photo-documented condition records at both ends of the engagement, and a timestamped evidence record if anything is disputed.

Set against the alternative: a truck sitting for three weeks while you recruit. One seated week usually covers the fee several times over.

Before the engagement starts. The ISP funds the full base compensation for the term, plus the platform fee, into escrow. Nothing activates until that funding is captured. Funds are held and disbursed through a regulated payment processor.

No. Every ShiftSeat engagement pays a flat daily rate, permanently. It’s posted on the listing, fixed at signing, and doesn’t move afterward. No percentage math, no waiting on a settlement to learn what you earned, no fuel coming out of a driver’s check.

No — both parties agree not to. All compensation for engagement work is paid exclusively through the platform. That’s what makes escrow, the evidence record, and Home Fleet Protection mean anything.

Section 4.5.

Amounts the carrier pays the ISP — detention, layover, other accessorials — are the ISP’s revenue and are independent of the driver compensation defined in the engagement agreement. Holdover Pay is a separate, posted obligation that runs to the driver.

Sections 5.1 and 5.4.

We’re in limited beta in the United States, open to ISPs and drivers contracted within a single expedited carrier’s network. If you’re already qualified in that network, download the app and set up your profile.

There’s a route in. The Qualification Pathway takes you from application to qualified driver through an active contracted fleet, so that seats are open to you when you come out the other side.

Start the qualification process.

Submit a contractor consideration request and we’ll refer you to the right people to start that conversation. It costs you nothing. The carrier makes every contracting decision, not us.

Request contractor consideration.

Five days minimum. From there it’s whatever the ISP posts and the driver accepts — a week, two weeks, longer. Terms can be extended by mutual agreement recorded on the platform, funded through the same escrow process, and documented by an amendment with fresh acknowledgments from everyone.

Sections 3.2 and 3.3.

Email support@shiftseat.ai. A real person reads it. Press and media enquiries go to press@shiftseat.ai.