McLeod LoadMaster and PowerBroker
| Vendor | McLeod Software |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Birmingham, Alabama, USA |
| Ownership | Privately held, founder-led (Tom McLeod, founded 1985) |
| Deployment | On-premises or McLeod-hosted cloud |
| Target market | US truckload and LTL carriers, freight brokers, and 3PLs, midsize to enterprise |
| Industries | Trucking, freight brokerage, logistics |
| Pricing | Not published; quoted by fleet size, modules, and deployment model |
| Website | mcleodsoftware.com |
Overview
McLeod Software has served the US trucking industry from Birmingham, Alabama since 1985. LoadMaster, its product for asset-based carriers, runs dispatch and operations; PowerBroker handles freight brokerage. Both sit on one platform with integrated accounting and financial management, which is the basis for McLeod's claim to be an enterprise management system for transportation companies rather than a plain TMS.
Where LoadMaster and PowerBroker come from
Tom McLeod founded the company in 1985 and remains president and CEO. It is privately held, reports more than 500 employees, and showed no acquisition or ownership change in our research through mid-2026. Some growth came by acquisition, notably EIS for less-than-truckload operations, which became McLeod LTL. Recent development effort has gone into a reworked user interface and embedded AI features, plus a partnership with Aurora Innovation to dispatch autonomous trucks from the TMS. Version 26.1, announced in February 2026, keeps the established release cadence going.
Core functionality
LoadMaster covers order entry, dispatch, driver and equipment management, fuel tax reporting, driver settlements, billing, and a complete back office with general ledger, payables, and receivables. PowerBroker layers brokerage workflows on top: carrier qualification, load matching, margin management, carrier payments. Both share EDI connectivity to shippers, document imaging, business intelligence, market rate data integrations, and safety and compliance tools. Against operations-only TMS products, the integrated accounting layer is the real distinction.
Typical customers
US truckload carriers, LTL carriers, freight brokers, and third-party logistics companies, centered on midsize and large fleets and on mixed operations running assets and a brokerage side by side. The product set is welded to US conventions such as IFTA fuel tax reporting and American carrier compliance, so relevance outside North America stays limited.
Deployment and pricing
Both products install on customer servers or run in a McLeod-hosted cloud environment; many larger carriers started on-premises and have been drifting toward hosting. Prices are unpublished, quoted on fleet size, users, modules, and deployment model. Larger carriers should expect real data migration plus integration work with fuel cards, electronic logging devices, payroll, and shipper EDI, scoped early rather than discovered mid-project.
Editorial verdict
Call it a transportation management system with an ERP-grade back office, because that is what it is. For a midsize or large US fleet, a serious brokerage, or a mixed operation, LoadMaster or PowerBroker can be the system of record, financials included; only corporate consolidation for a diversified group would live elsewhere. Small fleets should start their software selection with lighter cloud TMS options, since McLeod's depth arrives with pricing and implementation effort to match.
What the McLeod LoadMaster and PowerBroker website looks like
Current view of the vendor homepage, captured by our editorial team.
