What is the Amazon Relay load board and how does it work?
Guides & Tips
What is the Amazon Relay load board and how does it work?
Guides & Tips
Amazon Relay is Amazon's freight program for contracted carriers. The Relay load board is the website where those carriers find and book Amazon freight: each load shows the route, the pickup and delivery schedule, and the payout. You book a load by claiming it before another carrier does, and on busy lanes that can come down to seconds.
How does Amazon Relay work for carriers?
Amazon moves a huge amount of its own freight between fulfillment centers, delivery stations, and other facilities, and it contracts outside trucking companies to haul it. Carriers sign up with Amazon, get approved, and log in to the Relay portal. From there you search the load board by origin and date, the results list the available loads, and you book the ones that fit your truck and your week. Amazon is the shipper on its own freight, so you run the load and Amazon pays you.
About carrier requirements: Amazon decides who qualifies to haul Relay freight, and the requirements change over time. Skip the third-party summaries and check the official Amazon Relay site (relay.amazon.com) for the current terms before you apply.
What does each load on the board show?
A load listing gives you the basics you need to make a decision in a few seconds:
- Route: origin, destination, and the number of stops along the way
- Schedule: pickup and delivery times, which tell you how much lead time you have before the truck needs to roll
- Payout: what Amazon pays for the run
- Trip type: one-way loads, or round trips that bring you back to where you started
Payouts can change while a load sits on the board. Amazon adjusts prices over time, and the number can move up or down, so the payout you saw an hour ago may not be the payout now.
Why does the load board move so fast?
A load leaves the board the moment another carrier books it. Plenty of carriers watch the same lanes, and a good payout on a popular route can get taken within seconds of appearing. If you have clicked a load and hit an error because it was already gone, you have seen this firsthand.
The board also does not push new loads to your screen. You see fresh results when your search runs again, so drivers end up refreshing the page over and over during booking hours. We cover this in detail in why do Amazon Relay loads disappear so fast.
Which countries does Amazon Relay operate in?
Relay runs in multiple countries, each with its own portal: the United States (relay.amazon.com), Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, India, Japan, and Spain. The board works the same way in each region, and good loads get grabbed fast in all of them.
How do drivers keep up with the board?
Learning to read the board takes a few minutes. The hard part is keeping it fresh for hours and reacting before other carriers do. That is the part Relay Autobooker Cardamon automates. The free Smart Refresher re-runs your search with human-like random timing, so new loads appear without you tapping refresh all shift. Premium adds automatic booking: you set filters for payout, stops, and lead time, and the Chrome extension books matching loads for you, with booking strategies from roughly 1000ms per action on Regular down to 100-150ms on Super Fast. It works across all 9 Relay regions listed above.
Premium costs $49.99/month or $499/year, with a 7-day free trial and the option to cancel anytime. If faster booking gets you one extra load a month, the subscription has paid for itself. The full feature list is on the Relay Autobooker product page.
Need Help?
Contact our support team at support@cardamon.org