FMCSA's carrier census lists 5,254 active carriers based in the Philadelphia area — 4,720 with one to nine trucks, 416 operators running 10 to 49, and 109 with 50 or more — roughly 38,714 power units between them. 1 Every one of them is hiring the same drivers you are.
We're a truck driver recruiting agency, not a lead reseller and not a staffing firm. Our recruiters talk to every driver by phone, screen them against your requirements, and submit ready-to-hire packets. You pay per placed driver — half when the driver starts, half after the first 14 days — and nothing up front. That is the whole model, and it is the same in Philadelphia as it is in Chicago, where we started.
If your recruiting partner gets paid before a driver ever starts, you didn't buy recruiting. You bought a contact list.
What recruiting in Philadelphia actually looks like
Philadelphia's serious for-hire fleets are not in Philadelphia. They are in lower Bucks County — Bensalem, Langhorne, Bristol, Morrisville — along the I-95 and US-1 spine, with a second cluster out the Turnpike toward King of Prussia and a port and refinery belt down in Chester and Essington. The freight is Northeast regional: New York, New Jersey, Baltimore and back, on roads where the miles are slow and the pay has to be by the hour or the day to make sense.
Drivers here know the tolls, the bridges and the customer docks, and they price that knowledge in. A carrier moving into this market from the Midwest is usually surprised by the pay it takes, and the ones who state it plainly are the ones who fill.
The lanes: I-95 · I-76 · I-476 · US-1 · PA Turnpike (I-276) · Port of Philadelphia.
Philadelphia drivers price in what they know: the tolls, the bridges, the customer docks, the traffic on 95 at four in the afternoon. A mileage-pay offer that works in Ohio does not translate here, and a carrier moving into the market from the Midwest usually needs a conversation about hourly or daily pay before recruiting can start. Once the pay structure is right, the market is workable — the Bucks County and King of Prussia clusters have a steady supply of drivers who want regional Northeast runs and are tired of the one they have.
We screen on tolerance for the region's realities as much as on the CDL, and we say plainly in the submission what the carrier's lanes actually look like.
Where the 10-plus-truck fleets sit, by ZIP: 19116 (77), 19115 (51), 19020 (31), 18974 (26), 19154 (24).
What drivers in Philadelphia are paid
BLS puts the median annual wage for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro area at $59,370, with a mean of $62,060 (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025).
Two caveats before you build an offer on it. The figure blends local hourly seats with OTR mileage pay, so it is neither; and it lags the market by up to a year. Treat it as the floor a driver already knows, not the number that makes them switch. The carriers that fill seats here publish the actual pay — by the mile, the hour or the day — and the actual home time. We wrote up the posting mistakes that cost carriers applications if you want the checklist.
- $59,370
- median annual wage, Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington metro
- $62,060
- mean annual wage, May 2025 (BLS OEWS 53-3032)
How pay-per-driver works for a Philadelphia carrier
- 01
Intake call
We map your lanes, equipment, pay, home time and hiring requirements for Philadelphia. If we can't guarantee you enough driver volume, we say so on this call — not three invoices later.
- 02
Screening and interviews by our recruiters
Our recruiters interview every driver by phone and verify CDL, endorsements, experience and work history against your requirements. No raw lists ever reach your desk.
- 03
Submission packets through Onboard
Qualified drivers go to you as complete submission packets through Onboard, our in-house platform. The packet lands in your inbox and you decide from there — no portal to learn. The pipeline is tracked through drug test to hire.
- 04
Placement, arrival and follow-through
You pay per placed driver — half when the driver starts, half after the first 14 days — and we stay involved through arrival and the early weeks. Recruiting for Philadelphia runs from our Mundelein, IL office, 770 miles away.
We don't need a desk in Philadelphia to place drivers in Philadelphia — and we won't put a virtual-office pin on a map to pretend we have one.
The model in full is on Pay Per Driver. The team behind it works from our Mundelein, IL office. Why the first 48 hours decide most hires: speed to hire.
Who this fits in Philadelphia — and who it doesn't
Fleets of 10 to 49 trucks are our core. The census counts 416 operators of that size in the Philadelphia area: big enough to have open seats every month, too small to carry a recruiting department. Pay-per-driver gives them one without the payroll.
Fleets of 50 or more — 109 here — use us two ways: as overflow when their own recruiters are behind, or as the whole department for a terminal or a lane they can't staff from headquarters. Either way the fee is the same and the retention terms are the same.
Who we turn down: private fleets that only hire through their own HR, and surge hiring that needs bodies by Monday and none by June. We won't sign a carrier we can't keep supplied, and we won't place a driver into a seat we expect to disappear. If you want to know how we think about drivers who stay, start with finding CDL drivers who stay. Selling to trucking companies rather than hiring drivers? That's a different service — Marketing for Trucking.
Our numbers
No third party audited these. They're our own operating numbers — the claims we make publicly about our own shop, and the standard you should hold us to on a call.
- 100+
- drivers our operation places per month
- 3,000+
- lifetime CDL hires
- 50+
- carrier partners
- 24 hrs
- to first drivers for a new carrier
“They came in, fixed our recruiting, and now manage the whole operation with AI. We just do a 30-min call weekly — they handle the rest.”
More carrier feedback, in the carriers' own words: results.
Questions Philadelphia carriers ask us
Ask any agency the same questions. Then compare who does the work and when the money changes hands — staffing and recruiting are not the same purchase.
How much does a truck driver recruiting agency cost in Philadelphia?
We charge per placed driver — no retainer, no weekly fee. The placement fee is quoted per engagement (it depends on your lanes, pay and equipment) and paid half when the driver starts and half after the driver's first 14 days, so part of our fee is only due once the driver has stayed. There is no Philadelphia-specific price list.
How many trucking companies are based in Philadelphia?
FMCSA's carrier census lists 5,254 active carriers with a business address in the Philadelphia area (Philadelphia, Bensalem, Langhorne, Bristol and nearby): 4,720 with one to nine trucks, 416 operators with 10 to 49, and 109 with 50 or more, roughly 38,714 power units in all. Fleet sizes are self-reported on the MCS-150, so read it as a scale, not a headcount.
What do truck drivers make in Philadelphia?
BLS puts the median annual wage for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro area at $59,370, with a mean of $62,060 (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025). That blends local hourly seats with OTR mileage pay and lags the market by up to a year — treat it as the floor a driver already knows, not the offer that makes them switch.
Do you have an office in Philadelphia?
No. Our nearest office is Mundelein, IL, about 770 miles away. We don't need a desk in Philadelphia to place drivers in Philadelphia — recruiting is phone, text and paperwork — and we won't put a virtual-office pin on a map to pretend otherwise.
How fast can you get drivers for a Philadelphia carrier?
Our claim, from our own operation: first drivers in 24 hours for a carrier whose intake is complete. Full ramp-up depends on your pay, lanes, home time, and how quickly your side reviews and approves submissions — the carriers that reply the same day fill seats first.
Do you recruit hazmat and tanker-endorsed drivers in Philadelphia?
Yes. Tanker and hazmat lanes around Philadelphia pay above the local median and draw from a smaller pool, so we screen for the endorsement up front and confirm it against the CDL before a submission goes out. Expect a slower fill than dry van — the drivers exist, but they are already working.
Drivers in Philadelphia: browse current CDL-A jobs or get matched to a carrier — free for drivers.
1 FMCSA Company Census (2026-09-26): active carriers based in Philadelphia, Bensalem, Langhorne, Bristol, Levittown, Morrisville, Croydon, Conshohocken, King of Prussia, Norristown, Chester, Essington, Folcroft, Warminster, Hatfield, Souderton, Pottstown, Exton; MCS-150 filed in the last 24 months; 1–20,000 trucks; fewer than 10 buses. 10+ truck counts merge registrations sharing an address or D-U-N-S number. Totals and the 1–9 band count active USDOT registrations; fleet sizes are self-reported on the MCS-150, so read them as a scale, not a headcount.
Wages: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OEWS May 2025, occupation 53-3032, series OEUM003798000000053303213 (median) and OEUM003798000000053303204 (mean).
Written by
Andrius Pletniovas — Founder, CDL Agency
Andrius Pletniovas (Andrius Digital) is the founder of CDL Agency, a truck-driver recruiting and marketing company that has placed 3,000+ CDL drivers for 50+ carriers across the U.S. He writes about driver recruiting, retention, and the trucking market from running the agency every day.
More about Andrius →Official personal website →