Is a pre-pull cheaper than paying demurrage?

What a pre-pull does

When the container can’t be delivered before its last free day, because the warehouse is full, the delivery appointment is late or the consignee isn’t ready, the trucker can pull it out of the terminal early and park it at its own yard. That stops demurrage, which only runs inside the terminal. In return you pay for the extra move, a pre-pull fee; yard storage for each day it waits; and chassis days if it sits on a chassis. Then it is delivered as usual.

There is one more clock to watch. Once the container leaves the terminal, the carrier’s free days outside it start counting, and per diem runs until the empty is returned. A long wait in the yard can turn a demurrage bill into a per diem bill.

How to compare the two

Waiting at the terminal costs the daily demurrage rate for every day past the last free day. That rate is set in the carrier’s tariff or the terminal’s schedule, and it usually climbs in tiers the longer the container sits.

A pre-pull costs the pre-pull fee, plus yard storage for the days in the yard, plus any chassis days beyond those in the trucking rate, plus per diem if the yard days run past the free days outside the terminal.

Freight Benchmarks can anchor the second half. Across all published ports, the median pre-pull bill was $160 per shipment and 1 in 10 was over $400. When storage was charged, the median bill was $135; when chassis extra days were, $150. Those are totals per shipment, not daily rates, so use them to sanity-check a trucker’s numbers, not to replace them.

When the math tends to favor a pre-pull

The longer the delay, the more a pre-pull tends to win, because demurrage usually climbs in tiers while a yard charges a steady daily rate. It also helps when terminal appointments are scarce near the last free day, since the trucker can take the box when a slot opens. It helps least when the delay is short, when the carrier’s free days outside the terminal are few, or when the container needs special handling, such as an overweight chassis, that makes the extra move expensive. Whichever way you go, decide before the last free day: a pre-pull needs an appointment and yard space, and neither is guaranteed at the last minute.