EVE New Citizens Q&A

Whatever you charge, cover your assets with collateral.

take a look at Red Frog Freight.
http://red-frog.org/jumps.php

And Push industries, I guess.

There's a couple ways to look at it.

For freighter-sized loads, just look at Red Frog and/or Push. They pretty much set the pricing for the industry. You can ship more valuable loads or pay less using open market contracts, but in either case your contract might not get picked up (or might not be delivered).

For smaller loads that you want to just put up as public contracts:

• Price your collateral appropriately. Always set the collateral value at or above replacement pricing. This isn't usually what you bought it for, Jita buy pricing, or even Jita sell pricing. It's how much ISK/headache it would cost you to replace it quickly at the point of destination. Or if you're transporting goods for sale, it's the price you plan on selling it at.
• Keep in mind that you're renting their capital. I find that a minimum contract reward of 0.5% of collateral means my contracts get shipped pretty quickly.
• Keep in mind the total collateral value. Anything > 200M which can be transported in an industrial (rather than a freigher) is potentially gankbait, and anything > 2B is just plain gankbait regardless. Smart haulers know this: dumb haulers don't (yet).
• Keep in mind where you're shipping to and from, how far it is, and whether the route goes through any chokes like Niarja. For industrial sized loads, a minimum of 100k/jump is reasonable. For freighter sized loads, see RF/Push.

So, for freighters, ~500k/jump is pretty much the going rate. For industrials, the maximum of (100k/jump) or (0.5% of collateral) seems to be pretty reasonable, as long as it's to/from/near a market hub.

You can also break up your hauling into multiple chunks, whether that be to allow for indy-sized loads, to spread the risk, or whatever. This usually ends up costing a bit extra, and there's no guarantee it won't end up all in someone's freighter hold anyway.

If you contract out, be certain that the collateral is more than your goods are worth. That will prevent your contractor from taking the money and then selling your goods. It's fair to ask double what your cargo is worth -- that way, any serious offers won't be scared off by collateral they can't deposit, and anyone trying to rip you off by stealing your shipment will lose money if they try and sell it.

Also, go with Red frog Freight or a similar transport company if you want to be sure you'll get your money's worth -- they're very reliable (I've used them on more than one occasion) and their website shows the status of your shipment.

Generally speaking, if a client requests that I make a delivery, I charge a nominal one-time fee) in addition to the purchase price of the goods to offset the time I might spend 'deadheading' (flying with an empty cargo hold) on the way back. This isn't a common practice, though, so you'll probably pay your hauler by a different method.

And since Red Frog does a flat fee per shipment, it would be in your best interest to gather 1 bil/ 860k m3 worth of stuff before giving them a call, that makes the cost per item shipped much lower. Depending on what you intend to ship and the isk to m3 ratio, you'll probably hit the limit one way or another, but it doesn't make sense to call them until you've hit one of the two caps.


For those of you who may think "Hey, why pay someone else to ship my stuff, I'll just train up and get my own freighter and ship for free!"

1. Look at the cost of a freighter + skill books to train for it
2. Look at the cost of calling Red Frog to ship your stuff for it.
3. Divide the freighter cost by the red frog cost to see how many red frog trips it would take to make owning and flying your own worth it.
4. Ask yourself "How many freighter loads will I need to self-ship to 'pay for' my freighter compared to hiring Red Frog.


This is all making the (bad) assumption that skill training time and self-shipping flight time are not factors.