# How often to post and refresh loads on DAT and Truckstop > Post a load as soon as it's complete and someone can answer the phone, and pull it within minutes of booking. On DAT, a shipment can be refreshed every 15 minutes, and website and API postings expire at midnight on the last availability date, eight days at most. Refresh an open load when it's aging, after you change it, and at the start of the day for freight carried over. SmartLoads posts new loads to Truckstop by API during board hours, removes booked and covered loads every 10 minutes, takes postings down after hours and reposts carried-over loads the next morning. It doesn't repost on a timer. Source: https://smartloads.io/blog/load-board-posting-cadence-dat-truckstop ยท Updated 2026-10-07 A load board posting has a short, useful life. Posted too late, the trucks have found other freight. Left up too long, it draws calls for a load that's already covered. Refreshed on a blind timer, it adds noise without adding coverage. This guide covers the three moments that matter, post, refresh and pull, with the rules DAT publishes and what SmartLoads does automatically. ## When to post Post a load as soon as two things are true. **The load is complete.** It has a real city and state at both ends, the board's equipment code, a pickup date, a weight and, if the customer allows it, a rate. A posting with a misspelled city either gets rejected or reaches the wrong trucks. Fix the data first ([how loads get clean](/blog/shipper-load-emails-to-load-board)). **Someone can answer the phone.** Every posting makes carriers call. At peak, broker desks miss about half of those calls ([the numbers](/blog/missed-carrier-calls-ai-voice-agents)). A posting that goes up before the desk opens only works if something answers in the meantime. SmartLoads posts new loads to Truckstop through its API right after they're imported, but only inside the agency's board hours. Loads that arrive overnight post when the board opens in the morning. Loads with a city that can't be resolved, or a margin below the agency's threshold, are held for a person to review first. ## When to refresh A refresh resets a posting's age without changing anything else, so it looks new again in carriers' searches. DAT's rules are specific: - A shipment can be [refreshed every 15 minutes](https://one.support.dat.com/3-my-shipments-878c4a23/refresh-a-shipment-b65aaf77). Click early and DAT offers "Queue to Refresh", which runs when the 15 minutes are up. Several shipments can be refreshed at once. - Carriers can [filter searches by posting age](https://one.support.dat.com/6-search-loads-4ef778b5/search-how-to-search-for-loads-94d3de02/), for example only loads posted in the last two hours. An old posting can drop out of their results entirely. - DAT's help for truck postings makes the same point from the other side: a posting left unchanged [looks older and less likely to still be available](https://one.support.dat.com/9-my-trucks-127a4eb6/refresh-a-truck-posting-075eb707). So refresh with a reason: 1. **An open load that's aging** with few calls, especially a hard one. 2. **After a change.** A new rate, date or note deserves a fresh place at the top. 3. **Each morning,** for loads carried over from yesterday. Refreshing every load on a timer makes your list look busy without making any one load easier to cover. Booked and covered loads should never be refreshed. They should be gone. Truckstop's [load management API](https://developer.truckstop.com/reference/load-management-1) supports posting, updating, refreshing, boosting and deleting a load. SmartLoads doesn't refresh Truckstop postings on a timer. It updates a posting when a broker edits the load or uses "Update on Truckstop". ## When to pull Pull a load the moment it's booked. Every minute it stays up after that is a carrier calling about freight that's gone, and a little trust lost. Don't count on expiry to clean up. On DAT, postings made on the website or through the REST API [expire at midnight on the latest availability date](https://one.support.dat.com/9-troubleshooting-2734b01a/when-do-postings-expire-53344a4e), eight days at most. Postings sent by the older SOAP or FTP methods expire at midnight on the day they're posted. You can [extend a shipment's availability](https://one.support.dat.com/3-my-shipments-878c4a23/extend-the-life-of-your-shipment-posting-fb392ee7) by up to seven more days. SmartLoads pulls Truckstop postings for you: - **Booked, covered or archived loads** come down within 10 minutes, from a sweep that runs all day. - **Loads dropped from a re-sent shipper sheet** come down when the new sheet is imported. - **At the end of the day,** postings come down within an hour of the board closing. Loads still open are marked to repost the next morning. - **If the board is paused,** its postings come down. For scale: at one agency, SmartLoads sent 17,769 distinct load postings to Truckstop through the API between July 23 and September 26, 2026. ## DAT by file: the same rhythm by hand DAT API access for SmartLoads is still pending, so DAT gets a file. DAT accepts [a CSV upload that posts many shipments at once](https://one.support.dat.com/3-my-shipments-878c4a23/bulk-upload-list-of-fields-and-possible-values-1077aaac). SmartLoads builds it from the board in two modes: - **Not sent yet:** only loads DAT hasn't received. Use it through the day as new loads arrive. - **Everything on the board:** every sendable load. Use it for a morning refresh of carried-over freight. The "sent" stamp is shared across the agency, so two brokers don't upload the same loads. Loads held for review or missing information stay out of the file and are counted separately, so nothing disappears quietly. Booked loads still have to be removed on DAT by hand. ## What goes in the posting A posting earns calls when the carrier can decide from the posting alone. In SmartLoads, the Truckstop note is built the same way every time: - Commodity and weight. - The pickup note, if any. - The customer's routing phone number, which reaches a super intelligence (SI) phone agent for that customer's freight when the brokers are busy. The phone agents are in beta. - A tarp line, when a tarp is needed. - The special instructions, cleaned of dollar amounts, email addresses, reference numbers and extra phone numbers. A rate appears only when the customer's profile allows rates on load boards, and only for flat-rate loads. Per-ton loads never post a rate. ## A daily cadence | When | Post | Refresh | Pull | |---|---|---|---| | Board opens | Overnight arrivals | Carried-over open loads | Anything booked overnight | | Through the day | New loads as they arrive | Aging loads and changed loads | Booked loads within minutes | | Board closes | Nothing new | Nothing | Everything still posted | For the market side of each load, see [Truckstop Rate Insights](/blog/truckstop-rate-insights-for-brokers). For how the automatic posting is set up, see [posting to DAT and Truckstop](/blog/post-loads-dat-truckstop-automatically), or [see it on your own board](/). ## Frequently asked questions ### How often can I refresh a load on DAT? Every 15 minutes. If you click sooner, DAT offers to queue the refresh and runs it when the 15 minutes are up. ### When do DAT load postings expire? Postings made on DAT's website or REST API expire at midnight on the latest availability date, eight days at most. Postings sent by the older SOAP or FTP methods expire at midnight on the day they were posted. ### Does SmartLoads refresh postings automatically? It doesn't refresh on a timer. It posts new loads to Truckstop during board hours, updates a posting when the load is edited, pulls booked and covered loads within 10 minutes, and reposts carried-over loads the next morning. ### Should loads stay posted overnight? Only if someone answers the calls they bring. SmartLoads takes Truckstop postings down within an hour after the board closes and reposts the loads still open when it opens again.