Feed stores charge small barns the highest prices in the market. A Pool flips that. Your barn and your neighbors split a full flatbed straight from the grower, freight shared by weight, and every dollar visible on an open ledger. The truck only rolls when it reaches its shipping minimum or the grower chooses to ship it short, and if neither happens, you are never charged.
Pick a pool, choose your bundles, and join a delivery stop near you. You authorize a maximum and will pay that number or less.
Watch the flatbed load as neighbors join. Every new share lowers everyone's freight split. At the shipping minimum the truck can roll; full is better for everyone.
The truck runs its route and unloads at each stop that qualifies: your barn when your order is big enough for its own stop, or a neighbor's stop you share, where you collect your bales from their yard. Either way they are traced back to the lot they came from, spec sheet included.
A share of one full flatbed load of hay, straight from the grower. Shares come in bundles, and one bundle is roughly two horse-months of hay. Buy one bundle or enough to fill a whole delivery stop.
Never while the pool is filling. When you join, you authorize a worst-case maximum. This is a payment authorization, not an escrow: nobody holds your money while the pool fills. If the truck ships and the load is confirmed, by the grower or AgBid, you are charged once, your final number, which is always your maximum or less. Every neighbor who joins after you lowers your freight split, so the number usually falls.
Every pool shows the number of bundles it must reach to ship. AgBid sets it from the numbers on that load: it is the smallest count at which the hay, the whole freight bill, and AgBid's fee, spread over only the bales actually aboard, land under $16.00 a bale delivered. A short lane with cheap hay can ship emptier; a long lane needs more of the truck. That same number is a promise to you: hay, your freight share and AgBid's fee together never cost more than $16.00 a bale delivered, whatever the truck settles at, and stacking you ask for sits on top. The pool still fills toward a full truck, because every bundle that joins lowers everyone's freight. Cutoff is four days before departure, and it is the last moment a pool takes a commitment: after it the grower books the carrier against the weight already in. If the minimum is met by cutoff, counting the stops that qualify, the truck can ship with what is aboard. Before the cutoff the grower can also choose to ship short, as long as one stop holds at least 30 percent of the truck: the grower then pays the missing freight, the truck's fixed freight is still split as if it were at the minimum, and you never pay more than your authorized maximum. If neither happens by the cutoff, the pool closes, everyone's authorization is released, and nobody pays a cent.
There is no minimum purchase: buy a single bundle by joining a stop. The floor is on the delivery stop, not on you. By the ton, a stop qualifies for the route at one quarter of the load, one floor per barn on a four-barn truck, and it can get there one of two ways: one barn takes it all, or neighbors share the stop until it adds up. Every listing shows that floor three ways together, bales, pounds, and dollars, because bale weight varies by grower and a count alone would mean a different amount of hay from one farm to the next.
One truck, one published freight quote, split across everyone on it by weight. The carrier is paid the published quote, AgBid's fee is charged on your hay and freight share together, and every line item sits on an open ledger you can read.
14% standard fee. Volume pricing as low as 12%. AgBid adds 14 percent on the hay and your freight share together, shown on the ledger like everything else. The rate steps down by how much of the truck you take, and the schedule is published: Standard rate: 14% 路 10% truck-share rate: 13.5% 路 Quarter-truck rate: 13% 路 Half-truck rate: 12%. The ledger prints whichever rate you earned. The grower is paid the full price of their hay with nothing deducted. Two products, two prices. In the marketplace, you do the choosing: you post what you need, compare the bids that come in, and pick your own supplier. We charge 3 percent on the feed only for running that marketplace. In a Pool, we do the work: we find the grower, check the hay, book the truck, plan the route, and split the freight by weight. We charge 14 percent on the hay and your freight share together, stepping down on a published schedule the more of the truck you take. Either way the fee is its own labeled ledger line, and the seller is never charged a thing.
To your barn when your order is big enough for a delivery stop of its own. The truck makes up to four stops, and a stop qualifies for the route at a quarter of the load (see the minimum order above); the truck unloads those bales at your own address. A smaller order rides once its stop reaches that floor: start a stop at your barn and let neighbors fill it with you, or join a neighbor's stop and collect your bales from their yard. A stop still under the floor when the load is confirmed is left off the truck: everyone on it is released and nobody on it is charged. A barn that hosts approves each neighbor before anyone sees the address.
Only if you chose to. Then the truck delivers to the barn hosting that stop and you have 72 hours to collect your bales from their yard. You get the address, the pickup window, and a reminder by email. A host is a neighbor keeping your hay dry, not a warehouse.
You get 1 hour to fix it from My Pools, with a countdown and a Fix payment button. If it is not fixed in time your share is released so the rest of the pool keeps moving, and you are not charged.
We are launching in Florida. Each pool serves a claim zone, a radius around the delivery area, and inviting friends inside that radius is the fastest way to fill a truck and lower everyone's freight.