A contractor looking for an aggregate supplier usually isn't asking what you sell. From pit to pit, the product lists tend to look alike. They're asking whether you deliver to their job site, and what a ton costs once it gets there. For a product this heavy, the haul is part of the price, so those two answers belong at the front of the site: how far each pit or yard delivers, as a distance or drive time with the towns written out, and how a delivered price is built. The product list matters too. It's just the second thing they check.
What price does a contractor compare?
The delivered price. A cheaper ton from a pit farther out can cost more by the time it reaches the job.
A contractor sending their own trucks needs your loading hours and pickup terms as much as a delivered buyer needs your area.
Ask an AI assistant how contractors choose a sand and gravel or aggregate supplier, and proximity or delivered cost comes up. It did in all six we tried, and two said hauling often costs more than the material.
How should an aggregate supplier show where it delivers?
Not one site in our sample stated a distance or drew a delivery area. The sample was seven US aggregate supplier sites, single-pit independents to multi-plant producers, each first confirmed as a real business. They came from AI answers, search results and DOT lists, so they're likely better documented than most. Four named towns, counties or a metro area, one of them only on a few plant pages. Two named a broad region, and the last said to contact them for details. We found the same gap on pallet supplier sites, and here it costs more, because the haul can rival the load's price.
A town list helps, but a job just outside those towns is still a guess. Better is a service area per pit or yard:
- A distance or drive time from each location, say a 30-mile normal delivery area, with farther hauls quoted.
- The counties and towns inside it as plain text, which search engines and AI tools can read.
- What happens past the edge: a haul charge, a longer lead time, or a referral to your other plant.
Multi-plant producers already list their locations. For delivered work, the missing half is how far each one goes. If a quarry ships by barge or rail to your yards, the area that matters is the yard the contractor buys from. If a pit only loads at the scale, say so, and say whether you can arrange trucking.
Do you have to publish prices?
No. Plenty of producers quote every job, and the haul moves with fuel. But how your price gets built doesn't change week to week.
No site in the sample published a price, per ton or delivered, and only two said anything about the basis: one quote form asked pit or delivered, and one site said pricing varied by location. A basis and a minimum load give a rival no number to undercut. So say it:
- Whether you quote a price at the pit plus a haul charge, a delivered price by zone, or both.
- The truck types you run or dispatch, owned or hired, such as tandems, tri-axles or end dumps, and the typical load on each.
- Your minimum load, and whether a short load carries a charge.
Then a contractor can tell before calling whether the order fits your minimums and trucks.
Can you keep a job supplied?
Running out of base stalls a paving crew, so the next question is whether you can keep the trucks coming. Five of the seven sites gave hours. One posted them on nearly every location page and another named which yards its hours cover, with starts as early as 6 am and Saturday hours at some yards. None said how many trucks they run, when the last load goes out, or whether those hours cover delivered loads or only the scale.
Post hours by location, then add whether delivered loads go out on your own trucks or hired haulers, a last-load time, and when the first delivered loads leave. A truck count is optional.
Where do specs and DOT approval go?
Next to each product, where the estimator is reading. Three of the seven named their products by size or spec designation, such as a state DOT gradation name. The rest mostly listed families like "limestone" or "crushed gravel in many sizes," which leaves the contractor matching names to specs by phone.
For public work, several state DOTs publish lists of approved aggregate sources, each with its own number. Illinois DOT's approved producer list, linked from its aggregate page, gives each source a producer number. Iowa DOT defines each source by an A-number. Indiana DOT lists certified aggregate producers by source code.
Outside their blogs, five of the seven sites mentioned DOT approval or specs in some form, and none showed a source number, though three appear by number on the Illinois or Indiana list. If your pit is on your state's list, put the number beside the products from that pit, say which uses it's approved for (Iowa, for one, approves sources for specific uses such as concrete aggregate), and link the DOT's current list, since the lists get reissued. On a DOT job it's the thing that rules a supplier in or out, so it shouldn't take a phone call to confirm.
What should the first question on the quote form be?
Pickup or delivered, and if delivered, where's the job? Most of the quote depends on the answer. Only two of the seven sites asked for the job site on a form, and both forms ran thirteen fields or more. The other five had a form with no job-site field, so someone usually has to ask where the job is before quoting.
A short form can lead with the job: pickup or delivered, the job-site address or ZIP if delivered, product, rough tons or loads, when it's needed, then a name and a phone number. It stays short on purpose, because long forms filter out the busiest buyers. Regulars will keep phoning dispatch. The form is for the estimator pricing a bid after your office closes.
One way to check: pick a job twenty miles past your nearest pit and see whether your site says if you deliver there, how the price is built and when the first load can leave.
