Truck cost per mile calculator

How cost per mile is worked out

Cost per mile is everything the truck costs in a period divided by every mile it drove in that period:

• Fixed costs don't change with the miles: truck and trailer payments, insurance, plates and permits, ELD and phone. Spread over more miles, each mile carries less of them. That's why a truck that sits costs so much.
• Running costs go up with every mile: fuel, maintenance and tires, tolls, and driver pay if it's per mile. Fuel per mile is simply the diesel price divided by your miles per gallon.
• All miles means loaded and empty. The truck burns fuel and wears tires either way.

Break-even: why the rate has to beat your cost

Brokers pay for loaded miles, but you pay for all of them. If 12% of your miles are empty, every loaded mile has to earn enough to cover itself and a share of the empty ones. So your break-even per loaded mile is your cost per mile divided by the share of miles that are loaded.

With a cost of $1.95 a mile and 12% empty, you need about $2.22 on every loaded mile just to stand still. Anything under that and the load costs you money, even if the number on the rate con looks good.

Rate per mile: what a load really pays

A load's rate per mile is what it pays divided by its miles. Brokers quote it per loaded mile: $2,400 for 900 loaded miles is $2.67 a mile. But the truck also drives the deadhead to get there, and those miles cost the same. Divide by all of them and the same load pays $2.45 a mile all-in with 80 empty miles to reach it.

Hold the all-in number against your cost per mile, or the break-even per loaded mile above. Put a load into Check a load and the calculator shows both.

Driver pay per mile

The driver pay box takes cents per mile, because that is how most company drivers are paid. If you pay another way, turn it into a per-mile figure first:

• Percentage of the load. Multiply the percentage by the load's rate per loaded mile. A driver on 28% of a load paying $2.67 a mile earns about $0.75 a loaded mile.
• By the hour. Divide the hourly rate by the miles an hour the truck averages over a whole day, stops included. $25 an hour at 45 miles an hour is about $0.56 a mile.
• Driving it yourself. Put in what you mean to pay yourself. Leave it at zero and the truck looks profitable while you work for nothing.

Using it on a load

Put a load's rate, loaded miles and the deadhead to get to it into Check a load. The calculator works out what those miles cost at your cost per mile, and what's left. Do it before you call the broker back, and you'll know the lowest rate you can take.

Common questions