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Trucking cost per mile calculator

Work out what your truck actually costs to run, what every loaded mile has to earn, and whether a rate is worth taking. No email required.

Owner-operatorsSmall fleetsNo sign-up

Miles and fuel

Fixed costs each month

What you pay whether the truck turns a wheel or not.

Total fixed$4,150/mo

Variable costs per mile

Fuel is calculated from your mpg and diesel price above.

Fuel, calculated$0.60/mi
Your numbers
Cost per loaded mile$1.37What every loaded mile has to earn before you make anything.
Cost per mile driven$1.25Across all 11,000 miles including deadhead.
Break-even rate$1.37/miBelow this you are paying to haul the load.
Total monthly cost$13,720$4,150 fixed + $9,570 variable
Monthly profit before tax$11,280On $25,000 of revenue.

Nothing is sent anywhere. The figures stay in your browser, and the defaults are a generic starting point — replace every one of them with your own.

Why cost per mile is the only number that matters

Almost every argument about whether a rate is any good comes down to a figure most owner-operators have never worked out properly. Without it, "two dollars a mile" is just a number — it might be excellent on a short regional run with no deadhead and a disaster on a long one with an empty return.

The calculation people usually get wrong is deadhead. Costs are incurred on every mile the truck turns, but only loaded miles earn. If you run ten per cent empty, the cost of those empty miles has to be carried by the loaded ones — so your real break-even rate is higher than a naive sum suggests. The calculator above does that properly.

The second thing people miss is that fixed costs do not care how many miles you run. A truck payment, insurance and permits are the same in a 6,000-mile month as a 12,000-mile one, which means your cost per mile roughly halves as utilisation rises. That is the strongest argument for keeping the truck moving, and it is also why a week sitting still is more expensive than it feels.

How to use the figure once you have it

  • Treat your break-even rate as the floor, not the target. A load at break-even pays you nothing for your time.
  • Add the margin you actually want on top, then compare every offered rate against that, not against the last load you ran.
  • Recalculate when diesel moves. Fuel is usually the largest single variable cost and it can swing your break-even by twenty cents a mile.
  • Work it out again after any major repair or a new truck payment. Fixed costs change more often than people expect.
  • Remember that the rate on the rate confirmation is not what you keep — fuel, tolls, lumpers and your dispatch fee all come out of it.
FAQ

Questions about cost per mile

There is no single right answer, because it depends on your truck payment, your insurance, your fuel economy and how many miles you run. What matters is knowing YOUR number rather than an industry average — two operators running identical trucks can be twenty or thirty cents apart on cost per mile purely on utilisation and financing.

Know your number, then hold out for it

A dispatcher who knows your cost per mile can argue for the rate you actually need. Tell us about your truck.