Know Your Real Cost Per Mile. Then Book Loads That Beat It.
Fixed costs, fuel, deadhead, dispatch fee — one honest number for what a mile actually costs you, and the rate you need to quote to make money. Live results as you type.
- No signup
- Runs in your browser
- Owner-op & small fleet math
/ Your Numbers — Live /
Breakeven linehaul rate
$2.50/loaded mi
After dispatch fee and fuel surcharge. Below this, the load loses money.
Rate to hit your 15% target
$2.87/loaded mi
Test a rate you were offered — it lands on the line above.
- All-in cost / loaded mile
- $2.37
- Total miles / week (341 empty)
- 2,841
- Fixed cost / week
- $1,108
- Fuel cost / week
- $2,298
- Variable & driver / week
- $2,528
- Total weekly operating cost
- $5,934
- Weekly gross at target
- $7,183
No black box — four steps, all visible
- 01
Fixed costs become a weekly floor
Truck note, insurance, permits — they bill monthly and don't care if you drove. We convert them to a true weekly figure (× 12 ÷ 52, because a month is 4.33 weeks, not 4) that your miles must cover before anything else.
weekly floor = monthly × 12 ÷ 52 - 02
Deadhead inflates every mile
You buy fuel for all miles but invoice only the loaded ones. Your loaded miles are grossed up by the deadhead percentage, so empty miles get priced into the rate instead of quietly eating your margin.
total mi = loaded ÷ (1 − deadhead%) - 03
Fuel and wear ride along
Total miles ÷ MPG × pump price is the weekly fuel bill; maintenance, tires, tolls, and driver pay are metered per mile on top. Reserves count even when the repair hasn't happened yet — that's what a reserve is.
fuel = total ÷ mpg × $/gal - 04
Spread over paid miles, then price it
Everything lands on loaded miles only — that's your all-in cost per mile. Fuel surcharge offsets cost, the dispatch fee comes off linehaul, and your target margin sits on top. The result is the rate to quote, not just survive.
rate = (cost − fsc) ÷ loaded ÷ (1 − fee%)
Planning estimates, not accounting. Rates, costs, and surcharges vary by lane and season — your rate confirmations and P&L are the source of truth.
This is the pagewe run your lanes on.
We track what you were paid against your full cost stack, week by week. Below is a sample lane — your version runs on your settlements and your costs.
Margin response
Rate / mi
$3.04
Cost / mi
$2.22
Margin / mi
+$0.82
Loss weeks
4 · pre-dispatch
Red ticks · weeks the lane ran below cost
Run this on my lanes →Cost per mile,answered straight
Cost per mile (CPM) is everything it costs to operate your truck — payments, insurance, fuel, maintenance, driver pay — divided by the miles that earn revenue. It matters because every rate negotiation starts here: if you don't know your number, every load is a guess, and brokers negotiate against guessers for a living.
Because loaded miles are the only ones anyone pays you for. If you run 2,840 total miles to invoice 2,500 loaded ones, those 340 empty miles still burned fuel and tires — so their cost has to live inside the rate you charge on the loaded ones. Spreading over total miles makes your costs look lower than they are, which is exactly how people book profitable-looking loads that lose money.
Fixed costs bill whether the truck moves or not: truck and trailer payments, insurance, plates, permits, ELD subscriptions, parking. Variable costs scale with miles: fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls, driver pay. The reason the split matters — sitting still doesn't make fixed costs go away, it just concentrates them on fewer miles.
If your freight pays a separate fuel surcharge (common on contract lanes), enter the average per loaded mile and the calculator treats it as an offset against cost — professional practice, since FSC exists to cover fuel, not to be profit. Most spot-market loads are all-in rates with no separate FSC; leave it at zero and compare the all-in rate against your breakeven.
No — breakeven is your floor, not your price. At breakeven you covered costs and earned nothing for the risk, the hours, or the next repair. Quote from the target-margin rate and treat the gap between the two as your negotiating room. Taking below breakeven is sometimes strategic (repositioning to a hot market), but it should be a decision, not a surprise.
As a percentage of linehaul only — the industry standard. It never applies to the fuel surcharge, and a fee worth paying should return more than it costs through better rates and less deadhead. That trade is exactly what a free rate analysis puts numbers on.
Pay yourself like a driver. Put the per-mile wage you'd have to pay someone else to do your job — if you'd hire at $0.60/mi, that's your number. Leaving it at zero means your paycheck and your profit are the same pool of money, and the business looks healthier than it is right up until you need a new truck.
Nowhere. The calculator runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is stored, sent, or tied to you, and there's no signup gate. If you want a second set of eyes on your lanes afterward, the free rate analysis is a separate, deliberate step.
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