Trucking Cost Per Mile Calculator
Cost per mile = (monthly fixed costs ÷ total miles) + variable cost per mile. Enter your real numbers below and get both figures that matter: what every mile costs you, and the rate per loaded mile you can actually quote a broker.
The short answer: your trucking cost per mile is your monthly fixed costs divided by the total miles you ran, plus your variable cost per mile. Run the calculator with the defaults on this page — $3,350 a month in fixed costs, $1.052 a mile in variable costs, 8,800 loaded and 1,200 empty miles — and it returns $1.387 per total mile before you pay yourself anything, which is $1.576 per loaded mile once 12% deadhead is accounted for. The loaded-mile figure is the one you quote. For scale, the American Transportation Research Institute put the industry-average marginal cost at $2.336 per mile in 2025 — a figure that includes $1.028 a mile of driver wages and benefits.
Why Every Owner-Operator Needs to Know Their Cost Per Mile
Cost per mile is the number that turns a rate offer into a yes or a no. Without it you are guessing on every load, and plenty of carriers haul freight that quietly costs them money because they never ran the math. It covers everything: fixed costs like the truck payment, insurance, permits and parking that arrive whether you run 5,000 or 12,000 miles a month, plus variable costs like fuel, maintenance, tires and tolls that scale with the odometer.
Two mistakes make most homemade CPM numbers useless. The first is leaving costs out — the annual plate fee, the tire that has not blown yet, the quarterly tax set-aside. The second is dividing by the wrong miles. Both are fixed below, and the calculator is built to make them hard to repeat. If you are still deciding whether ownership makes sense at all, start with our first-year owner-operator guide and our breakdown of why owner-operators fail.
Cost Per Mile Calculator
Fixed Costs (Monthly)
Costs you pay whether the truck moves or not. Divide any annual bill by 12 before entering it.
Leave at 0 if you pull a company trailer.
Liability, cargo, physical damage, bobtail, occ-acc, health.
IRP plates, UCR, Form 2290, ELD subscription, state permits ÷ 12.
What you pay yourself. Leave at 0 for a pure breakeven number.
Accounting, software, phone, quarterly tax set-aside.
Variable Costs
Costs that scale with every mile you turn, loaded or empty.
Include a reserve for the repair you have not had yet.
Scales, lodging, meals, washes, lumpers.
Monthly Miles & Profit Target
Loaded miles are the only miles a broker pays you for. Empty miles still cost you fuel and wear, so they belong in the cost base.
How to Calculate Cost Per Mile in Trucking, Step by Step
If you would rather do it on paper first, this is the same sequence the calculator runs.
- 1
Pick a timeframe and pull real numbers
Use one full month of bank statements, settlement statements and fuel receipts. Estimates from memory are the single biggest source of a wrong cost per mile.
- 2
Add up your fixed costs for that month
Truck and trailer payments, every insurance policy, permits and plates, parking, accounting and software. Divide any annual bill, such as an IRP plate fee or Form 2290, by 12 before you add it.
- 3
Work out your variable cost per mile
Fuel cost per mile equals your diesel price per gallon divided by your MPG. Add maintenance, tires, tolls and anything else that only happens when the wheels turn.
- 4
Count loaded miles and empty miles separately
Total miles, loaded plus deadhead, is the denominator for cost. Loaded miles alone is the denominator for revenue, because a broker only pays for the loaded portion.
- 5
Divide, then convert to a loaded-mile rate
Cost per total mile equals fixed costs divided by total miles, plus variable cost per mile. Divide that by one minus your deadhead percentage to get the breakeven rate per loaded mile you can quote.
Step two is easier if your books are already in order. Our trucking bookkeeping guide covers the account structure that makes this a five-minute job instead of a weekend.
Your Result vs the Industry: What ATRI Says a Truck Actually Costs
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) publishes the only widely cited benchmark of what it costs to run a Class 8 truck in the United States. Its 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, released 15 July 2026 and covering calendar year 2025, reported these average marginal costs per mile.
| Cost line | 2025 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|
| Total marginal cost per mile | $2.336 | $2.260 |
| Cost per mile excluding fuel | $1.854 | $1.779 |
| Driver wages | $0.818 | $0.798 |
| Driver benefits | $0.210 | $0.197 |
| Repair and maintenance | $0.404 | $0.390 |
| Tires | $0.050 | $0.047 |
| Tolls | $0.043 | $0.038 |
Source: American Transportation Research Institute, 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, released 15 July 2026. Total cost rose 3.4% year over year; cost excluding fuel rose 4.2%.
Why your number is probably lower, and why that is not a win. ATRI's figure is built from fleet data, and a fleet books a driver wage as a cost. Wages and benefits together came to $1.028 per mile in 2025. Subtract that from $2.336 and you get $1.308 per mile — our own arithmetic, not an ATRI line item — which is far closer to what a solo owner-operator with no wage line will compute. The default scenario in the calculator above lands at $1.387 per total mile, in the same neighbourhood.
One more piece of arithmetic worth knowing: $2.336 minus the $1.854 ex-fuel figure implies roughly $0.482 per mile of fuel across 2025. Diesel is materially higher in 2026, which is why the calculator derives fuel from today's price rather than carrying a hard-coded cents-per-mile figure. Our diesel price outlook for 2026 tracks where that is heading.
Loaded Miles vs Total Miles: Why Your Breakeven Is Higher Than Your Cost Per Mile
This is the correctness gap that costs owner-operators the most money. Every mile you turn costs you fuel and wear, but a broker only pays for the loaded portion. So your costs spread across total miles while your revenue has to be recovered from loaded miles alone.
The conversion is one line of arithmetic: breakeven per loaded mile = cost per total mile ÷ (1 − deadhead %). At $1.387 per total mile and 12% deadhead, that is $1.387 ÷ 0.88 = $1.576 per loaded mile. Quote the first number and you are 14% under water before you have negotiated anything.
Deadhead percentage is therefore not a soft metric — it moves your rate floor directly. Use the deadhead miles calculator to measure yours on a specific load, and our guide to avoiding deadhead for the lane-planning tactics that bring it down.
Fixed Costs vs Variable Costs: Every Line You Must Include
Missing lines are why a homemade cost per mile is usually 20 to 40 cents optimistic. Work down this checklist before you trust your number.
| Line | Type | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Tractor payment | Fixed | Loan term, rate, down payment |
| Trailer payment or rental | Fixed | Owned, leased or pulling a company trailer |
| Insurance: liability, cargo, physical damage, bobtail, non-trucking liability | Fixed | Authority age, MVR, CSA scores, radius |
| Occupational accident or workers' comp, health insurance | Fixed | Coverage level, state, dependants |
| IRP plates, UCR, Form 2290 HVUT, state permits | Fixed (annual ÷ 12) | Base state, weight, apportioned mileage |
| ELD subscription, phone, software | Fixed | Provider and plan |
| Parking or yard storage | Fixed | Market, secured vs unsecured |
| Accounting and quarterly tax set-aside | Fixed | Self-employment tax, entity type, net income |
| Driver or owner pay | Fixed (if you set a wage) | What you decide to draw each month |
| Fuel | Variable | Diesel price ÷ MPG; idling, terrain, weight |
| Repairs, preventative maintenance and a breakdown reserve | Variable | Truck age, mileage, PM discipline |
| Tires | Variable | Casing life, alignment, load weight |
| Tolls, scales, washes, lumpers | Variable | Lanes you run |
| Lodging and meals on the road | Variable | Days out, sleeper vs motel |
| IFTA fuel tax settlement | Variable | Where you buy fuel vs where you burn it |
| Factoring and dispatch fees | % of gross | Handled as a deduction from revenue, not a cost per mile |
Four of those lines have full guides of their own: trucking insurance for owner-operators, the truck maintenance schedule, Form 2290 heavy vehicle use tax and freight factoring. For the truck payment itself, the truck payment calculator gives you the monthly figure to drop into the fixed column, and the IFTA calculator handles the fuel tax settlement.
How to Calculate Fuel Cost Per Mile From MPG and Today's Diesel Price
Fuel is the largest single variable cost in most owner-operator budgets, and it is the one people most often carry as a stale number. The formula is simply diesel price per gallon ÷ MPG. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes a weekly national on-highway diesel average; for the week ending 10 August 2026 it was $5.257 per gallon. At that price:
| Truck MPG | Fuel cost per mile at $5.257/gal |
|---|---|
| 5.5 MPG | $0.956 |
| 6.0 MPG | $0.876 |
| 6.5 MPG | $0.809 |
| 7.0 MPG | $0.751 |
| 7.5 MPG | $0.701 |
Diesel price: U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly on-highway diesel price, U.S. average for the week ending 10 August 2026. Per-mile figures are that price divided by MPG.
Notice the spread: one full MPG between 6.0 and 7.0 is worth 12.5 cents a mile, or $1,250 a month at 10,000 miles. That is why a fuel-cost line that has not been touched in a year is worse than no line at all. The fuel cost calculator works this out per trip, and our fuel saving tips cover the habits that actually move MPG.
Should You Pay Yourself First? Where Owner Pay Belongs in Cost Per Mile
Run the number both ways — they answer different questions.
Without owner pay you get a pure breakeven: the point at which the business stops covering itself. In the default scenario that is $1.387 per total mile, $1.576 per loaded mile. It is the right number for the question "is this load losing money?"
With owner pay you get a sustainable cost per mile, and it is the number you should be booking against. Add a $6,000 monthly draw to the same cost base and, at 10,000 total miles, that is another $0.60 a mile: $1.987 per total mile, or $2.258 per loaded mile at 12% deadhead. A load paying $1.90 a loaded mile clears the pure breakeven of $1.576 comfortably — and still does not cover your own wage.
This is also the reconciliation with the industry benchmark. ATRI's $2.336 per mile includes $1.028 of driver wages and benefits. If your figure has no wage line, you are not cheaper than the industry — you are simply not counting your own labour. Enter a Driver / Owner Pay figure in the calculator above and compare the two results side by side.
Worked Example: Same Truck, Three Mileage Scenarios
One cost base, three levels of utilisation. Fixed costs are $3,350 a month (truck payment $1,800, insurance $1,200, permits $200, parking $150, no owner pay). Variable costs are $1.052 a mile: fuel $0.809 at 6.5 MPG and $5.257 a gallon, maintenance $0.15, tires $0.05, tolls $0.043. Deadhead is held at 12% in all three.
| Total miles / month | Fixed cost per mile | Variable cost per mile | Cost per total mile | Breakeven per loaded mile |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6,000 (5,280 loaded) | $0.558 | $1.052 | $1.610 | $1.830 |
| 8,500 (7,480 loaded) | $0.394 | $1.052 | $1.446 | $1.643 |
| 10,000 (8,800 loaded) | $0.335 | $1.052 | $1.387 | $1.576 |
The variable column never moves. The fixed column collapses from $0.558 to $0.335 as the same $3,350 of monthly bills spreads over more miles, and the rate you need to survive falls by 25 cents a loaded mile. That is the whole argument for utilisation: the difference between a slow month and a full one is not the rate you negotiate, it is the miles you keep the truck under load. Our owner-operator dispatch guide covers how that gets managed week to week.
What Rate Per Mile Do You Need? Turning Breakeven Into a Profit Target
Breakeven tells you when to walk away. It does not tell you what to aim for. To get there, work backwards from the profit you want:
Required rate per loaded mile = (monthly costs + target profit) ÷ loaded miles ÷ (1 − fee %)
Worked through: the default cost base is $13,868 a month against 8,800 loaded miles. Want $3,000 of profit? That is $16,868 ÷ 8,800 = $1.917 per loaded mile. Now account for money that comes off the top of every invoice — factoring, dispatch fees — because those are a share of gross, not a cost per mile. At a combined 5%, $1.917 ÷ 0.95 = $2.018 per loaded mile.
That is a real target you can hold a broker to, and it is the number the calculator returns when you fill in the fee percentage and target profit fields. Check it against current market conditions with the rate per mile calculator, test individual loads with the profit per load calculator, and sharpen the conversation itself with our rate negotiation tips.
What Is a Good Cost Per Mile? How Equipment Changes the Answer
There is no single good number, and anyone quoting one without stating their equipment, their insurance and their MPG is guessing. What is worth understanding is which lines move when the equipment changes, so you know where to look when your figure lands somewhere unexpected.
- Dry van. The baseline. Lowest equipment cost, no reefer unit, no securement spend. Fuel and the tractor payment dominate.
- Reefer. Adds a second engine to fuel and maintain, plus higher cargo insurance on temperature-sensitive freight and the risk of a full-load claim.
- Flatbed and step deck. Lower trailer cost, but ongoing spend on straps, chains, tarps and binders, plus more physical wear and typically higher liability exposure.
- Box truck. Much lower fixed costs and better MPG, so variable costs are a smaller share — but far fewer miles per month, so fixed cost per mile can be worse than a semi that stays loaded.
- Hotshot. Lowest entry cost of all, and the highest sensitivity to deadhead, because the loads are shorter and empty repositioning eats a larger share of total miles.
In every case the method is identical — only the inputs change. Run your own equipment through the calculator rather than adopting somebody else's average.
Five Mistakes That Make Your Cost Per Mile Wrong
- Annual bills not divided by twelve. Plates, Form 2290 and permits are paid in a lump. Charge a twelfth of each to every month or your cost per mile spikes once a year and lies for the other eleven.
- Deadhead left out of the mile count. Dividing costs by loaded miles only makes your CPM look higher than reality and your rate floor look lower. Count all miles as cost, quote against loaded miles.
- No reserve for the repair you have not had yet. ATRI put fleet repair and maintenance at $0.404 per mile in 2025. If your maintenance line only reflects oil changes, you are one turbo away from a hole in the budget.
- Factoring and dispatch fees treated as invisible. They come off the top of every invoice. They do not raise your cost per mile, they raise the rate you must book — see our breakdown of dispatch fees.
- Recalculating once a year. Diesel, insurance renewals and a single major repair all move the number by cents a mile. Monthly, or you are quoting against a cost base that no longer exists.
How to Lower Your Cost Per Mile
Five levers, roughly in order of how much they move the number for a typical owner-operator.
- Run more paid miles. The worked example above shows fixed cost per mile falling from $0.558 to $0.335 between a 6,000 and a 10,000 mile month. Nothing else on this list is worth 22 cents.
- Cut deadhead. Every point of deadhead you remove lowers your loaded-mile breakeven — see the deadhead calculator.
- Protect MPG. At $5.257 a gallon, a tenth of an MPG is real money every single month.
- Keep preventative maintenance on schedule. Planned work is cheaper than roadside work and does not cost you a load — the maintenance schedule guide sets the intervals.
- Shop insurance at renewal and claim every deduction. Both are once-a-year jobs with twelve months of payback. Start with our trucking tax deductions guide.
If the constraint is utilisation rather than cost, the dispatch ROI calculator shows whether paying a dispatcher pays for itself, and our pricing page lists what we charge. Browse every free tool on our trucking calculators hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you calculate cost per mile in trucking?
Add every fixed cost for one month, divide it by the total miles you ran that month, and add your variable cost per mile. In formula form: cost per mile = (monthly fixed costs / total miles) + variable cost per mile. Total miles means loaded plus deadhead, because empty miles burn fuel and wear the truck even though nobody pays you for them.
Should cost per mile be based on loaded miles or total miles?
Both, for different jobs. Cost is measured per total mile because every mile you turn costs money. The rate you quote a broker has to be measured per loaded mile, because loaded miles are the only miles that generate revenue. Convert between them by dividing your cost per total mile by one minus your deadhead percentage. At $1.387 per total mile and 12 percent deadhead, your breakeven is $1.576 per loaded mile, not $1.387.
Do you include your own pay when calculating cost per mile?
Calculate it both ways. Your pure breakeven, with no owner pay, is the number that tells you when a load starts losing money. Your sustainable cost per mile includes a wage for yourself, and that is the number you should actually be booking against. It also makes your figure comparable to fleet benchmarks, because a fleet books a driver wage as a cost and a solo owner-operator usually does not.
What is the average cost per mile for a semi truck?
The American Transportation Research Institute put the industry-average marginal cost of operating a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4 percent from $2.260 in 2024, in its 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking released 15 July 2026. Excluding fuel the figure was $1.854 per mile. That average is based on fleet data and includes driver wages of 81.8 cents and driver benefits of 21.0 cents per mile.
Why is my cost per mile lower than the industry average?
Usually because you are not paying yourself a wage. ATRI's 2025 average of $2.336 per mile includes $1.028 per mile of driver wages and benefits. Subtract that and the remaining $1.308 per mile is much closer to what a solo owner-operator sees. The other common reasons are a paid-off truck, an incomplete expense list, and counting only loaded miles in the denominator.
How do I calculate fuel cost per mile?
Divide the price you pay per gallon by your truck's actual MPG. At the U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly on-highway diesel average of $5.257 per gallon for the week ending 10 August 2026, a truck running 6.0 MPG costs $0.876 per mile in fuel, 6.5 MPG costs $0.809, and 7.0 MPG costs $0.751. Use your own fuel receipts and odometer, not the sticker MPG.
What are fixed costs vs variable costs in trucking?
Fixed costs are billed whether the truck moves or not: truck and trailer payments, insurance, permits and plates, parking, ELD subscription, accounting. Variable costs only happen when the wheels turn: fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls, scales, lodging. Fixed cost per mile falls as you run more miles; variable cost per mile stays roughly flat, which is why utilisation is the fastest lever on your CPM.
What is a good break-even rate per mile for an owner-operator?
There is no universal number, because insurance, equipment age and MPG differ enormously. What matters is that your breakeven is calculated per loaded mile and includes a wage for yourself and a maintenance reserve. Once you have it, treat it as a hard floor and negotiate above it. Booking at breakeven means working for free.
How often should I recalculate my cost per mile?
Monthly. Diesel alone moved across a wide range during 2026, and a single insurance renewal or a $6,000 repair can shift your number by cents per mile. Recalculating once a year means you spend eleven months quoting rates against a stale cost base.
How do factoring and dispatch fees affect cost per mile?
They come out of gross revenue, not out of the truck, so they raise the rate you need rather than the cost you incur. If fees take a combined percentage of gross, divide your required rate by one minus that percentage. A breakeven of $1.576 per loaded mile with 5 percent of gross going to factoring and dispatch needs $1.659 per loaded mile to break even.
How many miles per month should an owner-operator run?
Enough to spread your fixed costs without buying them back in maintenance and burnout. The mechanics are simple: with $3,350 a month in fixed costs, running 6,000 total miles puts $0.558 of fixed cost on every mile, 8,500 miles puts $0.394 on every mile, and 10,000 miles puts $0.335 on every mile. Utilisation, not rate, is the lever most owner-operators under-use.
What rate per mile do I need to be profitable?
Take your monthly cost base, add the profit you want to clear, divide by your loaded miles, then divide again by one minus your factoring and dispatch fee percentage. That is the rate you need on every loaded mile. The calculator on this page does that arithmetic for you once you enter a target profit.
Methodology and Sources
Every default value in the calculator and every figure on this page comes from one of three places: a named external source, arithmetic shown on the page, or an editable placeholder you are expected to replace with your own number.
- Diesel price, $5.257/gal. U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly retail on-highway diesel price, U.S. average, week ending 10 August 2026. Checked 11 August 2026.
- Tires $0.050/mi and tolls $0.043/mi. ATRI, 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, 2025 industry averages, released 15 July 2026. Checked 11 August 2026.
- Industry benchmarks $2.336/mi, $1.854/mi ex-fuel, driver wages $0.818/mi, benefits $0.210/mi, repair and maintenance $0.404/mi. Same ATRI report, 2025 figures with 2024 comparatives.
- Fuel cost per mile, $0.809 at 6.5 MPG. Calculated as $5.257 ÷ 6.5. Every MPG row in the table above uses the same division.
- $1.308/mi ex-driver-pay and $0.482/mi implied fuel. Our arithmetic on ATRI's published figures ($2.336 − $1.028, and $2.336 − $1.854). ATRI does not publish either as a line item.
- Truck payment, insurance, permits, parking, maintenance, MPG and mileage defaults. Illustrative placeholders chosen to make the worked example reproducible. They are not survey data and they are not a recommendation — replace them with figures from your own statements.
Calculator and figures last reviewed 11 August 2026 by the Truck Dispatch Experts dispatch team. Nothing here is tax or accounting advice; check your numbers with your own accountant.
Related Guides & Articles
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Everything you need to know about working with a dispatcher
Deductions that lower your effective cost per mile
The #1 reason is not knowing their numbers
We Only Book Loads That Clear Your Cost Per Mile
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