Rate Per Mile Calculator

Rate per mile is the metric that runs your business, but there are three legitimate ways to calculate it and confusing them is the most common mistake carriers make. Here is the same $3,000 load through all three.

Gross rate per loaded mile — $3,000 ÷ 1,000 loaded miles = $3.00/mi. This is the headline number on the load board. It ignores the 150 miles you drove empty to reach the pickup.

Effective rate per total mile — $3,000 ÷ 1,150 total miles = $2.61/mi. Same money, more miles, honest answer. If you also run 150 miles after delivery to reach your next pickup, the divisor becomes 1,300 and the rate falls to $2.31/mi.

Net rate per mile — subtract percentage-based costs first. With 6% dispatch ($180) on that $3,000 load you net $2,820, and $2,820 ÷ 1,150 = $2.45/mi. That is 55 cents below the number the broker advertised, and it is the only one of the three you can spend.

This is the distinction that makes two carriers argue about the same load. The all-in rate is everything the broker pays you per mile. The linehaul rate is that figure with the fuel surcharge stripped out. DAT reports both, and in June 2026 the gap was worth 63 cents per mile on dry van ($3.00 all-in against $2.37 linehaul), 69 cents on reefer and 75 cents on flatbed.

Sixty-three cents is not a rounding error, and here is why it is that big. The U.S. Energy Information Administration put the national average retail on-highway diesel price at $5.257 per gallon for the week ending August 10, 2026. A truck averaging 6.5 MPG burns about $0.81 of diesel per mile at that price. On a 1,000-mile run that is roughly $809 of fuel against about $630 of fuel surcharge at the dry van average — so the surcharge covers most of the fuel bill, but not all of it. The remainder comes out of your linehaul.

The practical rule: never compare a linehaul rate to an all-in benchmark, or vice versa. Read the rate confirmation before you judge the offer — our guide to reading a rate confirmation line by line shows where the FSC hides. For where diesel is heading, see our diesel price outlook, and use the fuel cost calculator to price a specific trip at your own MPG.

Almost every rate-per-mile calculation you will see online counts the deadhead to the pickup and stops there. That is only half the empty miles. After you tip the load, you still have to get the truck to wherever the next load starts, and those miles are just as empty and just as expensive.

Run the same $3,000 load three ways. Loaded miles only (1,000): $3.00/mi. Add 150 miles of deadhead to the pickup (1,150): $2.61/mi. Add another 150 miles repositioning after delivery (1,300): $2.31/mi. The load did not change. Your honest number fell 69 cents.

That is why the calculator above asks for repositioning miles separately. If you genuinely deliver into a market where your next load starts at the dock, enter zero — but most carriers cannot, and pretending otherwise is how a load that loses money looks like a load that makes money. The deadhead calculator prices those empty miles in dollars rather than cents per mile, and our guide to avoiding deadhead covers how to plan them down.

New carriers see a 250-mile load at $4.00/mi next to a 1,200-mile load at $2.20/mi and assume the short one is the better deal. It usually is not, and the reason is that per-load costs do not shrink with distance.

Loading, unloading, paperwork, dock waiting and the drive to the shipper cost you roughly the same regardless of how far the freight travels. If your truck needs $1,000 a day to cover itself, a day in which you turn 250 miles has to pay $4.00 per mile to hit that. A day in which you turn 500 miles only needs $2.00. The higher per-mile number on the short haul is compensation for the miles you did not get to run, not a bonus.

Judge short freight on revenue per day and revenue per week, not revenue per mile. Two 250-mile loads in a day can beat one 600-mile load; one 250-mile load with four hours of detention cannot. Our comparison of regional vs long-haul trucking works through the trade-off, and the weekly revenue calculator lets you compare load mixes over a full week.

Keep them out of the rate-per-mile numerator, and count them in your per-load profit instead. Accessorials are paid per occurrence, not per mile, so folding them in makes your rate look inflated on the loads that went badly and understates it everywhere else. Two lanes stop being comparable the moment one of them includes four hours of detention pay.

Lumper fees in particular are a reimbursement, not revenue — money that passes through you to the unloading crew. Putting a reimbursed lumper into your rate per mile inflates a number you never earned. Detention is genuine revenue, but it compensates you for time, which is why it belongs in a revenue-per-day view rather than a revenue-per-mile one.

The practical answer: quote and compare on linehaul plus fuel surcharge, then chase the accessorials separately and hard. See what to do when detention time isn't paid and our explainer on lumper fees and who pays them.