The Truckers Domain
Calculators / Weekly Revenue Target

Weekly Revenue Target Calculator

Operators target gross and reverse-engineer nothing. This works the other way: start from the money you want in your pocket, gross it up through tax, the fixed nut, fuel, and factoring, and land on the revenue you have to book every week — and the rate per loaded mile that means. Runs in your browser. Numbers stay on your machine.

Your rig Sets MPG, realistic weeks, and a market rate for the reality check. Edit any field after.
What lands in your personal account after tax, not the business draw. This is the only number that matters to your household, so the calculator starts here and works backward.
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Self-employment tax (15.3% up to the Social Security wage base) plus federal and state income tax, blended. A one-truck owner-operator setting aside 25–30% is the working rule. This grosses your take-home up to the pre-tax draw you actually have to clear.
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The 2026 transportation-worker meal allowance is $80/day, 80% deductible. Most operators leave this on the table. It shelters income from tax, so the required draw drops — shown below as a dollar saving, not a hidden rate change. Enter realistic days away from your tax home this year.
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Everything that bills whether the truck moves or not: truck and trailer payment, insurance (the line that sinks new authorities — do not lowball it), IRP/IFTA/UCR/permits, 2290, ELD and load board, consortium, accounting, parking, occ-acc or health. Total it once a year and divide by 12.
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EIA U.S. national weekly average, updated every Monday at eia.gov. Prefilled with the week ending May 4, 2026 ($5.64) — replace it with the current week.
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Your real number. Flatbed Class 8 runs 5.5–7. A 1-ton hotshot runs 9–13. Fuel cost per mile is diesel ÷ this.
Maintenance reserve, tire reserve, DEF, tolls, securement consumables — accrued per mile, not expensed when the bill hits. Typical all-in is $0.22–0.30. This is charged on every mile, loaded or empty.
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Combined cost of getting paid early, as an effective percent including fuel-advance and ACH fees. This is a percentage of the gross you are solving for, so the calculator divides by it — it is not just another cost line. Self-financing net-30? Enter 0, but keep 4–8 weeks of operating cash.
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Not 52. After home time, holidays, weather, and breakdowns, a solo owner-operator realistically runs 46–48. Hotshot freight is spikier — default lower. A slow week still owes the full nut.
Billable loaded miles only. Solo flatbed runs ~2,000–2,800; hotshot ~2,000–3,500 at a lower rate. Revenue is earned only on these miles.
Empty repositioning miles. 10–25% is typical; flatbed often worse chasing flatbed-friendly lanes. You burn fuel and variable cost on these but earn nothing — that is why they push the required rate up.
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Paste your real number from DAT or Truckstop for your equipment and region. This is the reality check: if the rate the math demands is above what the market pays, the plan does not close.
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The formula

Monthly gross is ( take-home ÷ (1 − tax rate) + fixed costs + variable costs ) ÷ (1 − factoring %). Factoring is the trap: it is a percentage of the gross you are solving for, so it has to be a divisor, not a cost you add on. Add it as a flat number and you under-target every month. Weekly gross is that figure divided by your real working weeks, and the rate per loaded mile is weekly gross divided by weekly loaded miles.

Gross is not what you keep

A draw is pre-tax. Self-employment tax alone is 15.3% before any income tax, so targeting the draw and ignoring the tax wedge under-shoots by a quarter or more. The calculator starts from after-tax take-home on purpose, because that is the number that pays your mortgage.

The nut runs whether the wheels do or not

Fixed cost is owed on a dead week the same as a 3,000-mile one. Seeing the weekly nut reframes the cheap Friday load correctly: anything over variable cost beats sitting, because the nut is already sunk. It also explains why under-pricing insurance on a new authority quietly breaks the whole plan.

What this version leaves out on purpose

Itemizing every fixed-cost line, linking one maintained cost model across tools, depreciation and Section 179 timing, and quarterly estimated-tax scheduling all belong in a full build, not a quick check. The Rate Per Mile Calculator (Excel + Google Sheets) carries the itemized cost engine this shares. Browse the Shop for launch updates.