The Truckers Domain
Calculators / Cost Per Mile

Cost Per Mile Calculator

Built for one-truck flatbed and hotshot operators. It counts the three things most cost-per-mile math leaves out: empty miles, your own pay, and reserves. Runs in your browser. Numbers stay on your machine.

Your rig Sets starting numbers for the rig type. Edit any field after.
Truck and trailer payment, insurance, IRP plates, ELD, parking, phone, accounting. What you owe whether the truck rolls or not. Owner pay goes in the next field, not here.
$
What you need to take home before the truck turns a profit. If you skip this, your break-even is a lie. Most one-truck operators run $4,000–$7,000.
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What you actually pay at the pump after discounts.
$
Loaded average. Flatbed Class 8 runs 5.5–7. A 1-ton hotshot runs 9–13.
Everything that scales with miles except fuel: maintenance and tire reserve, downtime reserve, truck-replacement reserve, straps, tarps, edge protection, DEF, tolls. Flatbed runs $0.35–$0.45. Hotshot $0.28–$0.36.
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Every mile the truck turns: loaded plus empty. Not just paid miles.
Share of total miles run empty. Most flatbed operators run 10–18%. Hotshot runs higher, often 18–28%.
%

Why two numbers

The big number is your cost per loaded mile. That is the floor you price freight against, because shippers and brokers only pay for loaded miles. The smaller line is your cost per total mile, what every mile costs once empty miles are spread across the load. The gap between them is your deadhead tax. Run more empty, the loaded-mile cost climbs even though nothing about the truck changed.

The three things this fixes

Empty miles. You enter total miles and a deadhead percentage, so fixed costs land on the miles you actually get paid for. Pricing off paid-miles-only math undercounts your real cost by 10–20%.

Your pay. It has its own field and it is not optional. The truck has to earn what you would have made driving for someone else, plus a margin. Drop it and your break-even is fiction.

Reserves. The variable-cost line is built to include maintenance, tire, downtime, and truck-replacement reserves, not just fuel and oil. A paid-off truck is not a free truck. You are still spending its remaining life every mile.

Turning cost into a rate

Cost per loaded mile is break-even. Add a margin on top. Most one-truck flatbed and hotshot operators target $0.30 to $0.60 per loaded mile of margin, more on tarped, permitted, or short-notice freight. The result card shows that target band once your numbers are in.

Want the spreadsheet version?

The full Rate Per Mile Calculator (Excel + Google Sheets) handles lane-by-lane deadhead, fuel surcharge, broker mix, and a weekly revenue target. Browse the Shop for launch updates.