A $2.00 loaded offer is not $2.00 in your pocket. Empty miles still burn diesel and the truck note does not care whether the trailer is full. Enter a week of running — fuel, the note, insurance, deadhead — and see the all-in cost per mile and the loaded rate that actually covers it.
This week’s miles
Count every mile the truck moves. Deadhead, bobtail, and empty repositioning belong in the empty box — they are why a rate that looked fine on the load board does not cover the week.
Fixed cost (monthly)
These do not drop when you sit. A short week makes them more expensive per mile, which is why a rate that worked at 2,400 miles can lose money at 1,800.
Per-mile reserves and the offer
Nothing withholds tax for you. Put in whatever share of profit you set aside for self-employment and income tax and the target below becomes what you actually keep. Leave it at 0 and every figure behaves exactly as before. We do not guess the percentage — it depends on your filing status, state, deductions, and per-diem election, and picking one for you would be a claim about what you owe. Ask your tax preparer for yours.
Detention, layover, and lumper
Miles do not pay you while you sit. Detention and layover are settlement lines; a dock lumper is cash out unless the broker reimburses it. Starting figures: 6 hours at $50, a $75 lumper you paid. Does detention pay cover the wait?
Break-even loaded rate
$—
per loaded mile to cover this week
All-in cost per mile
Variable (fuel + reserves)
Fixed cost per mile
Deadhead share
Fuel this week
Weekly cost
Annual cost (same week × 52)
Rate for target take-home
Tax reserve at offered rate
Take-home after reserve
Loaded miles to cover this week at offer
Detention + layover after factor
Unreimbursed lumper
Miles-only week vs this settlement
Miles only
With accessorials
Weekly profit
Gap this week
Detention hours that cover a losing miles-only week
Transparent arithmetic from your own inputs. Starting figures are a typical solo dry-van week, not a benchmark or a recommended rate. Replace them with your fuel receipts and the truck note.
Generic “cost per mile” pages often divide monthly bills by loaded miles and stop. The decision an owner-operator actually faces is whether this week’s empty miles and this settlement’s factoring still leave the posted rate above cost. How deadhead miles cut a loaded rate walks through that in search-query words. See also: this calculator vs. ATBS, for when to reach for a free instant calculator and when to hire a paid bookkeeping service, and this calculator vs. DAT RateView, for market rate versus your own break-even. And if you already work your cost per mile out yourself, this calculator vs. dividing your bills by your miles shows the four things that division cannot see, in dollars.
It does not tell you which load to book, what a broker should pay, or what your truck is worth. The gap between the posted rate and the break-even loaded rate is arithmetic on the numbers you typed.
Common questions
How do owner operators calculate cost per mile?
Add every mile the truck moves that week — loaded and empty. Divide fuel, per-mile reserves, and the weekly share of the truck note, insurance, and permits by those total miles. That is all-in cost per mile. Then divide the same weekly cost by loaded miles only to get the loaded rate that covers the empty ones.
How does deadhead affect a trucking rate?
Revenue is paid only on loaded miles. Cost is incurred on every mile. A 20% empty week means the loaded rate must cover 25% more cost than the all-in CPM. A $2.00 loaded offer on that week is $1.60 of revenue per total mile before factoring.
Does this calculator use a different fuel mileage for loaded and empty miles?
No — it takes one “Average MPG” figure and divides it into every mile the truck moved that week, loaded and empty combined (fuel gallons = total miles ÷ MPG). It does not model the real gap between loaded and unladen fuel economy. At the starting figures — 2,250 total miles at 6.2 MPG, $4.20 diesel — that is $1,524.19 of fuel for the week, regardless of how the 1,800 loaded and 450 empty miles split it. If your logbook shows loaded and empty MPG separately, enter the mileage weighted for the week’s actual mix (total gallons actually burned ÷ total miles run), not your best-case unladen number, or the fuel line will understate cost on a week with a lot of loaded miles.
What loaded rate should I accept?
This page does not tell you what to accept. It reports the loaded rate that covers the costs you entered, after deadhead and after any factoring percent you set. Compare an offer to that number. Verify every figure against your own fuel receipts and notes before you book a load.
How much does factoring actually cost on a load?
Factoring takes its percent off gross revenue before the money settles, not off profit. On the starting figures — 1,800 loaded miles at a $2.00 offer, $3,600 gross — 3% factoring is a $108 fee, leaving $3,492 net from the miles. The offered rate itself doesn’t change; the calculator’s “effective loaded rate” ($1.94/mi at those figures) is what you actually settle for, and that’s the number to compare against break-even, not the rate on the rate confirmation.
Does an unreimbursed lumper fee change the cost per mile?
No — it’s added to the week’s cost as a flat dollar amount, not spread across miles. “Lumper you paid” minus “Lumper reimbursed” becomes a straight addition to weekly cost regardless of how many miles were run that week. At the starting figures, a $75 lumper the broker never reimburses is $75 straight off the week, on top of fuel, reserves, and fixed cost.
How much does a short week raise cost per mile?
Fixed costs — the truck note, insurance, permits — are billed monthly and this calculator converts them to a weekly figure by dividing by 52÷12 weeks, then spreads that over total miles run. Fewer miles in the week means the same dollar figure divides over less distance. At the starting figures ($5,550/month fixed, about $1,281/week) run over 2,250 total miles, fixed cost alone is about $0.57/mi; the same $1,281 spread over a 1,500-mile week would be about $0.85/mi — the truck note doesn’t get cheaper because the week was slow.
How many loaded miles does it take to break even at an offered rate?
“Loaded miles to cover this week at offer” divides the week’s cost, minus any detention/layover that’s already been factored in, by the settled effective rate — the offered rate after factoring. At the starting figures, a $2.00/mi offer settles to $1.94/mi after 3% factoring, and it takes roughly 1,706 loaded miles against the week’s cost (after the $291 of factored accessorials) to break even. The starting 1,800 loaded miles clears that, leaving around $183 for the week.
What loaded rate do I need to hit a weekly take-home goal?
Type a dollar figure into “Target weekly take-home” and the calculator solves the loaded rate backwards instead of forwards: take the week’s cost, subtract the detention/layover income already counted, add the take-home you want, divide by loaded miles, then gross that up for the cut factoring will take. At the starting figures — $3,600 weekly cost, $291 of factored accessorial income, 1,800 loaded miles, 3% factoring — an $800 take-home goal solves to about $2.35/mi loaded, before factoring. That’s the number to compare against a broker’s posted rate, not the $2.00 starting example; the $2.00 offer only clears about $183 for the week at these figures.
Running several stops a day? The route stop optimizer finds the order that cuts drive time and shows the miles and dollars saved.