← Owner-Operator Cost Per Mile Calculator
Add up the month’s bills, divide by the miles you ran, call that your cost per mile. It is the arithmetic every owner-operator already knows, it is not wrong, and if you take it off your own settlement statements it is better cost data than anything you can type into a web page. It also answers a different question from the one a broker is asking you.
That one sentence is the whole difference. The division gives you cost per total mile. The number you quote, accept or turn down is a loaded rate. They are not the same figure and the gap is the size of your deadhead.
Here is an illustrative week — your numbers will differ, and these are not a claim about what anything costs. 2,000 loaded miles and 500 empty, so 2,500 total and 20% deadhead. 6.5 mpg at $3.90 a gallon. Monthly fixed of $4,100 (truck payment $2,200, insurance $1,100, permits $200, other $600). Reserves of 25¢ a mile for maintenance, tires and the rest.
| Figure | This week | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Weekly cost, all in | $3,071.15 | Fuel, reserves, and the monthly fixed bills spread over the week. |
| Bills ÷ miles | $1.23 | Cost per total mile. Correct, and not the rate you quote. |
| Break-even loaded rate | $1.54 | Cost per loaded mile — the same cost, carried by the 2,000 miles that actually earn. |
| A $1.65 offer looks like | 42¢ | …of margin, measured against the first figure. |
| A $1.65 offer really is | 11¢ | …of margin, measured against the rate you are actually being offered. |
The relationship is exact rather than a rule of thumb: the break-even loaded rate is the all-in cost per total mile divided by one minus the empty share. At 20% deadhead that is a 25% markup on the divided figure, every week, in the direction that makes a thin load look fat.
Each figure in the table is produced by
the same calculateWeek the calculator
runs, from the inputs listed above, and a test in this venture recomputes
them and fails if the page and the model ever disagree.
This is the one that hides best, because a cost per mile worked out once looks like a property of the truck. It is not; it is a property of the week. The truck payment, the insurance and the permits do not care how far you went, so the fewer miles you turn, the more of them each mile carries.
Same bills as above, but a 1,500-mile week instead of a 2,500-mile one (1,200 loaded, 300 empty, the same 20% empty share):
| Figure | 2,500-mile week | 1,500-mile week |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed cost per mile | $0.38 | $0.63 |
| All-in cost per total mile | $1.23 | $1.48 |
| Break-even loaded rate | $1.54 | $1.85 |
A rate you could take all day in the first week loses money in the second, and nothing about your costs changed. Quoting a single remembered cost per mile through a slow month is how that happens without anyone noticing.
There is no invoice for it to arrive on. It comes off the top of what the broker pays, which means a bills-divided-by-miles figure cannot contain it by construction — and it is not small. In the 2,500-mile week, taking that $1.65 with a 3% factoring fee:
| Figure | No factoring | 3% factoring |
|---|---|---|
| Effective loaded rate | $1.65 | $1.60 |
| Week’s profit | $228.85 | $129.85 |
Five cents a mile off the rate, and 43% of the profit off the week. Whether you factor is a cash-flow decision with good reasons on both sides; what it is not is invisible.
Per-mile thinking wants to smear it across the year. The money left this week. A $150 lumper you were not reimbursed for raises the break-even loaded rate on that 2,000-loaded-mile week from $1.54 to $1.61 — seven cents, on one receipt. Detention and layover work the same way in reverse, and the calculator will tell you whether the detention being offered actually covers the hours you are being asked to sit.
The honest half, and it matters more than it usually gets said. Where this page and your own arithmetic disagree about what your costs are, your arithmetic wins:
So these are sequential, not competing. Work your real costs out from your own statements; then use this page to turn them into the loaded rate you can accept this week, with the empty miles, the short week, the factoring fee and the unreimbursed lumper each put where they land instead of averaged into one number that is right about last year and silent about the load in front of you.
No account, no sign-in, nothing uploaded: the arithmetic runs in your browser and the page keeps working with the connection off.
Nothing, as arithmetic — it gives you a true cost per total mile, and if you take it off your own settlement statements over a full year it is more trustworthy than anything you can type into a calculator. The problem is that it answers a different question from the one you ask at the load board. Cost lands on every mile you turn, loaded or empty. Revenue lands only on loaded miles. So the number you need when a broker names a rate is cost divided by loaded miles, and the division most people run divides by total miles instead. On a week that is 20% empty, that is a 31 cent per mile gap in the illustrative week on this page — and it is a gap in the direction that makes a losing load look profitable.
By the deadhead share, compounding. The relationship is exact: break-even loaded rate equals all-in cost per total mile divided by (1 minus the empty share). In the week worked through on this page — 2,000 loaded miles and 500 empty, so 20% deadhead — a weekly cost of $3,071.15 is $1.23 per total mile and $1.54 per loaded mile. A broker offering $1.65 looks like 42 cents of margin against the first figure and is really 11 cents against the second. Both numbers are correct arithmetic on the same week; only one of them is the rate you are being asked to accept.
Sharply, and this is the part a single divided figure hides worst, because it looks like a constant. Your truck payment, insurance and permits do not care how many miles you ran, so the fewer you turn the more of them each mile has to carry. Same bills as the illustrative week above, but 1,200 loaded and 300 empty instead of 2,000 and 500: fixed cost per mile goes from 38 cents to 63 cents, and the break-even loaded rate from $1.54 to $1.85. Nothing changed but the miles. A cost per mile worked out on a good month and then quoted from all year is wrong on every week that is not that month.
Because it is charged on revenue, not on cost, so it is not in the pile of bills you are dividing — there is no invoice for it to appear on. It still comes straight off the rate the broker quoted. In the illustrative week, a 3% factoring fee turns an accepted $1.65 into an effective $1.60 per loaded mile, and the week's profit from $228.85 to $129.85. That is 43% of the profit, on a cost line that a bills-divided-by-miles figure cannot contain by construction.
No — keep doing it, and trust it over this page where the two disagree about what your costs are. Your settlement statements and fuel receipts are measurements of your actual truck; every figure on this page is one you typed, and it has no way to check any of them. What it adds is not better cost data. It is the step after: taking the costs you already know and turning them into the loaded rate you can accept this week, with the empty miles, the short week, the factoring fee and the unreimbursed lumper each put where they actually land instead of averaged into one number.
Run your own week in the cost per mile calculator, or read the worked examples on how deadhead miles cut a loaded rate and whether detention pay covers the wait.