How to Calculate Cost Per Mile in Trucking (Worksheet + Example)

A load pays $2.40 a mile and you take it because that "sounds decent." That instinct is how owner-operators end up working for free. The only way to know if a load makes money is to know your cost per mile — and most drivers who calculate it for the first time are off by 50 cents or more from their guess.

The formula is simple. The discipline is in counting everything.

The formula

Cost per mile = Total monthly costs ÷ Total monthly miles

That's it. The work is in building an honest list of "total monthly costs," which splits into two buckets.

Bucket 1: Fixed costs (you pay these even parked)

These hit every month whether you turn a wheel or not:

• Truck payment
• Trailer payment
• Insurance (liability, cargo, physical damage)
• Plates, permits, and IRP/IFTA account fees
• ELD subscription, parking, software
• Health insurance
• Your salary — yes, pay yourself a number; your time is not free

Example fixed costs: $6,800/month.

Bucket 2: Variable costs (they scale with miles)

These grow with every mile you run:

• Fuel (your biggest line — track it per state in a fuel tracker and it does double duty for IFTA)
• Maintenance and repairs (use a per-mile reserve — many owner-operators budget somewhere around 15–20 cents/mile; your trucks' history is the real answer)
• Tires (a reserve, not a surprise)
• Tolls and scales
• Truck washes, lumper fees you don't get reimbursed

Example variable costs: $7,400/month.

The worked example

Say last month looked like this:

$14,200 ÷ 9,500 miles = $1.49/mile cost

Two critical details:

1. Use ALL miles, including deadhead. You drove them, you fueled them. If you only divide by loaded miles, your number lies to you in the optimistic direction.
2. This is last month's number. Run it monthly — fuel prices and repair luck move it constantly.

What the number tells you

With a $1.49/mile cost:

• A $2.40/mile load (all-in, including deadhead to pickup) nets you $0.91/mile → on 2,000 miles that's $1,820 of actual profit.
• A $1.60/mile load nets you $0.11/mile → you're hauling 2,000 miles for $220. A bad week of repairs erases a month of those.
• Anything under $1.49 means you are paying the broker to move their freight.

This is the difference between "the truck grossed $18,000" and "I made $4,600." Gross feels good; cost per mile tells the truth.

Why most owner-operators get it wrong

• Receipts never make it into the math. The $38 wash, the $65 toll day, the $200 road call — untracked, they quietly add 10–20 cents/mile. Expense tracking with receipt capture closes that gap.
• Maintenance counted only when it happens. A $3,200 clutch in March belongs partly to every month you ran that clutch. Reserves smooth it.
• No salary line. If you don't pay yourself on paper, every load "profits" and you can't tell which ones actually built wealth.
• Stale numbers. A cost per mile from last summer's fuel prices is fiction.

Make it automatic

Every input to this formula — loads and miles, fuel by state, every categorized expense, maintenance records — is data you're already generating. Truck Command collects it as you run (loads, fuel, expenses, state mileage) so your cost per mile and per-load profit are just there, current, every time you're deciding on a load. Plans start at $20/month with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

Know your number before the next rate con hits your phone. The load that "sounds decent" might be the one to refuse.