Trucking cost per mile and break-even calculator

The number that decides whether a load is worth hauling is your cost per mile. Most owner operators know their fuel cost and guess the rest. This calculator adds the costs that move with every mile (fuel, maintenance, tires, anything else) to the costs that do not (truck payment, insurance, permits, trailer, software) spread over the miles you actually run.

Put in what you pay and what a load pays per mile. You get your all-in cost per mile, profit per mile, a monthly profit estimate, and the number of miles you must run each month just to cover your fixed costs.

How the math works

• Fuel cost per mile is fuel price divided by miles per gallon.
• Variable cost per mile is fuel plus maintenance, tires and anything else you enter per mile.
• Fixed cost per mile is your monthly fixed costs divided by your monthly miles.
• Cost per mile is variable plus fixed. Profit per mile is the rate minus cost per mile.
• Break-even miles are fixed costs divided by the rate minus variable cost per mile.

Run it twice, once with your typical month and once with a slow month, to see how fast a short month eats your profit.

Worked example

Diesel is 4.00 a gallon and the truck gets 6.5 MPG, so fuel is 0.615 per mile. Add 0.15 for maintenance and 0.05 for tires, and variable cost is 0.815 per mile. Fixed costs are 3,000 a month over 10,000 miles, or 0.30 per mile. Your cost per mile is 1.115. At a rate of 2.00 per mile you keep 0.885 per mile, about 8,846 a month. You break even at about 2,532 miles a month.