TruckProfitHow to Calculate Your Trucking Cost Per Mile
A load's rate per mile tells you what it pays. It doesn't tell you what it costs you to run the truck. This guide walks through building that second number — your real cost per mile — by hand, from your own expenses, so the figure you plug into any calculator on this site is actually yours.
Why gross revenue per mile is misleading
"This load pays $2.50 a mile" describes the load. It says nothing about whether $2.50 a mile is enough to cover what it costs you to drive that mile. Two trucks can both be quoted the same rate and have completely different outcomes, because their cost per mile is different. Cost per mile is the number that turns a quoted rate into an actual answer: profitable, or not.
Fixed costs: what doesn't change with mileage
A fixed cost is one you pay regardless of how many miles you drive this month. Here's where to find the real number for each:
- Truck/trailer payment — your loan or lease statement.
- Insurance — the declarations page of your policy, divided into a monthly figure if you pay annually or semi-annually.
- Permits and licensing — IRP, IFTA base plate, and annual registration paperwork; divide any annual or quarterly fee by 12 or 3 to get a monthly figure.
Variable costs: what scales with usage
A variable cost moves with how much you actually drive. The two main categories:
- Maintenance and repairs — shop invoices for the period you're calculating.
- Tires — purchase receipts.
Fuel is deliberately left out of this guide, for the same reason it's left out of the Cost Per Mile Calculator itself: fuel price and fuel efficiency vary trip to trip, so folding an average into a monthly figure makes it less accurate for any specific load. Calculate fuel separately per trip with the Fuel Cost Calculator, and add it on top of the number this guide produces.
The worksheet
Fill in your own numbers. Every row here matches what the Cost Per Mile Calculator itself asks for, so once you've filled this out by hand you can enter the same figures directly — no translation needed.
| Cost category | Where to find it | Your monthly amount |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed costs | ||
| Truck/trailer payment | Loan or lease statement | ____ |
| Insurance | Policy declarations page | ____ |
| Permits and licensing | Renewal paperwork ÷ 12 or 3 | ____ |
| Other fixed cost | — | ____ |
| Subtotal: fixed costs | ____ | |
| Variable costs | ||
| Maintenance and repairs | Shop invoices for the month | ____ |
| Tires | Purchase receipts | ____ |
| Other variable cost | — | ____ |
| Subtotal: variable costs | ____ | |
| Total monthly cost (excl. fuel) | ____ | |
| Miles driven this month | Your ELD/trip log — loaded or gross? Pick one and stay consistent | ____ |
| Cost per mile (excl. fuel) = total ÷ miles | ____ | |
Worked example
Example — not your numbers. A truck drives 10,000 miles in a month. Fixed costs: $1,800 truck payment + $600 insurance + $150 permits and licensing = $2,550. Variable costs: $800 maintenance and repairs + $200 tires = $1,000. Total monthly cost is $3,550. Divided by 10,000 miles, that's a cost per mile of $0.355 — about $0.255/mile fixed and $0.10/mile variable.
Gross miles vs. loaded-only miles
Which mileage figure you divide by changes the result, and there's no universally "correct" choice — what matters is picking one and using it consistently every month. Dividing by gross miles (loaded plus deadhead) gives a cost per mile that reflects everything the truck actually did. Dividing by loaded-only miles gives a higher figure that represents cost per revenue-generating mile. If you switch between the two from month to month, your cost-per-mile trend will look like it's changing when it isn't — the input changed, not your actual costs.
How often to recalculate
There's no fixed schedule that fits every operation — recalculate after anything that meaningfully changes one of the numbers above: a large one-time repair, an insurance renewal at a new premium, a new truck payment, or a permit renewal. A number that's six months stale after a major repair will understate your real cost.
Common mistakes in the manual process
- Forgetting annual or quarterly costs entirely because they don't show up on a monthly bank statement — insurance and permits are the two most commonly missed.
- Mixing gross and loaded-only miles between different months, making the cost-per-mile trend meaningless.
- Not updating the number after a large one-time repair, so it understates your real cost for months afterward.
Next step
Once you have a real cost-per-mile figure, enter it directly into the Cost Per Mile Calculator to double-check the arithmetic, then use it as the operating-cost input on the Load Profit Calculator for a specific load, or the Break-Even Rate Calculator to find the minimum rate you need to charge.