Cost per mile = all your monthly costs ÷ the miles you ran. Split them into fixed (truck payment, insurance, permits — they bill whether you roll or not) and variable (fuel, maintenance, tolls). Enter both below with the rate you are being offered, and see whether the load actually pays.

Owner-Operator Cost Per Mile Calculator

Work out what a mile actually costs you. Split your monthly fixed costs from your variable costs, divide by the miles you run, and get your all-in cost per mile, your break-even rate, and a verdict on the rate you are being offered.

Gear that pays for itself on the road

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The number that decides every load

Cost per mile is the one figure that turns a rate on a load board into a yes or a no. Without it you are guessing, and the guess is usually optimistic, because the costs that sink owner-operators are the ones that do not arrive with the load: the quarterly insurance instalment, the tire that lets go at 90,000 miles, the plates.

The reason to split fixed from variable is not bookkeeping neatness. It is that the two behave completely differently when your miles change. Variable costs are roughly honest per mile — burn more miles, buy more diesel. Fixed costs are a fixed lump that gets divided by however many miles you managed, so they punish a slow month twice: less revenue coming in, and a higher cost per mile on the miles you did run.

Work the two examples below and the effect is obvious. Identical truck, identical bills. At 10,000 miles the all-in cost is 94 cents a mile and a $1.25 rate clears about $3,100 for the month. At 6,000 miles the same truck costs $1.183 a mile, and that same $1.25 rate leaves under seven cents a mile — around $402 for a month of work. Nothing about the truck changed. Only the miles did.

How this calculator works

Fixed costs are your truck or trailer payment, insurance, and everything else in the "bills whether it rolls or not" bucket — plates, permits, IFTA and IRP, the ELD subscription, accounting. Variable costs are diesel, maintenance and your tire reserve, plus tolls, scales, lumpers and parking. The calculator totals each bucket, divides each by the miles you entered, and adds them for the all-in cost per mile. Your break-even rate per mile is that same number: below it, the month loses money.

Enter a profit target and it returns the rate per mile that covers your costs and your target together. Enter a rate you are being offered and it returns the profit or loss per mile at that rate, scaled to the month, with a plain verdict. Per-mile figures are rounded to a tenth of a cent, because across 10,000 miles a tenth of a cent is ten dollars.

What it does not do: it does not know your seasonality, it does not amortise a major overhaul for you, and it does not decide whether your own wage belongs in costs or in profit — that is your call, and the FAQ below explains both ways. It is a planning tool built on the numbers you supply, not an accounting record.

Worked examples

Cost per mile questions, answered

How do you calculate cost per mile in trucking?
Add up every cost for a month, then divide by the miles you ran that month. The useful version splits the costs into two buckets first. Fixed costs bill whether the truck moves or not: the truck payment, insurance, plates and permits, ELD subscription, accounting. Variable costs scale with miles: fuel, maintenance and tire reserve, tolls, scales, lumpers. A truck with $3,500 of fixed and $5,900 of variable costs over 10,000 miles costs $9,400 to run, which is 94 cents a mile — 35 cents of it fixed and 59 cents variable.
Why does my cost per mile change every month?
Because fixed costs do not shrink when the miles do. The truck payment and the insurance bill are the same size in a 6,000-mile month as in a 12,000-mile month, so they get spread over fewer miles and your cost per mile climbs. That is the single most important thing this calculator shows: the same truck with the same bills can cost 94 cents a mile in a strong month and over $1.18 in a slow one. A rate that was comfortably profitable becomes marginal without anything about the truck changing.
What is a good cost per mile for an owner-operator?
There is no universal figure, and anyone quoting one without knowing your truck payment is guessing. What matters is knowing YOUR number and refusing to book below it. Run the calculator on a realistic average month and again on a slow month, and treat the slow-month figure as your real floor. The gap between the two is the risk you carry every time you accept a rate based on your best month.
Should I include my own pay as a cost?
That is a choice, and the calculator supports either approach. If you treat your wage as a cost, add it to the fixed costs and your break-even rate becomes the rate that pays you properly and covers the truck. If you would rather see your pay as profit, leave it out and use the profit target field instead — enter what you want to clear each month and the calculator returns the rate per mile that gets you there. Just do not do both, or you will double-count yourself.
Does this include the fuel surcharge?
Not separately. Enter the all-in rate per mile you are actually being paid, including any fuel surcharge, in the offered-rate field, and put your real diesel spend in the fuel line. Comparing a linehaul-only rate against a cost figure that includes fuel is the most common way operators talk themselves into an unprofitable load.

More trucker math