→ Free tool
Cost Per Mile Calculator
The number that tells you which loads are worth taking. Enter your fixed and variable costs, the miles you run, and your rate to see your true cost per mile, your profit per mile, and what the month actually nets. Paste your expense list and it sorts fixed from variable for you.
Start from a template
Import your costs (CSV or paste)
Paste or upload your monthly costs — one per line as: item, amount. We'll sort fuel, maintenance, tires, and tolls into variable, and the rest (truck payment, insurance, permits) into fixed.
→ Your cost per mile
You keep $0.62 per mile
At $2.50 a mile against a $1.88 cost, each mile adds $0.62. Owner-operators often run all-in costs around $1.50–$2.00 per mile, so the rate you accept and the empty miles you run are what make or break the month. Cutting deadhead miles lowers cost per mile without cutting a single expense.
Compare scenarios
Save the current inputs as a scenario, then compare best, base, and worst side by side. Saved in this browser.
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<iframe src="https://planypals.com/embed/cost-per-mile-calculator" title="Cost Per Mile Calculator" width="100%" height="760" loading="lazy" style="border:1px solid #ddd3bf;max-width:760px"></iframe> <p style="font:13px/1.5 sans-serif">Free <a href="https://planypals.com/tools/cost-per-mile-calculator">Cost Per Mile Calculator by Planypals</a></p>
Download these results as a PDF report
Get a clean PDF of your per-mile economics — useful for a trucking business plan or a lender.
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Calculations run entirely in your browser. Figures are estimates for planning, not financial advice.
Why cost per mile is the number that matters
In trucking, revenue per mile gets all the attention, but it's meaningless without the cost per mile underneath it. Cost per mile is your break-even rate — the point below which a load loses money no matter how good it looks. Know it cold and you can size up a rate in seconds, walk away from cheap freight without second-guessing, and see exactly how much a fuel spike or an insurance renewal really costs you.
Fixed, variable, and the miles that spread them
- Cost per mile = (fixed + variable monthly costs) ÷ miles driven
- Profit per mile = revenue per mile − cost per mile
- Monthly profit = (revenue per mile × miles) − total monthly costs
Say fixed costs run $6,500 a month and variable costs $9,500, against 8,500 miles: your cost per mile is about $1.88. At a $2.50 rate you keep roughly $0.62 a mile, or about $5,300for the month. Notice the leverage in the miles: because fixed costs don't change, running more miles spreads them thinner and drops your cost per mile — which is why utilization, not just rate, drives a trucking business.
The deadhead problem
Every empty mile burns fuel and wears the truck without earning a dime, so deadhead quietly inflates your cost per loaded mile. Two operators with identical expenses can have very different economics purely because one runs 5% empty and the other 20%. Cutting deadhead through smarter lane selection and load planning lowers your effective cost per mile without touching a single line item — often the highest-leverage move an owner-operator can make.
From cost per mile to a fundable plan
A lender financing your truck or a new-authority application both hinge on believable per-mile economics. The cost per mile here is the engine of that model; pair it with realistic loaded-mile assumptions and the financing terms from our business loan calculator to show the numbers actually work before you commit. Our guide to how to write a trucking business plan turns them into the plan a lender or the new-authority process expects.
→ Beyond the calculator
Getting authority or financing a truck?
Per-mile economics are the core of a trucking plan. Our trucking business plan writers build the per-mile model, operations and safety plan, and lender-ready projections.
Frequently asked questions
- Add your fixed costs (truck payment, insurance, permits) and variable costs (fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls) for a period, then divide by the miles you drove in that period. If your total monthly costs are $16,000 and you run 8,500 miles, your cost per mile is about $1.88. Subtract that from your revenue per mile to see the profit on each one.
- Owner-operators commonly run all-in costs of roughly $1.50–$2.00 per mile, though it varies widely with fuel prices, the truck, and how many empty (deadhead) miles you run. The figure matters only against your rate: a $1.80 cost per mile is healthy at $2.50 revenue and a disaster at $1.70. Track your own number rather than trusting an average.
- Fixed costs stay the same whether the truck moves or not — the truck payment, insurance, permits, ELD subscription, and plates. Variable costs rise with miles — fuel, maintenance, tires, tolls, and DEF. Splitting them matters because more miles spread your fixed costs over a larger base, lowering cost per mile, while variable costs stay roughly constant per mile.
- Empty miles cost you fuel and wear without earning revenue, so they raise your effective cost per loaded mile. Reducing deadhead — through better load planning and lane selection — lowers your cost per mile without cutting a single expense, which is why experienced operators guard their empty-mile percentage closely.
- Yes — it runs in your browser, nothing is stored, and there's no sign-up. When you're getting authority or financing a truck, our trucking business plan writers build the per-mile model, operations plan, and projections lenders and the FMCSA process expect.