Cost Per Mile Calculator
Your true all-in operating cost per mile — the one number that tells you whether a rate makes money or just makes miles.
Enter your costs and hit RUN MY NUMBERS
How this calculator works
The calculator splits your operation into the three buckets that behave differently. Fixed costs — truck and trailer payment, insurance, permits, parking, ELD — arrive every month whether the truck moves or not, so they get divided by your monthly miles. Fuel is computed from the two numbers that actually drive it: pump price divided by your real-world MPG. Maintenance and tires go in as a flat per-mile reserve, because that's how the expense actually behaves over a year — long quiet stretches, then a $4,000 repair bill that was really 20 cents a mile the whole time.
fuel CPM = diesel price ÷ MPG
total CPM = fixed CPM + fuel CPM + maintenance CPM
The sum is your break-even: any rate below it on all miles — loaded plus deadhead — loses money before you've paid yourself a dime. The ticket also prints your total monthly and weekly cost, which is the number your settlement has to clear.
Two worked examples
Example 1 — a solid month
Truck and trailer payment $2,500, insurance $1,150, other fixed costs $650 — that's $4,300 in fixed bills. Running 9,500 miles, fixed comes to $0.45 a mile. Diesel at $3.85 with the truck averaging 6.5 MPG adds $0.59, and a $0.20 maintenance reserve rounds it out: $1.24 per mile, about $11,800 for the month. Any load paying above $1.24 on all miles contributes something; the gap between that and the rate is where your paycheck lives.
Example 2 — same truck, slow month
Now freight softens and you only turn 5,800 miles. The $4,300 in fixed costs didn't shrink — spread thinner, it's suddenly $0.74 a mile. Diesel ticked up to $4.15 and the truck's pulling 6.3 MPG in winter air: $0.66. Same $0.20 reserve. New break-even: $1.60 per mile — 36 cents higher than last month without touching the truck. The $1.45 load that made you money in Example 1 now loses $870 over the month. That swing is why this gets recalculated monthly, not once when you bought the truck.
From the road
The drivers who go broke rarely get beaten by one bad load — they get beaten by a number they computed once, in a good month, and kept quoting for a year. Miles drop, insurance renews higher, diesel jumps forty cents, and the "$1.30 costs" they negotiate against hasn't been true since spring. Tape the current number to the dash, and rerun it every time the settlement lands.
The other killer is the bill that doesn't arrive monthly. The 2290 heavy vehicle use tax, IFTA settlements, plate renewal, the annual DOT inspection, eight drive tires that all age together — none of those show up in a month you'd call typical, and all of them are real costs of every mile you ran before they hit. Divide the yearly ones by twelve and put them in the fixed line, and treat the maintenance reserve as money already spent: transfer it out every settlement, because the turbo doesn't care whether you saved for it. The full list of the traps — costing loaded miles only, skipping your own pay, trusting a good month — is in our guide to cost per mile mistakes owner-operators make.
FAQ
What's an average cost per mile for an owner operator?
Most run $1.60–$2.20 all-in depending on fuel, payment, insurance, and monthly miles. But averages lie — your number can be 30% different. Run your own.
What's fixed vs variable?
Fixed hits every month regardless: payments, insurance, permits, parking, ELD. Variable scales with miles: fuel, maintenance, tires. Fixed per mile drops the more you drive; variable stays roughly constant.
Why does fewer miles raise my cost per mile?
Fixed costs spread over fewer miles. A $2,500 payment is $0.25/mile at 10,000 miles but $0.50/mile at 5,000. Slow months quietly raise your break-even.
Do I count deadhead miles?
Yes — divide monthly costs by every mile the truck ran, loaded and empty. The truck burned fuel and wore tires on all of them. Costing only loaded miles flatters your break-even right up until the settlement doesn't cover the fuel card.
Should I include my own pay?
This tool computes operating cost — what the truck needs before you earn anything. Add the salary you need to the fixed costs line if you want your break-even to include paying yourself. That's the honest way to compare against company driver offers.
What costs do owner-operators most often forget?
The ones that don't arrive monthly: the $550 heavy vehicle use tax (Form 2290), IFTA settlements, annual DOT inspection, plate renewals, and a reserve for the repair that hasn't happened yet. Divide yearly bills by 12 and park them in other fixed costs.