Freight Rate
Per Mile Calculator
Work out what a load actually pays, per loaded mile, per mile once the deadhead is counted, and what is left after fuel and your own costs. No account, no email, and nothing leaves your browser.
The load
Nothing is sent anywhere. The arithmetic happens in your browser.
The linehaul the broker posted.
Pickup to delivery.
Empty miles to reach the pickup. Leave at 0 if you are already there.
Loaded, not the brochure figure.
What you will actually pay.
Everything else divided by your real annual miles. Leave blank if you do not know it yet.
What it works out to
Enter the total pay and the loaded miles and the figures appear here. Everything else is optional, each one you add answers one more question about the load.
What this lane has been paying
The calculator above works on your numbers. This works on everybody else’s, the rates brokers have actually posted here over the last thirty days, with the number of loads behind the figure shown every time, and this week’s diesel folded in.
Your lane
Estimated rate
National data$2.05-$2.48/ mile
Typical for Dry Van, any lane.
Based on 25 loads posted anywhere on the board in the last 30 days. Pick a pickup and delivery state for a lane figure · updated
This is an estimate, not a quote. What a load pays is what you and the broker agree.
Want this on every load instead of one at a time? A free carrier account puts the estimate next to the rate the broker actually posted, across the whole board.
How this number is built
Every rate guide in this business is a table somebody typed once, with no source and no sample size. This one shows its working, because a figure you cannot check is a figure you should not price freight against.
First
Your board's own posted rates
Every load posted here is stored with its rate, its lane and its equipment, including loads that have since been covered, because a load that got taken is the best evidence of what the lane pays. The estimate is the median of those rates with the quartiles either side, over a rolling 30 days.
A lane figure is only published at 10 loads or more. Below that it falls back to the two PADD regions the lane runs between, then to the national figure for that equipment, and the result says which one you got, every time.
Then
Published spot rates, adjusted
On a lane with no data yet, the range starts from the published national spot range for the equipment, multiplied by a distance factor. Short hauls pay far more per mile, the fixed cost of loading is spread over fewer miles, and a 60-mile run still burns most of a day.
- Under 100 mi
- 1.60x
- 100 to 250 mi
- 1.30x
- 250 to 500 mi
- 1.05x
- 500 to 1,000 mi
- 0.95x
- Over 1,000 mi
- 0.88x
And
This week's diesel, where you are running
The EIA publishes on-highway diesel every Tuesday, nationally, for the five PADD districts, and for nine states separately. The surcharge is the standard one: the price above a $1.20 baseline, divided by the vehicle’s miles per gallon.
That is why the same lane prices differently out of California and out of Texas, and why the figure moves on its own every week with no one editing a table.
Never
A number we cannot stand behind
- Never a single figure, always a range, because that is the shape of what is actually known.
- Never a lane with fewer than 10 loads behind it. Thin data shown confidently is the problem, not the fix.
- Never a number for equipment no index prices. Cargo van and sprinter rates come from this board or they do not come at all.
- Never without the sample size and the date, on the same line as the figure.
The number the posting does not show you
A load board shows the rate and the loaded miles. What it cannot show is the distance between where you are standing and where the freight is, and that gap is where owner-operators lose money without ever seeing it happen. A load paying $900 over 300 miles reads as $3.00 a mile. If it starts 150 miles away, you will drive 450 miles for that $900, and the load pays $2.00. Nothing about the posting was untrue; the arithmetic was just done on half the miles.
That is the single most useful thing this calculator does, and it is the first figure it shows you once you enter a deadhead distance. Everything after it, fuel, cost, profit, is refinement.
Working out your cost per mile
A rate is neither good nor bad on its own. It is only high or low against what the mile costs you, and most operators who cannot say what a load nets could not say what their mile costs either. It is an afternoon of work and it changes how every rate on every board reads afterwards.
Take twelve months and split the costs in two. Fixed costs are the ones that happen whether the truck moves or not: the payment, insurance, permits and registrations, the ELD subscription, accounting, parking, your phone. Variable costs happen because it moved: tyres, maintenance and repairs, tolls, scales, washes, and your own pay if you are honest about paying yourself.
- Add the fixed costs for the year. Divide by the miles you actually drove last year, not the miles you meant to.
- Add the variable costs for the year, excluding fuel. Divide by the same mileage.
- Add the two together. That is the figure to type into the cost-per-mile box above.
- Keep fuel out of it. Fuel moves week to week and the calculator handles it separately from your fuel economy and the price you are actually paying.
What fuel actually takes out of a load
Fuel is the largest variable cost in almost every trucking operation, and it is the one that moves fastest. The calculation is simple enough, total miles divided by your miles per gallon, multiplied by what you pay per gallon, but two inputs are worth being careful with.
Use your real fuel economy, loaded, not the figure the truck was sold on. And use the price you will actually pay at the pumps you actually use, including whatever discount you have, rather than the national average. Both errors push in the same direction, which is the direction that makes a load look better than it is.
Reading the result
Once every box is filled the calculator gives you a break-even figure for the specific run, fuel plus your other costs across every mile, loaded and empty. That figure is the only thing you actually need to negotiate against. Above it you are earning; below it you are paying to move somebody else's freight, and doing it at volume does not fix it.
What the calculator will not do is tell you to refuse the load. A cheap load out of a dead market into somewhere with freight is sometimes the right call, and only you know whether that is the situation. Nor does it invent a market figure, for what the lane has actually been paying, the lane estimate above answers that separately, from rates posted on this board, and it shows you how many loads are behind the number so you can judge it yourself.
For what different equipment types tend to earn and why, freight rates per mile by equipment type goes through it honestly. For cutting the empty half of the problem rather than measuring it, finding a backhaul before you unload is the one to read.
Every load on our board shows its rate before you call, so the number goes straight into the box above.
See The Board FreeRate Per Mile, Common Questions
How do you calculate rate per mile?
Divide the total pay for the load by the miles. The number worth having divides it by every mile you drive, including the empty ones to reach the pickup, a $900 load over 300 loaded miles is $3.00 a mile, but with 150 miles of deadhead in front of it, it is $2.00.
Should deadhead miles be included in rate per mile?
For deciding whether to take a load, yes. Deadhead miles cost the same fuel, tyres and hours as loaded miles and earn nothing, so a rate per mile that ignores them is not the rate you are being paid. Quote per loaded mile if that is the industry convention you are negotiating in, but decide on the all-miles figure.
What is a good rate per mile for a truck?
There is no single answer and anyone who gives you one is guessing. It depends on your equipment, your lane, the season and above all your own cost per mile, a rate that is profitable for a paid-off truck run from home is a loss for a truck on a five-year note. Work out your cost per mile first; the market figure is only meaningful against it.
How do I work out my cost per mile?
Add twelve months of every cost the truck creates, payment, insurance, permits, maintenance, tyres, tolls, parking, phone, accounting, your own pay, and divide by the miles you actually drove, not the miles you hoped to. Keep fuel separate, because fuel changes weekly and everything else does not.
Does the calculator store what I enter?
No. The arithmetic runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere. There is no account, no login and nothing saved. The lane estimate lower down is different, it asks the board a question, so the lane and equipment you pick are in the page address, which is what makes the result shareable.
How accurate is the market rate estimate?
It is an estimate, and it is shown as a range for that reason. Where this board has posted 10 or more loads on your lane in the last 30 days, the range is the 25th to 75th percentile of what those loads actually paid, half of real freight on that lane fell inside it. Where it has not, the range comes from published national spot rates adjusted for your trip distance and the current diesel price, and the page tells you which of the two you are looking at.
Where do the numbers come from?
Two places, both stated on every result. Posted rates come from loads on this board over a rolling 30 days, with the number of loads printed beside the figure. Diesel comes from the US Energy Information Administration's weekly on-highway survey, national, by PADD district, and for the nine states EIA publishes separately.
Why a range instead of one number?
Because one number implies a precision nobody in this industry has. The same lane, the same trailer and the same week can differ by fifty cents a mile on timing alone. A single figure would be wrong more often than it was right, and one bad call is enough to make a carrier stop trusting the whole tool.
Why is there no estimate for cargo vans and sprinters?
No public index prices small-vehicle freight, so there is no honest formula to fall back on, and rather than borrow a dry van's number, the lane estimate says it has nothing. A van lane gets a figure as soon as this board has posted 10 loads on it, which is exactly when the figure becomes real.
Do I need an account to see what a lane pays?
No. The lane estimate is open to everyone, with no signup and no limit. A free carrier account adds it to every load on the board, beside the rate the broker actually posted.