How rate per mile really breaks down by trailer, and why a national average is the wrong number to price your next load against.
By One Load Board5 min read1,046 words
The short version
Rate per mile is the all-in rate for a load divided by every mile you drive to complete it, including the empty ones. In July 2026 DAT put spot linehaul at $2.90 for flatbed, $2.75 for reefer and $2.39 for dry van. ATRI put the average cost of running a truck at $2.336 a mile in 2025, or $1.854 without fuel. The gap between those two numbers, across all your miles rather than the loaded ones, is the whole business.
Almost every argument about rate per mile comes from two people dividing by different numbers. One is using loaded miles, the other is including the empty miles driven to the pickup. The second figure is the one that pays your bills.
This page sets out how the number is built, what it looks like by equipment type right now, and how to price the load in front of you against your own costs rather than against a national average made of lanes you are not running.
What are freight rates per mile by truck type?
In July 2026, DAT put spot linehaul rates at $2.90 per mile for flatbed, $2.75 for reefer and $2.39 for dry van. With the fuel surcharge included those become $3.64, $3.42 and $3.01. Linehaul is the number to compare against your own costs, because a fuel surcharge is reimbursement rather than margin.
Small vehicles are missing from that table on purpose. Cargo van, sprinter and box truck freight is expedite work priced on urgency rather than distance, so a short run with a tight window can pay more than a long one, and a per-mile average describes the segment badly.
Loaded miles, total miles, and why the gap matters
A $1,500 load running 1,000 loaded miles is $1.50 a mile on the brochure. If you drove 150 empty miles to reach the shipper, you drove 1,150 miles for that $1,500, and the real figure is $1.30. That is a 13% difference, and it is the difference between a good week and a break-even one.
Loaded rate per mile, rate divided by loaded miles. Useful for comparing one load’s freight against another’s.
All-in rate per mile, rate divided by loaded plus deadhead miles. The number that decides whether to take it.
Deadhead percentage, empty miles divided by total miles. Track it monthly; it is the cheapest thing on this page to improve.
What does it cost to run a truck per mile?
ATRI put the average marginal cost of running a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4% and the highest it has recorded. Strip the fuel out and it is $1.854. Driver wages and benefits are inside that figure at roughly $1.03 a mile, so an owner-operator’s break-even sits lower, and so does what they take home.
That is an industry average across fleets of every size, which makes it a useful benchmark and a bad substitute for your own number. Work yours out from a real month, and the rate calculator will do the arithmetic if you would rather not keep a spreadsheet.
Add up fixed costs. Truck and trailer payments, insurance, permits and registrations, accounting, phone, parking. These do not change with miles.
Add up variable costs. Fuel, tyres, maintenance and repairs, tolls, reefer fuel or securement consumables, lumpers you were not reimbursed for.
Divide the total by the miles you actually ran. All of them, loaded and empty. That is your cost per mile.
Add what you need to take home. Your pay, a tax reserve, and something for the next major repair. That gives you the number below which a load costs you money to haul.
What is inside the rate
On the spot market you are usually quoted one all-in number and everything below is already inside it. On contract freight the pieces are often shown separately, which is why contract and spot rates cannot be compared line for line.
Linehaul, the base rate for moving the freight.
Fuel surcharge, a per-mile adjustment that tracks diesel prices. On spot loads it is normally folded into the all-in rate; if a confirmation shows it separately, add it before you divide.
Accessorials, detention, layover, tarp pay, extra stops, driver assist, lumper reimbursement. These are earned, and they are the ones most often left off a confirmation.
What moves rates, by equipment type
Dry van, the deepest freight pool and the most capacity chasing it, so rates sit lowest and move mostly with retail and manufacturing volume.
Reefer, driven by growing seasons. Produce out of the major growing regions in spring and summer pulls capacity in and lifts rates on those lanes sharply, then releases them.
Flatbed and open deck, tracks construction, steel and industrial output, and is strongest from spring through autumn.
Power only and hotshot, priced against the equipment you are not supplying, and highly local. A market with dropped trailers waiting is a different rate from one without, which is why power only loads and hotshot loads are worth watching on your own lanes rather than against a national figure.
Those are segment averages, and a segment average is not a thing anybody can act on. What dry van is paying this week is on the dry van board and what flatbed is paying is on the flatbed board, and on a given Tuesday the gap between those two is usually wider than the gap described in the list above.
On top of all of that sits lane balance. A market that ships far more than it receives pays well going out and badly coming in, and the reverse is true of a backhaul market. Two identical trucks 300 miles apart can see completely different numbers on the same day.
Pricing the load in front of you
Total the all-in rate including accessorials you are confident of collecting, add the deadhead to the loaded miles, divide, and compare against your break-even. Then ask the question that decides most of the margin: what is posted out of the delivery market?
A strong rate into a market with nothing coming out is often worse than an ordinary rate into a market that reloads you the same day. Deadhead is where that gets decided.
The bottom lineA national average tells you which segment is paying. Your cost per mile tells you which load to take. Only one of those is a number about your business.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good freight rate per mile?
There is no single figure, because it depends on your cost per mile. Take the all-in rate, divide it by loaded plus deadhead miles, and compare that against what a mile costs you to run. ATRI put the industry average marginal cost at $2.336 per mile in 2025, or $1.854 excluding fuel, which is a useful benchmark but not your number.
Should I use loaded miles or total miles?
Total miles, when you are deciding whether to take a load. The rate pays for loaded miles but your costs run on all of them, so a load with 150 miles of deadhead in front of it is worth measurably less than the same rate with none.
Does the fuel surcharge count as part of the rate?
It counts toward what you are paid, but it is reimbursement rather than margin. Compare linehaul against your non-fuel cost per mile, and the fuel surcharge against your fuel spend, or you will flatter one and hide the other.
Why are spot and contract rates different?
Contract rates are agreed in advance for volume over a period and tend to move more slowly, while spot rates are set load by load and react to capacity in that market that week. They also break out fuel and accessorials differently, so the two cannot be compared line for line.
How often do freight rates change?
Continuously, by lane. National averages move month to month, but the number that matters to you is what is posting on your own lanes today, which can move within a week on produce season, weather or a plant shutdown.
Sources
Every figure in this article is linked in place. The full list, for anyone who wants to check the working.
