Enter your trip and your truck's real costs. Get your cost per mile, break-even rate, and a target rate with your profit built in — before you post or negotiate.
Fuel cost = total miles ÷ your MPG × your fuel price. Your break-even is fuel plus tolls, trip expenses, and your fixed cost per mile across every mile you'll drive — including deadhead, because the empty miles cost the same fuel. The target rate adds your chosen profit margin on top. If an offered rate is below break-even, you are paying to work.
There is no single correct number — it depends on your truck, not the market. Your floor is your break-even: fuel, tolls, trip expenses, and your fixed cost per mile spread across every mile including deadhead. Your asking rate is that floor plus the margin you need. Two drivers hauling the same load can have break-evens that differ by $0.40 a mile, which is why an average rate from a load board tells you very little about whether you should take it.
Add your fixed costs for the month — truck payment, insurance, permits, and what you set aside for maintenance and tires — and divide by the miles you actually run in a month. That's your fixed cost per mile. Add fuel cost per mile (fuel price ÷ MPG) and you have your operating cost per mile. Most owner-operators underestimate this because they forget the maintenance reserve until something breaks.
Yes. Empty miles burn the same fuel and put the same wear on the truck, but earn nothing. A 400-mile load with 100 miles of deadhead is a 500-mile job that pays for 400. Leaving deadhead out is the most common reason a load looks profitable on paper and isn't.
That's your decision, not an industry constant. The margin has to cover the things break-even doesn't: your own pay, downtime between loads, and money set aside for the repair you can't predict. This calculator defaults to 20% because it's a common starting point, but the number that matters is the one that keeps your truck running next year.
Yes — no signup, no card, no email. It runs entirely in your browser and we don't store the numbers you enter. Relocation Manager USA makes money from monthly subscriptions to the marketplace, and takes no commission on any load. The calculator is useful on its own and you're welcome to use it without ever creating an account.