How the truck load profit calculator works
It works out what a single trip adds to your business. Revenue is the rate plus pay for any extra stops. Trip costs are the things that only happen because you take this load: fuel for every mile including the run to the pickup, tolls, and running costs like maintenance and tires per mile. If you tick the dispatch fee, our percentage comes off the revenue too.
- Revenue = rate + extra stops × pay per stop
- Fuel = (loaded + deadhead miles) ÷ MPG × diesel price
- Trip profit = revenue − fuel − running costs − tolls − dispatch fee
- True RPM = revenue ÷ all miles
- Trip time = miles ÷ average speed + dock time + time at extra stops
- Profit per hour = trip profit ÷ trip time
A worked example
A dry van load pays $2,000 for 650 loaded miles, with a 50-mile deadhead. Diesel is $3.90, the truck gets 6.5 MPG, other running costs are 25 cents a mile, and loading and unloading take 4 hours in total.
- Trip profit
- $1,405
- True RPM
- $2.86
- Profit per mile
- $2.01
- Profit per hour
- $78
Now add two extra stops at $75 each and an hour at each: revenue rises to $2,150 and profit to $1,555, but the trip takes 20 hours instead of 18. Profit per hour stays at about $78, so the stops paid for their time, just. At $50 a stop it would drop to about $75.
Reading your result
Trip profit has to cover your fixed costs and your pay. A simple check: divide your monthly fixed costs and pay by the hours you work in a month. If this load's profit per hour beats that number, it's carrying its share. If it doesn't, counter, look for a better reload to pair it with, or pass.
Watch the bar under the result. When fuel and running costs eat most of the revenue, the load is too cheap for its miles. When the dispatch fee looks large next to the profit, the problem is the rate, not the fee: a 5% fee on a load that barely covers fuel was never going to work.
Where loads lose money
- Long deadhead to a pickup that pays well only per loaded mile.
- Slow docks that turn a good per-mile load into a poor per-hour one.
- Extra stops added without stop pay on the rate con.
- Deliveries into areas with nothing coming out, leaving an expensive empty run home.
- For reefers, a rejected load at the receiver. Our guide to reefer load rejections covers how to avoid them.
Judge the round trip, not just the load
A single load rarely tells the whole story. A cheap load into a busy freight market can be worth it if a strong reload waits there; a well-paying load into a dead market can cost you a day and an empty run home. Run both legs through the calculator and add the profits. If the pair beats two average loads, the cheap leg was the right call. This is how we plan loops for the carriers we dispatch: the reload is part of the decision before you accept the first load.
Profit by truck type
Change the equipment and the running costs to match your truck. A reefer should include unit fuel and maintenance in the per-mile running costs. A flatbed load may need extra time for tarping and securement in the dock hours. A 26 ft box truck usually has better fuel economy but shorter, multi-stop loads, where profit per hour often tells you more than profit per mile. Hotshots run lighter and cheaper, but short loads make deadhead weigh more.
Use it on every offer
The calculator takes a minute. On a desk running dozens of offers a day, that minute is what separates a good week from a busy one. Our dispatchers run this kind of check on every load before it reaches you, against your floor, and you still say yes or no. Our fee is 5% for one truck with authority older than 6 months, 7% for new authorities, 26 ft box trucks and hotshots. See pricing.