Free tool

Load profit calculator

What did that load actually leave you? Enter the rate, the miles including the empty ones, and the costs that moved with the load.

Revenue
The agreed rate before extras.
Detention, lumper reimbursed, stop-off. Optional.
Miles
To the pickup and after delivery.
Costs that moved with this load
What you paid, not a national average.
Real average, loaded and empty.
Dollars per mile, or a percent if you chose percent.
Tires, maintenance, per-mile wear.
Optional: scale it to a month
Turns the result into a monthly number. Leave blank to skip.

Result

Runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere. Example numbers are invented (EXAMPLE VALUES). This is a calculator, not financial, tax or legal advice.

The formulas

all miles = loaded + empty fuel = all miles / mpg x price per gallon driver = pay per mile x miles (or percent x line haul) profit = revenue - fuel - driver - other per mile x all miles - per-load costs rate per loaded mile = revenue / loaded miles rate per all mile = revenue / all miles

Each cost line is rounded to the cent and the total adds the rounded lines, so what you see always adds up.

What the result leaves out

Fixed overhead: truck payments, insurance, permits, office costs. Put them in "Tolls, lumper, other per load" as a share of a typical load, or compare the profit per all mile with your cost per mile.

Reading the three rates

  • Rate per loaded mile is what the broker's number looks like on the rate confirmation.
  • Rate per all mile is what the truck earned for every mile it drove. It is always lower when there are empty miles.
  • Profit per all mile is what is left of that after the costs you entered.

If the first number looks fine and the last one is thin, the empty miles or the dock time are usually why. Check the deadhead tool and the detention calculator.

Questions

What fuel price should I use?

What you paid on that trip. A weekly national average, like the EIA snapshot, is context only and is not what a fleet pays with cards and discounts.

My driver is paid by the hour or a day rate.

Convert it for this load into a dollar amount and put it in "Tolls, lumper, other per load", or enter it as a percent of line haul if that is a fair match.

Formula table

Formulas used
QuantityFormulaNote
Revenueline haul + accessorialsWhat the paperwork says you are paid.
Fuel(loaded + empty miles) / mpg x price per gallonEmpty miles burn fuel too.
Driver payper mile x miles, or % of line haulPick the basis that matches how you pay.
Other costall miles x other cost per mileTires, maintenance, reserve.
Profitrevenue - all costsBefore fixed overhead unless you add it per load.

Worked example (invented numbers)

Line haul $1,850, 612 loaded and 83 empty miles, diesel $6.20 at 6.8 mpg, driver pay $0.62 per loaded mile, $0.22 other cost per mile and $85 of tolls and other. Fuel $633.68, driver $379.44, other $152.90, tolls $85.00. Cost $1,251.02, profit $598.98, or $0.862 per mile driven.

What this means for you

A load can look good per loaded mile and still be thin per mile driven, because the empty miles share the bill. The chart shows how much of the revenue each cost line eats. A negative profit shows up in red and the per-month number tells you what a habit of loads like it costs.

Related tools

Check my last 20 loads for this

See what your last 20 loads show.

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