When you want to understand how much value you’re getting out of your fleet and your contracts, you need to know your trucking cost per mile. Your variable and fixed costs play a role in your expenses per mile, and you’ll likely want to be more aware of how much you’re spending for every mile your drivers travel. By knowing your expenses at this granular level, you can better understand your primary costs and make more accurate bids for new contracts.
Find out more about what cost per mile calculators for trucking are and why they matter. You might also be interested in learning how to calculate cost per mile and the ways fleet management software can help.
A trucking cost per mile calculation examines your expenses to determine how much it costs to operate and maintain your fleet’s vehicles on a per-mile basis. Typical items involved in calculating cost per mile include fuel, maintenance, driver and non-driver compensation, insurance and variable driving expenses. By figuring out your cost per mile, you have a much more detailed view of what expenses are affecting your bottom line.
When you employ a trucking cost per mile, you can better define your return on investment for every job your fleet handles. Alongside helping you identify your ROI, it enables you to make more accurate bids on the loads you hope to haul. Since trucking companies often operate on thin margins, you need a comprehensive idea of your total cost of ownership to take steps to reduce it.
As you attempt to determine your costs per mile, it’s crucial to understand what factors go into calculating them. Figuring out your costs per mile starts by assessing your expenses. You can place these into two categories — variable costs and fixed costs. Fixed costs refer to expenses that occur regularly without any changes. Primary types of fixed expenses include insurance, taxes and permits.
In contrast, variable costs refer to expenses that fluctuate based on factors like your fleet’s use, efficiency and size. Significant sources of variable expenses include maintenance and fuel, as an area’s gas prices can change without warning, and unexpected repairs can spring up from time to time. Other variable costs can also include tolls, drivers’ wages and replacement parts.
Your trucking company’s cost per mile is expressed as a simple formula:
(Total Fixed Costs + Total Variable Costs) / Total Miles Driven = Cost Per Mile
According to the ATRI’s 2025 Operational Costs of Trucking Report, the average cost of operating a single truck in 2024 was $2.26 per mile. Non-fuel marginal costs made up the bulk of this, at a record $1.779 per mile. Using the OOIDA rate per mile calculator provides a standardized framework for categorizing expenses into fixed and variable expenses for determining per-mile rates.
An important distinction to make is the difference between paid miles and unpaid, or deadhead, miles. Calculating cost per mile only on paid mileage gives you a more-accurate view of true operating cost per revenue-generating mile. Track Your Truck’s fleet tracking platform automates mileage logging with GPS data, which eliminates manual data entry errors.
The ATRI found that the average cost to operate a truck in 2024 was $2.26 per mile. According to the OOIDA Foundation’s 2024 Freight Rate Survey, owner-operator reported costs averaged $2.38 per mile, with dry van operators earning $2.18 per mile and flatbed operators earning $2.97 per mile. In addition, average operating margins fell below 2% in every sector except LTL, and the truckload sector posted a -2.3% average operating margin.
Tracking your company’s actual cost per mile against these industry benchmarks can reveal whether you’re overspending on any specific categories. With Track Your Truck’s reporting and alerts, fleet managers can identify cost outliers in real-time rather than waiting until the end of the quarter to discover overruns.
Major variable costs include fuel, which averages 30% to 40% of overall cost per mile, according to ATRI. The Trucker’s Report estimates average fuel costs exceeding $70,000 per truck. Other variable costs include maintenance and repairs, tires, tolls, and driver wages.
Because fuel is the largest variable cost, idling, aggressive driving, and poor route planning must be avoided whenever possible. Track Your Truck monitors these behaviors so fleet managers can see which ones are of the highest concern and gain the opportunity to address them. Our platform also helps identify vehicles due for service based on actual mileage data to support preventive maintenance activities.
While the equation for calculating your cost per mile is simple, many companies struggle to make reliable calculations. One significant reason for this inaccuracy is a company’s inability to determine its overall variable costs. If you lack a central location for storing your data and the capabilities to record costs, you’ll probably have incorrect information about your variable cost totals, thus leading to imprecise calculations about your trucking costs per mile.
Since correct information about variable and fixed costs is critical to receiving accurate results, your trucking company might want to consider using fleet tracking software. With this solution, trucking companies can keep more accurate records by using devices to track their fleet and place all the gathered data in a centralized platform.
Fleet managers can use the software to track all their trucking costs and analyze them to see where they could improve. Centralized data also helps companies quickly calculate their fixed and variable costs and receive more accurate trucking cost per mile results. Some software programs even allow users to automate many central processes to make the calculation process faster and more accurate.
While it’s critical to calculate your cost per mile, you probably also want to lower your expenses. Besides helping you more easily calculate your expenses, fleet management software makes it easier for you to reduce your overall costs, resulting in a lower cost per mile. Review some of the top ways you can use fleet management software to minimize your total expenses below.
Since accurately calculating your cost per mile can help you plan for the future and get more value from your fleet, you might be interested in fleet management software. At Track Your Truck, we make tracking your expenses easy with our software and GPS tracking devices. Our innovative vehicle tracking system makes it simple for you to spot inefficiencies and excess costs. Reduce your expenses, increase your ROI and get more value for every mile your drivers travel.
Learn more about our fleet management software today. If you have any questions, please free to request a demo or a free quote.
