Ask ten owner-operators what their cost per mile is and you'll get three real answers, five guesses, and two rate-per-mile numbers that aren't costs at all. That's a problem, because every negotiation you'll ever have comes down to one comparison: the rate on the screen versus the number it costs you to turn the wheels. If you don't know the second number, you're negotiating blind.
Here's the ten-minute version. Grab last month's bank statement and a fuel receipt, and run it once. Then run it again every quarter, because the number moves. (And if you'd rather have this math run itself on every load you look at, that's exactly what we're building — get on the Haitruck waitlist.)
Step 1: Add up your fixed costs
Fixed costs hit whether the truck moves or not. Pull the real monthly figures — not what you remember signing for:
- Truck and trailer payment: say $2,500
- Insurance (liability, cargo, physical damage): $1,200
- Plates, permits, HVUT spread monthly: $300
- Parking, ELD, phone, load board subscriptions: $400
That's $4,400 a month before you load a single pallet. If you run 9,000 miles a month, fixed costs alone are:
$4,400 ÷ 9,000 miles = $0.49 per mile
Notice what that means: run 7,000 miles instead of 9,000 and the same bills cost you $0.63 a mile. Sitting still is the most expensive thing your truck does.
Step 2: Price your variable costs per mile
These scale with the odometer:
- Fuel: at 6.5 mpg and $4.00 a gallon, that's $4.00 ÷ 6.5 = $0.62 per mile
- Maintenance and repairs: budget $0.15 per mile — if your truck is out of warranty, this is not optional, it's just a repair you haven't met yet
- Tires: a full set every 150,000 miles works out to roughly $0.05 per mile
Variable total: $0.82 per mile.
Step 3: Pay yourself like a cost
The most common mistake in this math: treating your own pay as "whatever's left." Your labor is a cost of the business. If your household needs $6,300 a month to run, that's:
$6,300 ÷ 9,000 miles = $0.70 per mile
Step 4: Add it up — that's your break-even
| Line | Per mile |
|---|---|
| Fixed costs | $0.49 |
| Fuel, maintenance, tires | $0.82 |
| Your pay | $0.70 |
| Break-even | $2.01 |
At these numbers, a $2.10 load isn't a payday — it's nine cents a mile of margin, and one 90-minute detention wipes it out. A $1.85 load isn't "keeping the truck moving," it's paying a broker sixteen cents a mile for the privilege of driving.
What to do with the number
- Make it your floor, not your target. Break-even plus 15–20% is where quoting starts. Below break-even is a no unless the reposition math on the next load rescues it.
- Run it against all miles. Divide by loaded plus deadhead miles when you evaluate a load — a $2.40 load with 150 deadhead miles can land under your floor.
- Recheck quarterly. Fuel moved? Insurance renewed? Miles dropped? Your break-even moved with them. A number from last winter is a rumor, not a floor.
- Stop doing it by hand eventually. Haitruck will hold your break-even and score every load card against it, deadhead included — join the waitlist at haitruck.us/join-waitlist.
Most of the bad loads that wreck a month were visible in this math before the rate confirmation was ever signed. Ten minutes, once a quarter — that's the whole discipline.
We're building this straight into Haitruck: your break-even, run against every load card automatically, deadhead included. Join the waitlist at haitruck.us/join-waitlist to get it first.