How to calculate cost per mile for a trucking company (with example)

With one truck, cost per mile is one division. With three or eight trucks it gets more interesting, because the trucks aren’t the same: one is paid off, one has a big payment, one runs fewer miles because of a new driver. A single fleet average hides all of that. This guide shows how to calculate cost per mile for a trucking company truck by truck, with a worked example for a three-truck fleet. If you run one truck, the one-truck cost per mile guide is the shorter version.

The formula

Cost per mile = total costs for a period ÷ total miles in the same period. All miles, loaded and empty. The work is in deciding which costs belong to which truck. Split them three ways:

1. Direct fixed costs that belong to one truck: its payment, its trailer, its insurance if your policy prices it per unit. Charge each to its own truck and divide by that truck’s miles.
2. Shared overhead that the company pays once: dispatch and office salaries, your own salary if you don’t drive, software, the accountant, the yard, and yearly items like UCR, IRP and Form 2290 averaged per month. Add it up and divide by the miles of the whole fleet. Each truck carries overhead in proportion to the miles it runs.
3. Variable costs per mile for each truck: its fuel (from its own MPG), driver pay, a maintenance reserve that reflects its age, tires and tolls.

Splitting overhead by miles is simple and charges the busiest truck the most, which is usually fair because it earns the most. Splitting evenly per truck is the other option. Pick one and stay with it, or month-to-month comparisons stop meaning anything.

Worked example: three trucks

This is an example with invented round numbers, chosen to show the method. None of them are averages or benchmarks; use your own bank and fuel card statements.

Step 1: direct fixed costs per truck (monthly)