Two loads are on the board. One pays $2.90 a mile over 400 miles. The other pays $2.35 a mile over 620. The first looks obviously better, and on a load board that is the whole comparison most people make.
Now add what the board does not show you. The $2.90 load is 150 miles away; the $2.35 load starts where you deliver.
Restating both loads
| Load A | Load B | |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised | $2.90/mi | $2.35/mi |
| Loaded miles | 400 | 620 |
| Deadhead | 150 | 0 |
| Total miles turned | 550 | 620 |
| Gross revenue | $1,160 | $1,457 |
| Rate per mile turned | $2.11 | $2.35 |
Load B is now ahead on the measure that matters, and it has not even had fuel deducted yet — where the extra 70 miles cost less than the 150 empty ones did.
What else belongs on the load
- Fuel for every mile, loaded and empty, at your measured economy rather than the brochure figure
- Dispatch or factoring fees, which come off the top
- Tolls on the actual route, not the shortest one
- Lumpers you will not be reimbursed for
- The share of fixed cost the trip consumed — the truck payment accrues on the days you are running it
Why this changes decisions
Run a month of loads through this and the ranking usually shifts in a consistent direction. Long high-rate runs into congested metros fall, because the miles are slow and the deadhead out is often long. Short dense lanes with quick turns rise, because the truck completes more of them per week.
The practical output is not a spreadsheet. It is a floor: you learn which brokers, lanes and load shapes clear your cost reliably, and you stop taking the ones that only look good in the posting.
You can work a single load through this by hand with the profit-per-load calculator. Doing it for every load, every week, by hand, is where it falls apart — which is the argument for having something else keep the record.