Profit-per-load calculator
Profit per load is what a single load left behind after every cost attributable to it — fuel for the empty miles as well as the loaded ones, the dispatch fee, tolls, unreimbursed lumpers, and the share of fixed cost the trip consumed.
Last reviewed · by the fleetchart dispatch desk
Net on this load
$1,134
47.3% of the rate survives to the bottom line.
- Rate per loaded mile
- $2.82
- Rate per mile turned
- $2.47
- Fuel
- $567
- Dispatch fee
- $120
- Tolls & other
- $45
- Net after direct costs
- $1,668
- Share of fixed costs
- $534
- Net per mile turned
- $1.170
970 total miles
149.2 gal
How to read this
Rate per mile is a screening tool. It tells you quickly whether a load is worth a closer look. It does not tell you whether taking it makes you money, because it counts only the revenue side and usually only the loaded miles.
Fold in the deadhead and the picture changes. A load advertised at $2.90 a mile over 400 loaded miles that took 150 empty miles to reach is really paying about $2.11 across the 550 miles the truck turned — before a gallon of diesel is counted.
Run a few of your recent loads through this and the ranking usually shifts. Long high-rate runs into congested regions tend to fall. Short dense lanes with quick turns tend to rise.
Questions
- Should I count deadhead miles in profit per load?
- Always. The empty miles to reach a pickup exist only because you took that load, so their fuel and their hours belong to it. Excluding them systematically overstates the loads that are furthest away.
- What is a good profit margin on a load?
- There is no universal figure, because it depends entirely on your fixed-cost base and utilisation. What matters is whether the load clears your own cost per mile with enough left to cover the days it occupied.
- Why include a share of fixed costs in a single load?
- Because those costs accrue during the trip whether or not you attribute them. A load that covers its fuel but not its share of the truck payment is consuming the business slowly.
Terms used here
Stop re-typing these numbers.
A calculator answers the question once. fleetchart reads your rate confirmations and holds your expenses against the loads that caused them, so the answer stays current every week.