Load profitability calculator: true profit, RPM and profit per hour

How it's calculated

Use it as a trucking load profit calculator for any single trip. It follows one load from the moment you're dispatched until the trailer is empty:

• Revenue = rate con total + extra stops × pay per stop.
• Total miles = loaded miles + deadhead to the pickup.
• Fuel = total miles ÷ MPG × diesel price.
• Other running costs = total miles × your other cost per mile.
• Dispatch fee = revenue × fee %, if you use one.
• Net = revenue − fuel − tolls − other running costs − dispatch fee.
• True (all-in) RPM = revenue ÷ total miles. Loaded RPM = revenue ÷ loaded miles.
• Profit per hour = net ÷ hours from dispatch to empty.

The diesel default is the US average on-highway price for the week of the latest EIA update 453213. Change it to what you'll actually pay on this route. The MPG and other cost per mile defaults are example values only; your own numbers make the result real.

A worked example: the bigger rate that pays less

EXAMPLE: you're empty and have two offers. Load A pays $2,200 for 850 loaded miles, 120 miles from you. Load B pays $2,450 for 870 loaded miles, but the pickup is 310 miles away, the route has $45 in tolls, and the appointment times stretch it to 31 hours. Same truck, 6.5 MPG, diesel at $6.20, $0.45 a mile in other running costs.

Load B pays $250 more and still nets $90 less. Its loaded RPM is even higher than Load A's, but the extra 190 empty miles, the tolls and the long day pull its profit per hour down to $24.15. If the broker on Load B wants the truck, the counter is about the deadhead and the time, not the headline rate.

Reading the result

Net

Net here means what the load leaves after the costs you entered. If you set other cost per mile to zero, it's only the margin over fuel and tolls, which flatters every load. Put your real cost per mile in, including fixed costs, and a positive net means the load pays its share of the truck.

True RPM vs loaded RPM

A big gap between the two means deadhead is eating the load. The calculator flags it when empty miles pass a fifth of the trip. That doesn't make the load bad, especially if it moves you toward a better market, but it should change what you ask for.

Profit per hour

Loads that wait for hours at a dock can look fine per mile and poor per hour. Count the full time from dispatch to empty, including loading and waiting, and compare loads on this line when your hours of service are the tight resource.

Costs people forget

• The trip back. If the delivery lands you somewhere with weak outbound freight, the next deadhead belongs partly to this load.
• Factoring fees. If you factor, add the factoring percentage to the dispatch fee field to see the net after both.
• Lumpers paid upfront. They come back as reimbursements, but late; make sure the rate con says how.
• Idle reefer or heater fuel on long waits, which the MPG figure doesn't capture.

When a thin load still makes sense

Not every load has to be your best one. A load with a weak net can still be the right call when it:

• moves the truck into a market with strong outbound freight for the next run;
• gets you home on time, when the alternative is a day sitting empty;
• starts a relationship with a broker that has repeat freight on a lane you want;
• fills a gap between two better loads that are already booked.

In each case, run the next load too. If the pair together clears your numbers, the thin one was a good trade. If you only take it because nothing else came up, that's worth knowing as well, because a week of those is how a truck runs hard and still loses money.

Set your floor before the phone rings

The best use of this calculator is before you're talking to a broker. Work out the lowest all-in RPM and profit per hour you'll accept on your usual lanes, write them down, and say no to anything below them unless one of the reasons above applies. Brokers respect a carrier who knows its numbers, and a floor stops you from talking yourself into a load at the end of a long day.

Your inputs are saved in this browser and in the page address, so you can bookmark the page with your truck's numbers and only change the rate and miles for each new offer.

Next steps

The other cost per mile field is only as good as your numbers; build them in the trucking cost per mile calculator. For fuel on a specific route, use the trip fuel cost calculator. If you'd like the math done before offers reach you, see how our desk handles rate negotiation and dispatch for owner-operators, browse all trucking tools, or apply.