Every price starts with what the work costs. Get that number right and the rest of the quote has something solid under it. Here it is in four steps, with example numbers you can swap for your own.
1. Know your cost per mile
Your cost per mile is everything the truck costs over a period, divided by every mile it ran in that period, loaded and empty. A month is a good period to use.
Example month
| Truck payment | $2,500 |
| Insurance | $1,200 |
| Permits, plates, ELD and phone | $300 |
| Office and other overhead | $800 |
| Maintenance and tires | $1,600 |
| Fuel: 10,000 miles at 6.5 mpg and $6.28 a gallon | $9,662 |
| Driver pay: 10,000 miles at $0.65 a mile | $6,500 |
| Total for the month | $22,562 |
| Cost per mile (divided by 10,000 miles) | $2.26 |
Example numbers, not averages. Yours depend on the equipment, the lanes, insurance and how the truck is paid for.
About $0.48 of that example is fixed: the payment, insurance, permits and office cost the same whether the truck runs or sits. The rest moves with every mile. That split matters, because a parked truck still costs its fixed share every day.
2. Add up what this load costs to run
Next, work out the costs that come with this load: the driver's pay and the fuel for every mile of the trip, including the empty miles to the pickup.
Example load
| Empty miles to the pickup | 50 |
| Loaded miles | 450 |
| Driver pay: 500 miles at $0.65 a mile | $325 |
| Fuel: 500 miles at 6.5 mpg and $6.28 a gallon | $483 |
| Driver and fuel for this load | $808 |
Time counts too. If the driver is paid by the hour, a three-hour live unload at $28 an hour adds $84 to the cost. On a short run, time at the dock can be a big part of the price, which is why short runs usually pay more per mile.
3. Price above your full cost
Driver and fuel aren't the whole cost. The load also has to carry its share of the truck payment, insurance and everything else in your cost per mile. In the example, 500 miles at $2.26 is about $1,130. That's the line where this load breaks even.
Notice what the empty miles do. Spread over the 450 loaded miles, $1,130 is about $2.51 per loaded mile. If you quote per loaded mile, the empty miles have to be inside that number.
Anything above the break-even line is profit, and the market decides how much room there is.
4. Adjust for timing and the market
On any lane, two things tend to move a price the most:
- The pickup date. A load that has to move today or tomorrow usually pays more than one booked a week ahead, because there are fewer trucks to choose from on short notice.
- The market. When trucks are scarce and freight is plentiful, rates rise. When there are more trucks than loads, rates soften.
The free Spot Rate Freight Pricing Calculator does this part for you. It starts from the load's driver pay and fuel, adjusts for the pickup date and current truckload market conditions, and suggests one price, fuel included. It also shows what the same load would cost booked a week or more ahead.
Rate per mile or a flat price?
Rate per mile is the price divided by the miles. It's useful for comparing loads, but it can mislead on short runs: a 60-mile load with two hours at each end has the same dock time as a 600-mile load, spread over a tenth of the miles. Price the whole job first, then look at the rate per mile.
Some costs sit outside the linehaul and are added on top: detention, lumper fees, tolls, permits and other accessorials.
Fuel surcharges
Contract freight often quotes a linehaul rate plus a fuel surcharge that resets each week with the U.S. average diesel price from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, often called the DOE price. A common formula takes this week's diesel price, subtracts a base price set in the contract, and divides by miles per gallon to get a surcharge per mile.
For example, with diesel at $6.28, a $1.25 base and 6.0 miles per gallon: $6.28 minus $1.25 is $5.03, and $5.03 divided by 6.0 is about $0.84 a mile. Spot loads are usually quoted all-in, with fuel inside the price, which is how the calculator prices them.
For shippers checking a quote
A fair quote covers the carrier's driver and fuel for the trip, its share of the truck and overhead, and a margin that keeps the carrier in business and showing up. Short notice, long waits at the dock, empty miles to reach your freight and a tight market all tend to raise a quote. Booking ahead and keeping dock times short usually bring it down.
To see the cost side, enter the lane in the calculator. The breakdown shows what the trip costs a carrier in driver pay and fuel.
Keep it current
Diesel changes every week, and so does your cost per mile. A good habit: recheck your cost per mile each month, and any time insurance, equipment or pay rates change.