Cost per mile is the number that turns a freight rate into a business decision. A load can look attractive on gross revenue and still lose money once fuel, equipment payments, insurance, maintenance, tires, tolls, business fees and unpaid miles are included.
The latest industry benchmark is useful context, but it is not your answer. The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) reported that the industry-average cost to operate a truck in 2025 was $2.336 per mile, up 3.4% from 2024 and the highest level in the history of its report. Excluding fuel, the benchmark was $1.854 per mile. Those figures come from fleet operations and should be treated as a reference point, not a rate floor for every owner-operator.
Why 2026 makes old cost-per-mile assumptions risky
Fuel demonstrates the problem with using a static industry average. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported a national on-highway diesel price of $6.382 per gallon for the week of September 28, 2026. At 6.5 MPG, fuel alone works out to roughly $0.98 per mile.
That does not mean every truck now costs the same amount to operate. It means a carrier using a fuel assumption from several months ago can materially understate current trip cost. Diesel should therefore be treated as a live input rather than a permanent number in a spreadsheet.
The basic cost-per-mile formula
For a practical carrier model, separate expenses into three groups:
1. Fixed monthly costs
- Truck payment
- Trailer payment
- Liability, cargo, physical-damage and other insurance
- ELD, software and communications
- Permits, plates and registration
- Parking, accounting and administrative overhead
Convert fixed monthly costs to a per-mile amount:
Fixed CPM = Total Monthly Fixed Costs ÷ Expected Monthly Miles
If fixed expenses are $5,400 per month and the truck runs 10,000 total miles, fixed cost is $0.54 per mile. If the same truck only runs 7,000 miles, fixed cost rises to about $0.77 per mile even though the monthly bills did not change.
2. Variable costs per mile
These rise as the truck runs more miles. OOIDA’s cost-of-operations guidance specifically treats fuel, tires and maintenance as variable costs and recommends separating fixed and variable expenses when calculating true operating cost.
Common variable inputs include:
- Fuel
- Maintenance reserve
- Tire reserve
- DEF and other consumables
- Tolls
- Lumper and loading/unloading charges
- Other mileage-dependent expenses
Fuel cost per mile is:
Fuel CPM = Diesel Price ÷ Truck MPG
Using the September 28, 2026 EIA national diesel price of $6.382 and 6.5 MPG:
$6.382 ÷ 6.5 = about $0.98 per mile
3. Revenue-based business fees
Some expenses do not behave like a traditional per-mile cost. Dispatch fees, factoring fees and some driver compensation arrangements are often percentages of gross revenue. These should be calculated from the actual load revenue, not hidden inside a fixed CPM assumption.
For example, a 5% dispatch fee and 2.5% factoring fee consume 7.5% of gross revenue. On a $2,600 load, that equals $195 before considering fuel, fixed costs, maintenance or other trip expenses.
What the ATRI benchmark tells an owner-operator
ATRI’s 2026 update is valuable because it shows the direction of cost pressure. In 2025, the largest percentage increases were in tolls, repair and maintenance, driver benefits and tires. Repair and maintenance rose 8.6%, tolls 13.2% and tires 6.4%.
The important lesson is not to copy the $2.336 figure into your calculator. ATRI’s sample includes fleet cost structures, including driver wages and benefits. A solo owner-operator must decide how to account for owner compensation separately from the truck’s operating expenses.
Use the benchmark to ask a better question: Which of my own cost categories are materially above or below industry conditions, and why?
A practical owner-operator CPM workflow
- Add every recurring monthly bill. Do not omit annual expenses; convert them to monthly equivalents.
- Use total miles, not only loaded miles, when allocating operating costs. The truck still consumes fuel, tires and maintenance capacity while empty.
- Update diesel regularly. A sharp fuel move can change load economics within days.
- Create realistic maintenance and tire reserves. A month without a repair bill does not mean repairs cost zero.
- Separate percentage fees. Dispatch and factoring should move with gross revenue.
- Include owner compensation in the business plan. A truck that covers expenses but never pays the owner is not a healthy operation.
Cost per mile is not the same as your minimum loaded rate
This is where many load decisions go wrong. If your truck costs $1.90 for every mile it moves, you cannot simply demand $1.90 per loaded mile and call that break-even. Deadhead and repositioning miles still cost money.
Your rate decision should therefore consider all-mile revenue:
All-Mile RPM = Gross Load Revenue ÷ (Loaded Miles + Deadhead Miles)
The longer the deadhead, the larger the gap between the rate shown on the load and the revenue your truck actually earns per mile moved.
Use benchmarks for context, not for booking decisions
Industry data is useful for checking whether your assumptions are realistic. Booking decisions should still be based on your truck, your financing, your insurance, your MPG, your maintenance history and the actual empty miles attached to the load.
The APR Load Decision Engine is built around that principle: save your carrier operating profile once, then evaluate each proposed load using your own fixed costs, fuel price, MPG, reserves, business fees and deadhead.
Sources and methodology
- American Transportation Research Institute — 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking summary
- U.S. Energy Information Administration — Weekly U.S. On-Highway Diesel Fuel Prices
- OOIDA — Cost Per Mile guidance and calculator
- OOIDA — Understanding the Cost of Operations
Data note: ATRI’s 2026 report summarizes 2025 operating costs. EIA diesel pricing cited above is dated September 28, 2026. The worked examples are illustrative and are not a promise of profitability or a substitute for accounting, tax or legal advice.