See the real profit on a load in dollars per day, not just per mile, so you can compare short and long hauls fairly.
Why profit per day beats rate per mile
A 300 mile load at $3.00 per mile and a 1,200 mile load at $2.20 per mile cannot be compared on rate alone, because they tie up the truck for very different amounts of time. This calculator allocates your fixed daily costs (truck payment, insurance, and other overheads divided by working days) to the days the load actually consumes, adds fuel and variable running costs for the miles, and expresses the result as profit per day. That lets you rank loads of any length on a single, fair number.
Setting the inputs
Fixed cost per day is your monthly fixed spend divided by the days you work each month. Non-fuel variable cost covers maintenance, tires and tolls: ATRI's 2026 analysis put average repair and maintenance at 40.4 cents per mile with tires at 5 cents and tolls at 4.3 cents, so around 50 to 80 cents per mile is typical depending on equipment age. Fuel defaults to the current EIA national weekly average diesel price.
Reading the verdict
Profit per day is the number to maximize across a week, not on a single load. Sometimes a cheap repositioning load that sets up two strong days is worth more than the best-paying load on the board today. Use this tool alongside the load boards we compare to sanity-check offers before you accept.
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