The numbers this industry actually runs on
We don't ask you to trust vibes. Here's the audited state of trucking economics, the formula ProfitHaul computes, and why per-mile thinking quietly costs you money.
Costs at records. Margins below zero.
- All-in marginal cost per mile, 2024ATRI, Operational Costs of Trucking, 2025 update$2.260
- Non-fuel cost per mile, highest ever recordedATRI, 2024 data$1.779
- Truckload sector average operating marginATRI, 2024 data−2.3%
- Average empty (deadhead) milesATRI, 2024 data16.7%
- Diesel peak, April 2026EIA weekly retail data$5.643/gal
- Single-week diesel swing seen in 2026EIA / C.H. Robinson market updates$0.96/gal
- Typical dispatch service cut2026 dispatch-rate guides5-10% of gross
- Effective small-carrier factoring cost, all fees in2026 factoring-rate benchmarks3-4.5%
Read those together and the conclusion writes itself: in a business running on negative average margins, the decision about which load to take is the profit margin. Getting it right by a few dollars an hour, a few hundred times a year, is the whole game.
One number, computed the long way
Nothing exotic, just all of it, every time, without getting tired at 5 a.m.
The confidence range is honest about what the model doesn't know yet. It starts wide, on industry baselines, and narrows as your settled loads teach it your truck. How the loop learns →
Two loads walk into a truck stop
Load A brags the better rate. Load B pays for your time. Dock hours, which the posting never mentions, decide it.
- Posted rate$2.40/mi
- 500 mi · gross$1,200
- All-in costs−$610
- Net$590
- Drive 8.0 h + dock 6.0 h14.0 hrs
- Net per hour$42.14
- Posted rate$2.02/mi
- 610 mi · gross$1,232
- All-in costs−$640
- Net$592
- Drive 9.3 h + dock 1.2 h10.5 hrs
- Net per hour$56.38
Load B nets $14.24/hr more, and frees up 3.5 hours to position for tomorrow. Per-mile said take A. Per-hour knew better. Industry benchmarking puts many owner-operators at an effective $20-35 per working hour once dock time is counted; the spread between a good and bad booking decision is routinely bigger than a whole month of subscription software.
Sources
Cost, margin, and deadhead figures: American Transportation Research Institute, An Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, 2025 Update (2024 data). Diesel prices: U.S. Energy Information Administration weekly retail series; market color from C.H. Robinson North America freight updates (June 2026). Dispatch and factoring ranges: published 2025-2026 industry rate guides. Owner-operator population: OOIDA (approximately 350,000-400,000). Competitive whitespace: our own July 2026 sweep of load boards, AI dispatch tools, and profit calculators, adversarially fact-checked, and summarized on the compare page.
Let the math argue for itself
Bring ten of your recent loads to the pilot. We'll run them through the engine and show you what the numbers say you actually earned.
Join the pilot