Trucker pay & cost calculator
Pick how you actually run: owner-operator cost per mile, 1099 driver in someone else's truck, company driver W-2, percentage-of-load, or fleet owner with drivers. Built for dry van, reefer, fuel, crude, and oilfield alike — real formulas, no login.
Owner-operator cost per mile
| Fixed costs per month | – |
| Fuel per month | – |
| Maintenance + tires per month | – |
| Tolls, IFTA, scales | – |
| Total monthly cost | – |
| Fixed cost per mile | – |
| Variable cost per mile | – |
| Loaded miles (after deadhead) | – |
| Monthly revenue at your rate | – |
Profit shown is before income and self-employment taxes and before your own pay. Your break-even per loaded mile is the floor — any load priced below it costs you money to haul.
1099 driver take-home
You drive someone else's truck — a fleet owner's or a carrier's — and get a 1099 instead of a W-2. The truck, fuel, and repairs aren't your problem, but no taxes are withheld and you owe self-employment tax. Common in fuel, crude, and oilfield hauling.
| Your pay per load | – |
| Gross 1099 income | – |
| Work expenses | – |
| Self-employment tax (15.3%) | – |
| Federal income tax (est.) | – |
| State income tax (est.) | – |
| Take-home | – |
Set aside 25–30% of every settlement for quarterly estimated taxes. Estimates use 2025 federal rules, the standard deduction, and an approximate state rate. Per-diem and other trucking-specific deductions can lower your bill — talk to a tax pro.
Company driver (W-2) take-home
| Annual gross (miles × rate × weeks) | – |
| Social Security + Medicare (7.65%) | – |
| Federal income tax (est.) | – |
| State income tax (est.) | – |
| Annual take-home | – |
Estimates assume the standard deduction and no pre-tax benefits (401k, health insurance premiums), which would lower taxes. Detention, layover, and accessorial pay aren't included — add them to your effective rate if they're a regular part of your settlement.
Percentage-of-load pay
Common in oil & fuel hauling and lease arrangements. Company drivers on percentage typically get 20–35% of load gross; leased owner-operators keep 65–85% of linehaul.
Fuel surcharge formula: (current diesel − $1.25 baseline) ÷ MPG. Whether the FSC is passed through to you depends on your agreement — leased owner-operators usually receive 100% of FSC; percentage company drivers often don't. Check your lease or pay package.
Fleet owner profit per truck
You own trucks leased under a carrier, with 1099 drivers paid a percentage of each load. You collect the truck's revenue and pay the drivers, fuel, and everything else.
| Revenue per truck | – |
| Driver pay | – |
| Fuel | – |
| Truck payment + insurance | – |
| Maintenance & other | – |
| Profit per truck (before your taxes) | – |
Profit shown is business profit before the owner's self-employment and income taxes, and before back-office costs (dispatch, factoring, bookkeeping). A truck sitting idle still burns its fixed costs — run the numbers at realistic utilization, not best-case.
Not all trucking pays by the mile
Dry van and reefer OTR get the headlines, but a huge share of trucking — fuel hauling, crude oil, oilfield water and sand, dump, hotshot, livestock — pays by the load, the percentage, the barrel, the ton, or the hour, not the mile. Crude haulers are commonly paid 20–25% of the load (sometimes plus a safety bonus), or hybrid structures like cents-per-barrel plus a per-mile rate. Fuel haulers running short, repetitive routes are usually on percentage or load pay. Oilfield support work often pays hourly because so much of the day is waiting on site. The same job can also be structured three different ways — W-2 company driver, 1099 in someone else's truck, or leased owner-operator — and the take-home math is different in each. That's why this calculator has five modes: pick the one that matches how the money actually flows to you.
Driving a fleet owner's truck on 1099
A very common setup in fuel and crude: a small fleet owner has several trucks leased under a carrier's authority, and pays drivers ~20–30% of each load on a 1099. The good news: fuel, tires, repairs, and insurance are all the owner's problem — your only real costs are personal gear (steel-toes, FR clothing, hardhat) and whatever the company doesn't provide. The catch: nothing is withheld, so self-employment tax (15.3%) plus income tax comes out of that percentage — and unlike a real owner-operator, you can't deduct truck costs you never paid. Use the 1099 driver tab above with your real percentage and load count to see what you'll actually keep.
Owner-operator, 1099, or company driver — what the math says
The headline numbers in trucking hide more than they reveal. An owner-operator grossing $200,000 can take home less than a company driver at 60 CPM once the truck payment, $1,000+ monthly insurance, fuel, and maintenance come out — that's why the cost-per-mile number above matters more than revenue. A "1099 driving someone else's truck" deal shifts 7.65% of payroll tax onto you with none of the ownership upside, so the gross has to be meaningfully higher than a W-2 offer to break even. Run your own numbers in each tab and compare take-home to take-home, never gross to gross.
Don't forget deadhead
Every empty mile burns the same fuel and tires as a loaded one. If you run 10% deadhead, only 90% of your miles produce revenue, so your break-even rate per loaded mile is higher than your cost per total mile. The owner-operator tab does this adjustment for you — it's the difference between a load that looks profitable and one that actually is.
Trucking pay FAQs
What's a good cost per mile for an owner-operator?
Most solo owner-operators land between $1.60 and $2.20 per total mile all-in, with fuel as the biggest swing. Below $1.60 usually means a paid-off truck and cheap insurance; above $2.20 means new equipment, high insurance, or low monthly miles spreading fixed costs thin.
How much should a 1099 driver set aside for taxes?
A common rule is 25–30% of gross into a separate account, paid to the IRS quarterly. The 15.3% self-employment tax applies from the first dollar of profit, before any income tax — which is why 1099 pay that "looks higher" than W-2 often isn't.
Is percentage pay better than mileage pay?
Percentage pay wins when rates are high and loads are short with lots of accessorial revenue; mileage pay wins when you run long, cheap freight at high volume. On percentage, always ask what's in the base: gross including FSC and accessorials, or linehaul only — 25% of one is not 25% of the other.