Empty Miles: How to Calculate Deadhead and Your Real Rate per Mile
A load that pays $2.59 a mile can really pay $2.47 once you count the drive to the pickup. Here is how to work out deadhead, fuel and break-even before you book.
Every load has two parts: the miles you get paid for, and the miles you drive to get there. The second part is deadhead, or empty miles. Brokers quote the rate on loaded miles, so a load can look great on the rate con and still lose money once the truck has to drive 150 miles empty to pick it up.
The two numbers that matter
Loaded rate per mile is what the rate con implies: the rate divided by the miles from pickup to delivery. All-in rate per mile is what the truck actually earns: the rate divided by empty miles plus loaded miles.
Take a load from Joliet, IL to Dallas, TX that pays $2,400 for 927 loaded miles. That is $2.59 a mile. If the truck is 44 miles away from the pickup, the trip is 971 miles, and the real rate is $2.47 a mile. Forty-four miles is a small deadhead. At 200 miles empty, the same load drops to about $2.13 a mile.
Fuel is the biggest cost on most loads
Fuel cost is simple to estimate: total miles divided by your miles per gallon, times the price of diesel. At 6.5 mpg, the 971-mile trip burns about 149 gallons. At $6.05 a gallon, that is roughly $904, and it applies to the empty miles too.
Diesel prices are not the same everywhere. The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes weekly on-highway diesel averages by region, and the gap between regions can be large. California usually runs well above the Gulf Coast. Use the price for where you will actually fuel, or your fuel card price if you know it.
Know your break-even per mile
Your break-even is your costs divided by total miles. Add fuel, driver pay and everything else that scales with miles: truck payment, insurance, maintenance, tires, tolls. If fuel is $904, the driver earns $0.65 a mile ($631 on this trip), and nothing else is counted yet, the break-even is about $1.58 a mile. The $2,400 load leaves about $865, or $0.89 a mile. Add your other costs per mile and that number shrinks.
The point is not the exact figure. It is that you compare every load against the same yardstick: the all-in rate against your break-even.
Drive time sets how many days the load takes
Under the federal hours-of-service rules for property carriers, a driver can drive up to 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. A trip with about 15 hours of driving needs at least one 10-hour break, so it is a two-day run even though the miles look like a long day. That matters when you stack the next load.
Before you say yes
- Measure empty miles from where the truck really is, not where it will be "around noon".
- Work out the all-in rate, not just the loaded rate.
- Price fuel for the lane you are running.
- Compare against your break-even per mile.
- Ask for more when the deadhead is long. Many brokers will move on rate when you show the numbers.
The Haulock Load planner does this math for you. Upload the rate con (or type the pickup, delivery and rate), add where the truck is, and you get a truck route on the map, empty and loaded miles, drive time with the required breaks, fuel at this week's diesel price for the region, and what is left of the rate after your costs.