Deadhead Mile Cost

Deadhead miles -- the empty miles a truck runs between dropping one load and picking up the next -- earn no freight revenue but still burn fuel, still accrue driver pay (drivers are typically paid per mile regardless of whether the trailer is loaded), and still accrue the fixed per-mile costs of running the truck at all: insurance, depreciation, and maintenance reserves. This calculator isolates that empty-mile cost from the profitable loaded-mile cost so you can see what an empty repositioning move actually costs, not just guess at it. Total Deadhead Cost sums the fuel burned at your empty-running MPG, the driver pay for those miles, and the fixed cost per mile, all multiplied by Deadhead Miles. Because empty trucks are lighter, they typically get better fuel economy than loaded ones (MPG Empty defaults higher than MPG Loaded), which is why the calculator asks for both separately rather than using one blended figure. Deadhead Percentage shows what share of total miles driven earned no revenue at all -- a useful benchmark, since carriers commonly target keeping this below 10-15% to stay profitable.

Effective Revenue/Mile spreads the load's total revenue over both loaded and deadhead miles combined, which is never higher than Revenue/Loaded Mile (the two are equal only when there are zero deadhead miles) and shows the real per-mile rate you're actually earning once repositioning is accounted for. Revenue Lost is the flip side of that same gap: it's Revenue/Loaded Mile multiplied by Deadhead Miles, representing the revenue you'd have earned if those empty miles had instead been loaded miles paying the same per-mile rate. Net Profit nets total costs (fuel, driver pay, and fixed costs across all miles) against load revenue. Use this before accepting a load with a long deadhead leg on either end, or when negotiating a rate that needs to cover an empty return trip.