Food Truck Location ROI Calculator
Revenue per location from foot traffic and event data.
About this calculator
This calculator turns raw foot traffic into an apples-to-apples comparison across candidate parking spots. It starts by multiplying foot traffic per hour by your service hours to get total passersby, then applies your conversion rate — the percentage of people walking by who actually stop and buy — to estimate expected customers. That count times your average ticket gives estimated daily revenue. Costs specific to the location are then subtracted: food cost as a percentage of revenue, fuel for the round trip at a flat $0.655/mile — the IRS's 2023 standard business mileage rate, coded here as a fixed constant rather than whatever rate the IRS has published for the current year (it moved to 72.5-76 cents/mile for 2026) — a flat $3-per-service-hour generator fuel estimate, and the location's daily parking or event fee.
What's left is daily gross profit, and the calculator reports it two ways — profit margin (profit as a percent of revenue) and location ROI (profit as a percent of total cost) — plus revenue per hour, since a shorter, more efficient shift can beat a longer one on that basis. The number that makes or breaks this whole estimate is conversion rate, and it's also the hardest one to know in advance: the calculator's default is 5%, but actual conversion for a food truck typically runs in the 3-8% range and depends heavily on visibility, price point, and whether people are already headed somewhere to eat. Treat your first estimate as a hypothesis to test, then plug in your real observed conversion after a few visits to a spot. Because this tool isolates costs tied to the location itself (fuel, generator, site fee, food), it deliberately leaves out fixed overhead like insurance, loan payments, or commissary rent — those apply everywhere and don't help you tell locations apart, so they belong in a separate break-even calculation.
Inputs
Results
Estimated daily revenue
$600.00
Figures current as of 2023. Source: Internal Revenue Service, 2023 Standard Mileage Rates (IR-2022-234 / Notice 2023-03) — 65.5 cents per mile for business use
How to Use This Calculator
- Enter estimated foot traffic per hour and your conversion rate percentage.
- Set your average ticket price, service hours, and location fee.
- Enter food cost percentage and round-trip drive distance.
- The calculator shows estimated daily revenue, expected customer count, daily gross profit, profit margin, revenue per hour, total daily cost, and location ROI.
- Compare ROI across multiple candidate locations each week to optimize your rotation schedule.
How the result changes with Foot traffic per hour
| Foot traffic per hour | Estimated daily revenue |
|---|---|
| 100 | $300.00 |
| 150 | $456.00 |
| 300 | $900.00 |
| 500 | $1,500.00 |
What each input means
- Foot traffic per hour
- Estimated pedestrians passing your spot per hour.
- Conversion rate (%)
- Percentage of passersby who become customers. Typical: 3-8%.
- Average ticket ($)
- Average amount each customer spends.
- Service hours
- Hours you'll serve at this location.
- Location fee ($)
- Daily fee to park at this location (lot rental, event fee, etc.).
- Food cost (%)
- Ingredient cost as a percentage of revenue.
- Round-trip miles
- Round-trip driving distance to this location.
What each result means
- Estimated daily revenue
- Projected revenue from foot traffic conversion.
- Expected customers
- Estimated customer count based on traffic and conversion.
- Daily gross profit
- Revenue minus food, fuel, location fee, and generator costs.
- Profit margin
- Gross profit as a percentage of revenue.
- Revenue per hour
- Hourly revenue rate to compare locations.
- Total daily cost
- All costs associated with this location.
- Location ROI
- Return on investment for this location (profit / cost).
How this is calculated
Worked example, using the default values
- Identify Input Parameters4 parametersFoot traffic per hour = 200, Conversion rate (%) = 5, Average ticket ($) = 12, Service hours = 5 = 7 input(s) provided
- Calculate Estimated daily revenueEstimated daily revenue = expectedCustomers * avgTicket600 = $600
- Calculate Expected customersExpected customers50 = 50
- Calculate Daily gross profitDaily gross profit = dailyRevenue - totalDailyCost291.9 = $291.9
Figures and sources
- IRS standard business mileage rate ($0.655/mile as coded here) (2023) — Internal Revenue Service, 2023 Standard Mileage Rates (IR-2022-234 / Notice 2023-03) — 65.5 cents per mile for business use
Engine last updated . Checked against 2 independently-derived tests — how we verify calculators. Built by Paul Gunder, a software engineer, not a licensed financial, medical, or legal professional.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between profit margin and location ROI in the results?
Profit margin divides daily gross profit by daily revenue, telling you what share of each sales dollar you keep at this spot. Location ROI instead divides daily gross profit by total daily cost, telling you how much profit you generate per dollar spent operating there. ROI is usually the more useful number for comparing locations with very different cost structures, like a cheap street corner versus an expensive event with a high location fee.
How should I enter round-trip miles for the fuel cost, since the fuel cost calculator doubles a one-way distance?
This calculator takes driveMilesRoundTrip directly and multiplies it by the coded $0.655/mile rate (the IRS's 2023 standard business mileage rate) — it does not double your entry. So if your one-way drive to this location is 10 miles, enter 20, not 10, or the fuel cost here will be understated by half.
Why does the conversion rate default to 5%, and how do I get a more accurate number?
5% is a rough starting point; actual food truck conversion typically runs 3-8% depending on visibility, price point, and whether foot traffic is already looking for food. Because conversion rate is the single biggest driver of expected customers and therefore everything downstream, the best approach is to park at a candidate spot for a few hours, count actual passersby and actual buyers, and plug in your own observed rate instead of the default.
Why doesn't this calculator include fixed costs like insurance or commissary rent?
Those costs apply no matter where you park, so they don't help distinguish one location from another — the whole point of this tool is to isolate the costs that vary by location (food, fuel, generator time, and the site fee itself). Fixed overhead still needs to be covered, but it belongs in a separate break-even calculation rather than one meant for comparing spots.
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