Since day one — as an owner operator and one of the largest hotshot community administrators on social media — one question never stops coming up.
What’s your cost per mile?
I’ve seen every version of this answer. A lot of them are dangerously wrong. And the wrong ones get shared the most because they’re the ones new carriers want to hear.
Personally, I never put much stock in CPM figures because this business is dynamic. Fuel moves weekly. Insurance goes up. Breakdowns don’t ask permission. I always ran by the Back Pocket SWAG Method — Scientific Wild Ass Guessing. Money in checking, savings breathing, bills paid — I was good.
But a lot of you want a real number. So here it is.
OCPM — Obvious Cost Per Mile
These are the costs you feel every week. What most carriers use to price freight.
| Cost | Monthly | Per Mile |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | $5,500 | $0.55 |
| Insurance | $2,500 | $0.25 |
| Truck + Trailer Payments | $2,200 | $0.22 |
| Maintenance & Repair Reserve | $2,000 | $0.20 |
| DEF / Oil / Fluids | $300 | $0.03 |
| OCPM Total | $12,500 | $1.25/mile |
Real costs. Real money. Every week. But only half the story.
The Costs Most Never Put On Paper
I recently had a truck and trailer eating tires at a pace that made no sense. Turned out the truck needed front end work and alignment — and the trailer had mismatched tires. Happens all the time. When you blow two tires 800 miles from home you take what the shop has. No two brands meet the road the same way. Small differences in height and width cause bouncing, scrubbing, uneven wear. I’ve seen it over and over.
That’s just tires. Multiply that across every system on your rig and you understand why True CPM exists.
| What Most Miss | Monthly | Per Mile |
|---|---|---|
| COFER — Future Equipment Replacement | $3,000 | $0.30 |
| Depreciation | $2,200 | $0.22 |
| CPTM — Tire Reserve | $600 | $0.06 |
| Tax Reserve | $2,000 | $0.20 |
| Admin / Compliance / Load Boards | $800 | $0.08 |
| Factoring Fees | $750 | $0.075 |
| Owner / Driver Pay | $6,000 | $0.60 |
| Downtime & Emergency Reserve | $1,000 | $0.10 |
| Added True Cost | $16,350 | $1.74/mile |
COFER — The Number That Will Make or Break You
Cost of Future Equipment Replacement. The most overlooked number in hotshot trucking — and the one that ends careers.
Most carriers run a truck three years, spend every dollar, wear it out — then act shocked when the next one costs $90,000 to $120,000 and they have nothing saved. That next truck should have been paid for one mile at a time.
At $120,000 replacement cost over 400,000 miles — that’s $0.30 per mile that needs to be working its way into your reserve every single time those wheels turn. At 500 to 700 miles per day, you should be banking $125 to $210 every single day toward your next truck.
Most are banking zero. That’s not a cash flow problem. That’s a business model problem. A business that ignores COFER may look profitable on paper while it’s actually eating itself alive.
Depreciation — The Silent Thief
Here’s the one nobody talks about until it’s too late.
Every mile you drive lowers the value of your equipment. That value loss is real money whether you write it down or not. A truck bought at $80,000 that resells at $30,000 loses $50,000 in value over 300,000 miles — that’s $0.17 per mile walking out the door silently on every run. Add a trailer losing $15,000 in value over the same miles and you’re at $0.22 per mile in depreciation alone.
Depreciation and COFER are not the same thing. Depreciation is what your equipment is losing. COFER is what you need to replace it. Ignore either one and your profit numbers are lying to you.
CPTM — Cost Per Tire Mile
At $250 truck tires and $200 trailer tires, 50,000 mile average:
| Configuration | CPTM |
|---|---|
| 4-Tire Truck + 4-Tire Trailer | $0.036/mile |
| 6-Tire Dually + 4-Tire Trailer | $0.046/mile |
| 6-Tire Dually + 8-Tire Tandem | $0.062/mile |
| Only Getting 25K Miles Per Tire | $0.12+/mile |
That’s $20 to $56 every single day just in rubber hitting the road. And if alignment issues or mismatched brands are cutting your tire life in half — that number doubles overnight. Know your actual tire life, not the best-case number on the sidewall.
Owner Pay — Your Labor Is Not Free
If you own the truck and you’re driving it, whatever is left over after expenses is not profit. It’s unpaid wages. Your labor has a value and it has to be accounted for before anything gets called profit. At $6,000 per month that’s $0.60 per mile that needs to be covered before you see a dime of actual business return.
The Number That Changes Everything
| Per Mile | |
|---|---|
| OCPM — What most track | $1.25 |
| What most ignore | $1.74 |
| True CPM | $2.99 |
Running loads at $2.00/mile? You’re not breaking even. You’re going backward a dollar every mile. You just don’t feel it yet. You will when the truck is worn out, the tires are gone, the tax bill lands, and there’s nothing left to replace any of it.
OCPM tells you if you can keep the lights on this week. True CPM tells you if you’re actually building a business.
Know your real number before you price your first load. Gross revenue is vanity. Net profit is reality.
