New owner operators getting paid 1.05 loaded miles plus fuel surcharge and .90 empty miles.

With the market as hot as it is, some companies may be willing to let you slide on thru a few months early.

 

In order to estimate your cost you have to set your $ amount per mile + drivers’ hourly rate multiplied by the amount of hours necessary to complete the service whether truck is moving or not. If dispatcher’s rate is lower than that amount you have to find a new route or a new company. Don’t worry about surcharges company offering because it’s distracting you from the bigger picture. Ask the dispatcher for the final rate for the load and stay firm and steady on your formula. Everything else is a formula for bankruptcy.

 

How much is a fuel surcharge by the way? That $0.45 difference in the rate between owner-operator and company driver pay seems too low to me if you ask me, considering recent truck prices and insurance rate increases.

 

In my opinion, bobtail truck shouldn’t make less than $1500 a day (24 hours) plus fuel and tolls in team operation. This way you will be able pay yourselves, afford maintenance and truck renewal after your warranty expires. Anything after warranty expires is hard to calculate, so I would avoid that.

 

You can sit home and look for a new company or apply for your own authority. Then you look for a dispatchers service or you can dispatch yourselves after you get your own numbers.

 

Geeze
I was getting $1.25 a mile in 1995

and I know a guy one year out of CDL class at the local community college that’s averaging .88 per mile driving a company truck.

 

Well, If you run 5000 miles per week then that is $9000 per week in revenue. $450,000 per year. It sounds like you guys need to know what your costs are before you can decide if something is right for you or not.

Looks like your are running 5000 miles for $6500 or $325,000 per year right now.

Percentage or per mile doesn’t matter, you have to look at the details. As a team I’d want to focus on rolling down the road and pumping out more miles.