How is getting paid by % Revenuve vs. $/mile?

Primarily, it depends on the company. if the company is hauling cheap freight, then regardless of what percentage you get paid, you are making part of a small total. If you are not hauling cheap freight, then percentage works out just fine. With percentage, you are always conscious of how many empty miles you run, because empty miles are free, not compensated. a good dispatcher that can keep you loaded makes you good money.

It is the law that when you are paid by percentage, you have the right to see the bills of lading and billings, so you can see what was charged and see what you were paid. I check ours occasionally, and the always match up with what I am being paid. I have worked for % for over 4 years now, and would never even consider going into a cents per mile program. I don;t concentrate on how many miles I run, but instead make my concerns over being as efficeint as I can be and getting the most loads done and into the books. I've had weeks where I did local work around Chicago, where I put less than 600 miles on the truck all week, yet still made over 1800 dollars because each load paid well, and I did a bunch of them.

there is no magic bullet to being paid by the mile either. if they pay on anything other than what actually shows on your odometer, then they are paying you less than for what you actually did. Typically, any mileage driver ill see at least a 10% difference between his odometer and his paycheck, and often it runs higher than that.

Percentage pay isn't for everyone, but with a good company, there is nothing wrong with it.

 

What I'll point out is that since I am not paid by the mile, I don't normally calculate my pay by the mile. However, I do use one simple formula to check my pay. Instead of looking at dispatched miles, practical miles, household goods miles, or any other form of mileage, I look at the odometer reading on Jan 01 when I turn the key, and again on Dec 31 when I shut the motor off. And that is the distance I ran the truck that year.

This includes any time I drive the truck home, any time I drive around bobtail to go grab a bite to eat, nd any other time I am behind the wheel. Then, by the simple method of dividing my total mileage and my total pay into each other, I come up with my CPM rate for the year. It's the most accurate way of doing it because it covers the most possible miles, rather than shortening them up using some of the other possible methods to make the cpm numbers come up higher than they really are. And consistently, I come up with about 52-54 cpm for every mile on the odometer every year.

 

Good post Burky. Do you mind me asking what company you haul for?

 

Bulkmatic Transport, out of Griffith Indiana. I primarily haul regionally, though occasionally run further. We have no work in your part of the country, but other companies doing similar work probably do about the same as we do.

 

I am on percentage and average about 53 cents a mile. Like Burky, I run regional and dont pull down enough miles a week to make decent money by the mile. Eighty percent of our runs are within a 500 mile radius w/ very few over that. I can actually make more money running to Chicago everyday and being home every night than taking some of the longer runs, sometimes I need a break from Chicago traffic for a couple weeks.