How to Calculate Your Margin on Every Load (2026 Guide)
Short answer: margin per load = sell price − buy price − direct costs, where direct costs include the empty kilometres from where your truck actually is to the pickup. On your own truck, multiply all kilometres (loaded + empty) by your full cost per kilometre; on a sub-carrier load, subtract what you pay them plus any extras you cannot pass on. Do it before you book, not at the end of the month. Below is the method with a complete worked example.
Why margin per load is the only number that matters
Turnover flatters. You can haul €40,000 of freight in a month and still lose money if the costs per load are higher than you think. For a small carrier the number that decides whether the business survives is margin per transport — and most carriers only find it out weeks after the truck has rolled, when the fuel card statement and the toll invoice arrive.
Monthly totals hide the problem because good and bad loads average out. One lane can be carrying three others. You only see that when every transport has its own margin.
The basic formula
Margin = Sell price − Buy price − Direct costs
- Sell price — what your customer pays for the load, including agreed surcharges.
- Buy price — what you pay a sub-carrier (0 if you run it on your own truck).
- Direct costs — on your own truck: every kilometre it drives for this load, loaded and empty, at your cost per kilometre. On a sub-carrier load: extras you pay and cannot re-invoice, such as standby or a second attempt at delivery.
Margin in percent is margin ÷ sell price. It is the number to compare between loads of different sizes.
Step 1: know your real cost per kilometre
You cannot judge a load without knowing what a kilometre costs you. Split it into fixed costs (you pay them whether the truck moves or not) and variable costs (they grow with every kilometre). An example for one truck — replace every line with your own figures:
| Cost | Per month | Per km |
|---|---|---|
| Leasing or depreciation | €1,800 | |
| Insurance and vehicle tax | €450 | |
| Driver (gross cost incl. allowances) | €3,600 | |
| Share of office and overheads | €350 | |
| Fixed costs at 11,000 km a month | €6,200 | €0.56 |
| Diesel: 30 l/100 km at €1.55/l | €0.47 | |
| Tolls (average across your lanes) | €0.18 | |
| Tyres and maintenance | €0.06 | |
| Full cost per km | €1.27 |
Two things change this number more than anything else: how many kilometres the truck really drives per month (fewer kilometres, higher fixed cost per km) and the toll share of your lanes. Recalculate it whenever either changes.
Step 2: count the empty kilometres
This is where most calculations go wrong. The freight exchange shows the distance from pickup to delivery. Your truck, however, starts from where it unloaded last.
Worked example (own truck): a load Munich → Milan, 490 km, pays €980 — €2.00 per loaded kilometre, which looks comfortable. Your truck unloaded in Nuremberg this morning, 170 km from Munich.
| Pickup only | From where the truck is | |
|---|---|---|
| Kilometres | 490 | 490 + 170 = 660 |
| Cost at €1.27/km | €622 | €838 |
| Margin | €358 (36.5%) | €142 (14.5%) |
Same load, same price — but the real margin is €216 lower than the naive one. If the truck had been 350 km away instead of 170, the "good" load would lose money. That is why the empty leg has to be measured from the truck's last unload, not guessed.
Step 3: sub-carrier loads have their own traps
When a sub-carrier runs the load, the buy price replaces your cost per kilometre — but not everything is in the buy price.
Worked example (sub-carrier): you sell Hamburg → Warsaw for €1,450 and buy it for €1,250. Margin: €200 (13.8%). At the unloading point the truck waits three hours; the sub-carrier charges €90 standby, and your contract with the customer has no waiting-time clause. Margin: €110 (7.6%) — almost half gone, and nobody noticed at the time.
The fix is not complicated: record extras against the transport the day they happen, and check whether your customer contract lets you pass them on (standby, dead freight, cancellation). A load that was cancelled at short notice is not zero revenue if your terms say otherwise.
Step 4: set a minimum price before you look at the exchange
Turn the cost per kilometre into a floor, so you can say no quickly:
Minimum price = (loaded km + empty km) × cost per km ÷ (1 − target margin)
For the Munich → Milan example with a 12% target margin: 660 × €1.27 ÷ 0.88 = €953. The offer of €980 clears it; €900 would not. With this number in your head, negotiating on the phone becomes much easier.
Step 5: look at margin per truck and per lane
Once every transport has a margin, add them up per truck and per lane each month. Typical findings:
- One truck earns most of the profit because it runs a stable lane with backloads.
- A customer with high rates is barely profitable because every load starts with 200 empty kilometres.
- Sub-carrier loads earn less per load but carry no risk of an idle truck — useful to know when you decide whether to buy the next vehicle.
Common mistakes
- Calculating from the pickup. The empty leg is a cost of this load, not of "the business".
- Using diesel only. Diesel is roughly a third of the real cost per kilometre in the example above.
- Averaging tolls. A lane through Austria and Switzerland costs very differently from one through Poland; per-country kilometres give a better toll figure.
- Checking margin monthly. By then the decision is made. Check it at the moment of dispatch.
- Forgetting extras. Standby, second delivery attempts and pallet exchange belong to the transport they happened on.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good margin per load for a small carrier?
There is no single benchmark, because it depends on whether you run your own trucks or sub-contract, and on how much overhead is already inside your cost per kilometre. The useful rule is internal: every load must cover its full cost per kilometre including the empty leg, and the margin you add on top must cover the overheads you did not put into that figure. Set your own target (for example 10–15% on own-truck loads) and hold every offer against it.
Should the driver's wage be part of the cost per kilometre?
Yes. If the driver is paid monthly whether the truck moves or not, treat the wage as a fixed cost and spread it over the kilometres the truck really drives. If you pay per trip, treat it as a direct cost of that transport instead. What matters is that it is in the calculation somewhere — leaving it out is the most common reason why "profitable" lanes lose money.
How do I count kilometres on a load with several stops?
Count every kilometre between the stops in the order the truck drives them, plus the empty leg from the last unload to the first pickup. The kilometres after the final delivery belong to the next load, which is exactly why the next load has to be measured from where this one ended.
What about backloads?
A backload changes the maths of the outbound load only if you take it into account when you price the pair. If you regularly run a lane with a reliable return load, look at the two transports together; if the return is uncertain, price the outbound load as if the truck comes back empty.
How Cargon does it automatically
Cargon shows the margin of every transport the moment the prices are in. The sell price comes from the order, the buy price from the carrier's credit note, and the empty kilometres are calculated from the truck's previous unload to the new pickup — per country, so tolls can be judged too. Charges such as dead freight or standby are added to the transport they belong to. The fleet view then rolls the numbers up per truck, and the cost calculator turns your fixed and variable costs into a cost per kilometre and a minimum freight price.