Fuel is the largest variable cost most operators have, and the arithmetic is one line: total miles divided by miles per gallon, times price per gallon. The trap is not the formula. It is the three inputs people get wrong.
Input one, total miles. Not loaded miles. The truck burns fuel on the way to the pickup, so deadhead belongs in the mileage you divide.
Input two, your real MPG. Use what the truck actually does over a full tank with your loads, your terrain and your idle habits — not the number the dealer quoted. The difference between 6.0 and 6.8 across a year of miles is real money, and it moves every load decision slightly.
Input three, the price per gallon. Use the price you will actually pay at the pumps you actually use, net of discounts you reliably get. If you do not know yet, a defensible starting point is the published weekly average diesel price for the region you are running, which is where our tools start before you override it.
A worked example, using round numbers rather than today's market: 490 total miles at 6.5 MPG is about 75.4 gallons. At an example price of $4.00 per gallon that is roughly $302 of fuel on one load. Change nothing but MPG — 6.0 instead of 6.5 — and the same load costs about $327. Twenty-five dollars, on one load, from a number most drivers never measure.
In Canada the same arithmetic works in litres and kilometres; convert the whole calculation, not just the price, and keep the units consistent. Our tools let you switch dollars and units without re-entering the load.
For the price itself, we pull the EIA weekly on-highway diesel average for the region of your pickup at the moment you score a load, and the report prints which week and which region it used. That is deliberate: a fuel figure with no date on it is not information, and anything you type yourself always overrides ours.
— Vincent Scott, TeamScott LLC · Memphis, TN