Fleet benchmark report: cost per mile and margins, with your numbers beside them

Benchmarks answer one question: is my cost per mile normal for a carrier like me? They don't set your rates. Your own cost per mile does that. But when one of your lines is far from the published average, it's usually worth knowing why.

This report gathers the 2025 figures from ATRI's annual cost study, with each source labeled, and lets you put your own numbers beside them.

Method. All figures come from ATRI's 2026 Analysis of the Operational Costs of Trucking, which reports 2025 data from a survey of for-hire carriers. Where a figure comes from trade coverage of the report rather than ATRI's own release, the table says so. Fleet-size splits appear only where ATRI publishes them. Updated October 2026.

Your numbers beside the benchmark

YOUR COST PER MILE VS THE BENCHMARK

Enter your own cost per mile for each line (dark bar). The light bar is ATRI's 2025 average. Saved in this browser.

• Fuel (benchmark $0.482)

  $
• Driver wages (benchmark $0.818)

  $
• Driver benefits (benchmark $0.210)

  $
• Repair and maintenance (benchmark $0.215)

  $
• Tires (benchmark $0.050)

  $
• Tolls (benchmark $0.043)

  $
• Everything else (benchmark $0.518)

  $

Your total: $0.000 per mile. Benchmark: $2.336.

Averages hide wide differences by equipment, region and fleet size. Price loads from your own number.

Benchmark lines from the table below. "Everything else" covers truck and trailer payments, insurance, permits and other costs, shown as the remainder of the $2.336 total.

Cost per mile, 2025

Truck and trailer payments, insurance, and permits and licenses are part of the total but weren't broken out in the coverage we could verify, so we don't list them.

By sector and fleet size

What the numbers say

Costs hit a record. The 2025 average of $2.336 per mile was the highest in the series, up from $2.260 in 2024.

Margins stayed thin. Truckload carriers barely broke even on average, flatbed lost money, and only LTL and the largest fleets had healthy margins in ATRI's data.

Small fleets pay more to keep trucks running. The repair and maintenance gap by fleet size is large: about 10 cents a mile more for fleets under five trucks than for the largest fleets. ATRI doesn't publish the cause; in our view, older equipment and less buying power on parts and labor are likely parts of it.

Repair and maintenance by region

From ATRI's 2026 cost report as reported in trade coverage ATRI, Operational Costs of T…Repair and maintenance cost per mile, 2025$0.215/miATRI's 2026 Operational Costs of Trucking: repair and maintenance (parts, labor, roadside service; tires counted separately at about $0.05/mi) averaged $0.215 per mile in 2025, up 8.6% from 2024. Truckload fleets under 5 trucks averaged $0.275 per mile, against $0.169 for fleets over 1,000 trucks. By region: Midwest 21.4, Northeast 22.1, Southeast 19.8, South Central 19.4 and West 21.9 cents per mile.ATRI, Operational Costs of Trucking (2026 edition), 2025Checked Oct 2026Close. Regional differences reflect labor rates, roads, weather and equipment mix.

Why your number differs from the average

• Equipment. Reefers burn fuel for the unit; flatbeds wear tarps and straps; older trucks need more repairs.
• Freight and lanes. Toll-heavy corridors, urban stops and mountain grades raise costs per mile.
• Miles per truck. Fixed costs spread over fewer miles raise cost per mile; trucks that run more miles have lower fixed cost per mile.
• Empty miles. Every empty mile adds cost without revenue.
• Pay model. Percentage pay moves with rates; per-mile pay moves with miles.
• Fleet size. Small fleets often pay more for parts, insurance and equipment financing than the largest carriers.

None of these make your number wrong. They tell you which lines to watch.

Cost per mile and operating ratio together

Cost per mile tells you what a mile costs. Operating ratio, your costs divided by your revenue, tells you whether the miles you ran paid for themselves. A fleet can have a below-average cost per mile and still lose money if its rates per mile are lower still, or if too many miles are empty. Track both every month, per truck, alongside your revenue per mile. The trucking company KPI dashboard template has all three.

How to use the benchmarks

1. Calculate your own cost per mile by line, per truck, with the small fleet cost per truck calculator.
2. Compare line by line, not just the total. A normal total can hide a high repair line and a low fuel line.
3. Look for the reason behind any big gap: old equipment, a lane with many tolls, a truck with a mechanical problem, high empty miles.
4. Price from your number, not the average.
5. Recheck yearly when ATRI publishes its next report.

EXAMPLE A three-truck reefer fleet enters its numbers. Fuel is close to the benchmark, but repair and maintenance comes in at $0.31 per mile, above even the small-fleet figure. The owner finds most of it is one older unit, gets a quote to replace it, and compares the new payment with the repair costs it would avoid.

Putting the benchmarks to work

The benchmark report anchors the money side of truck fleet management. If you run your own goods, see private fleet trucking for how private fleets measure cost. To decide who tracks these numbers as you grow, see the trucking company org chart template.

This report summarizes published research; it isn't financial or accounting advice.