Truck Driver Pay Calculator

Two offers in different structures are impossible to compare in your head. This prices one real week three ways and adds the number that settles it: dollars per on-duty hour, which counts the time the mileage rate pretends does not exist.

One week, three pay structures

The same week priced as cents per mile, a percentage of linehaul, and hourly — with the effective hourly rate underneath each, because that is what actually compares.

The week

The offers

StructureGrossPer on-duty hourVerdict
Cents per mile$1624.00$28.00Best here
Percentage$1158.00$19.97Lower
Hourly$1537.00$26.50Lower

Best structure for this week

$1624.00

Cents per mile, at $28.00 per on-duty hour

Low-poly render of an empty truck cab driver seat
An empty seat, and three different ways to price the week in it.

What it checks

Gross pay under each structure, then that gross divided by on-duty hours. Accessorial pay — stops, detention, layover — is added to the mileage and percentage structures because those are the two that do not otherwise pay for time; it is already inside the hourly figure.

Worked example

The default week runs 2,450 miles and 58 on-duty hours on $3,900 of linehaul. At 62 cents a mile with three stops that is $1,624; at 27% of linehaul it is $1,158; at $26.50 an hour it is $1,537. Cents per mile wins — until the week goes wrong.

Drop the miles to 1,800 with the same 58 hours, which is what a week with two long detentions looks like, and the ranking inverts. That inversion is the whole argument about pay structures, and it is worth knowing which side of it your lanes sit on.

Where a benchmark would come from

This page publishes no average wage, deliberately. The Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains the only wage series worth comparing against — occupation 53-3032, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers — and it is broken down by state and metropolitan area, which matters far more than a national figure. The link is in the sources below.

Compare the BLS figure against your per on-duty hour number, not your gross. An annual salary comparison that ignores a 58-hour week flatters every mileage-paid job in the industry.

Sources

Keep reading