Most carriers price a trip the same way: a rate per kilometre from experience, rounded to something the customer will accept. It works until it doesn’t — a new country on the route, a heavier truck, an extra day for the driver — and the margin quietly disappears. The fix is not a better guess but a short, repeatable calculation.
The five costs of every trip
1. Fuel
Distance of the real route × your truck’s consumption per 100 km × the diesel price. Use the route a truck can actually drive, not the shortest car route — truck routes avoid low bridges, weight limits and some city centres, and are often longer. If part of the route is abroad, expect a different price per litre there.
2. Tolls — per country, per truck
This is where estimates go wrong most often. Every country charges differently: by kilometre, by time (vignette) or at toll booths, and almost always by the truck’s weight, number of axles and Euro emission class. A Euro 6 truck and a Euro 5 truck on the same road can pay noticeably different amounts. An average cost per kilometre hides all of this.
3. Driver
Count the days the trip really takes, including the driving-time limits and the rest periods, and multiply by the driver’s pay per day (and any daily allowance). A trip that is ‘one day plus a bit’ is two days of pay.
4. Maintenance and wear
Tyres, service, repairs and depreciation, expressed per kilometre. Many carriers use a fixed rate per km for the whole fleet; it is better than ignoring it.
5. Overheads
Insurance, the office, phones, accounting, the unexpected. The simplest honest way is a percentage of the price you charge.
From costs to the minimum price
Add fuel, tolls, driver and maintenance. Overheads depend on the price itself, so the minimum price is:
minimum price = (fuel + tolls + driver + maintenance) ÷ (1 − overhead %)
Below that number the trip loses money. Your quote should be above it — how far above depends on the market, the urgency and whether you have a return load.
Don’t forget the way back
If the truck returns empty, the empty kilometres belong to this trip. Either price them in, or find a load for the return before you accept. Checking for return loads along the route is often worth more than squeezing the rate.
Doing it in seconds
The calculation is simple; collecting the numbers is not — especially the tolls in every country for your exact truck. The Repatrack PRO calculator does it from your own truck profile (weight, axles, Euro class, height, consumption) and your own rates, and ends with the minimum price. See what it costs — the free plan includes calculations every month.