Free · no signup for the calculator

Know what a load
really pays
before you say yes.

TruckRadar is a free trip cost and load profit calculator for truck drivers, owner-operators and dispatchers. Put in the pickup, the drop-off and the rate — it works out the fuel, the empty miles, the DEF and the tolls against what the broker is offering, then tells you plainly whether to take it and what to counter with if not.

Works in any browser, on the phone in the cab. Nothing to install.

Check a lane right now

No account. No card. Opens the calculator with your lane already in it.

11,702
truck stops & parking mapped
5
FMCSA datasets per broker check
22
fuel price series, updated weekly
US + CA
lanes routed end to end
The hidden number

What a rate confirmation doesn't show you

A $2,100 load from Dallas to Atlanta. The load board shows it as a strong rate per mile. Here it is again once the empty miles to the pickup and the run home to Houston are counted — 1,816 miles of tyres and diesel for one paycheck.

$2.68
per loaded mile — what the rate sheet says
$1.16
per actual mile — what the truck really earned
1,816
miles turned for that one rate

Same load. Same money. Less than half the rate per mile once the empty running is in the sum. TruckRadar shows you the second number before you book, not at the end of the month when the fuel receipts arrive.

Everything in the box

Ten tools, one tab, no subscription

The things a driver or a dispatch office would otherwise pay for separately — or work out on the back of a fuel receipt.

01 / PROFIT

Load profit calculator

Fuel loaded and empty at your own MPG, DEF, reefer fuel, tolls, lumper fees and any cost per mile you set — against the rate offered. Break-even, profit, and a counter-offer figure at your target rate.

02 / ROUTING

Truck-legal routing

Routes for your height, length, gross weight and hazmat endorsement, not a car's route. If it ever has to fall back to car routing it says so on screen instead of handing you short miles.

03 / HOURS

Hours-of-service planner

The 11-hour driving limit, the 14-hour window, the 30-minute break, 10-hour resets and the 70-hour cycle with a 34-hour restart — simulated to tell you when you would really arrive.

04 / THE LOOP

Whole-loop & triangle costing

Price this load, the reload and the empty run home as one number. The only honest way to compare a fronthaul against a cheaper load that ends up somewhere useful.

05 / TRUST

Broker & carrier check Free account

An MC or DOT number checked against five public FMCSA datasets: active authority, bond, insurance, age of the authority, revocations and safety rating — as plain red, amber and green flags.

06 / RATES

Lane rate index Free account

What a lane has actually been paying, from rates other members reported: the median, the spread, a 30-day trend and the backhaul — so you know whether $2.10 is fair on that run.

07 / FUEL

Cheapest fuel region

Which state along your route has the cheapest diesel this week, and roughly what filling there instead of at the other end saves on this trip's gallons.

08 / PARKING

Truck stops and parking

Truck stops, service plazas, rest areas and truck parking within about a mile of your route, in mile order, with space counts and showers where they have been mapped.

09 / WEATHER

Weather alerts on the route

Active National Weather Service warnings sampled along the line you are actually driving, worst first and pinned on the map — not the forecast for a city you pass at 3am.

10 / TIMING

Cover-by time

Give it the pickup appointment and it works backwards through the HOS rules to the latest hour you can legally leave — or tells you the pickup cannot be made, and by how much.

How it works

Three inputs. About twenty seconds.

No onboarding, no demo call, no spreadsheet to maintain.

01

Set your truck once

Pick a preset — 53' dry van, reefer, flatbed, step deck, hotshot, 26' box truck or a cargo van — then correct the numbers to match your truck: loaded and empty MPG, average speed, DEF percentage, reefer gallons per hour, your own cost per mile and your target rate. Saved in your browser and reused on every load. You can keep several trucks.

02

Enter the load

Where the truck is now for the deadhead, the pickup, the drop-off, and the rate the broker is offering. Search finds cities, addresses and named warehouses across the United States and Canada. Add tolls or a lumper fee if you know them.

03

Get a straight answer

A verdict in plain words — worth taking, below your target, or losing money — with the profit, the all-in rate per mile, the fuel share of the rate, and the figure to counter with if it falls short. Change the MPG or the rate and it recalculates instantly.

Built for the empty miles

Most calculators stop at the loaded mile

That is the number brokers quote, and it is the number that makes a bad load look fine.

Deadhead is priced separately

Empty miles burn fuel at a different rate to loaded miles, so they are costed at your empty MPG, not your loaded one. Put in where the truck is sitting now and the run to the pickup is in the sum from the start.

Where the truck ends up counts

The Next load tab shows where the truck goes empty, what time it gets there under the HOS rules, the local diesel price and how far that is from home. A load that pays well into a dead market is not a good load.

Price the whole triangle

Add a reload and a home base and TruckRadar costs every leg — this load, the reload, and each empty run between them — then gives one all-in rate per mile for the entire loop. That is the number to compare offers on.

Coming soon · paid product

TruckRadar TMS —
run the whole office,
not just the load

The calculator answers one question about one load. The Transport Management System is the other half: a commercial product for carriers and dispatch offices that runs the paperwork, the people and the money behind every load you book. It is in development, priced per truck, and entirely separate from the free tools — nothing on this page moves behind a paywall.

  • Dispatch boardEvery load, driver and trailer on one screen, with status from booked to delivered.
  • Drivers & equipmentLicences, medicals, insurance and maintenance with expiry reminders before they bite.
  • DocumentsRate confirmations, BOLs and PODs attached to the load and pulled from the driver's phone.
  • InvoicingInvoice from the load, track what is unpaid, and hand a clean pack to your factor.
  • SettlementsDriver and owner-operator pay by mile, percentage or flat, with deductions and advances.
  • IFTAMiles per state collected as trips happen, ready for the quarterly return.
  • Customer portalGive shippers a tracking link instead of answering the phone about it.

Get early access

Tell us what you run and we'll show you the TMS before it opens, with founder pricing for the first fleets on the list.

One email when it opens. No newsletter, no sharing your details, unsubscribe in a click.

Who it's for

Anyone who eats the fuel bill

Owner-operators

You are the one paying for the fuel. Set your real cost per mile once and every load gets measured against it, including the miles nobody pays you for.

Company drivers

Plan the clock before you roll: when the 11 hours run out, where the reset falls, whether that delivery appointment is reachable, and where you can park at the end of it.

Dispatchers and agents

Check a broker's authority before you book, compare several offers side by side, save the lanes you run often, and see what a lane has been paying before you negotiate.

Small fleets

Several trucks, each with its own MPG, dimensions and target rate — switched in a dropdown rather than kept in separate spreadsheets. The TMS above is built for you next.

Where the numbers come from

Every figure traces to a named source

Nothing is invented, and nothing is scraped from somewhere it shouldn't be.

WhatSourceHow current
Diesel & gasoline pricesU.S. Energy Information Administration retail averages, eleven regionsPublished weekly, pulled daily
Truck routingOpenRouteService HGV profile with your height, length, weight and hazmatLive, per trip
Maps & place searchOpenStreetMap and PhotonLive
Broker & carrier recordsFive public FMCSA datasets — authority, insurance, bonds, safety rating, censusRefreshed daily by FMCSA
Truck stops & parkingOpenStreetMap, rebuilt into a fast lookup tableRebuilt monthly
Weather alertsU.S. National Weather Service active alertsLive, U.S. only
Hours-of-service rulesFMCSA property-carrying regulations, simulated in your browserInstant
Lane ratesReported by TruckRadar members — shown only as an average of three or more90-day window

Honest limits, stated up front: fuel prices are regional averages, not pump prices; weather alerts cover the United States only; truck stop data is volunteer-mapped, so a few will be missing or closed; and the hours-of-service planner is an estimate for planning, not a replacement for your ELD or your logs.

Pricing

Free, and here's why that isn't a trick

No trial, no card, and no feature held back behind a paywall on the calculator.

It costs us almost nothing to run

TruckRadar sits on free service tiers and free public data, and the maths runs in your browser. A bar along the bottom of the app shows exactly how much of that free capacity has been used this month and when it resets — so you can see the same thing we can.

  • No ads anywhere
  • No selling your data or your lanes
  • Your trucks and saved loads stay in your browser
  • An account is only needed for two features

Paid comes later, and separately

The commercial product is the TMS — a different tool for a different job, priced per truck. The calculator is not the free trial of it. If the free capacity behind the calculator ever does run out, the site will say so plainly before anything changes.

There is also a voluntary contribution link in the footer of the app for people who want to chip in. It buys no features and unlocks nothing — everyone gets the same tool either way.

FAQ

Before you trust a number

Is TruckRadar really free?
Yes. There is no trial, no card and no paid tier on the calculator today. It runs on the free tiers of the services behind it, and a bar in the footer of the app shows exactly how much of that free capacity has been used this month. If it ever runs out we will say so on the site rather than quietly start charging. Contributions are voluntary and buy no features.
Do I need an account to use the load calculator?
No. The trip cost calculator, truck routing, hours-of-service planner, fuel regions, truck stops and weather all work without signing up. A free account is only needed for the broker and carrier check and for the lane rate index, because both depend on knowing who is asking.
How does TruckRadar decide whether a load is worth taking?
It routes the trip, works out the gallons burned loaded and empty at your own MPG figures, prices them at the current regional diesel or gasoline average, adds DEF, reefer fuel, tolls and lumper fees and any other cost per mile you set, then compares the total against the rate offered. You get a break-even figure, a rate per mile including deadhead, and a counter-offer figure at your own target rate per mile.
What is the difference between rate per loaded mile and all-in rate per mile?
Rate per loaded mile divides the rate by the miles you drive with freight on the trailer. All-in rate per mile divides the same rate by every mile the truck turns, including the empty miles to the pickup and the empty miles afterwards. The second number is the one that decides whether a load actually paid, and it is usually far lower than the first.
Does TruckRadar use truck routing or car routing?
Truck routing, using your trailer height, length, gross weight and hazmat setting so low bridges and restricted roads are avoided. If the shared truck-routing quota is used up for the day it falls back to car routing and says so on screen rather than quietly giving you short miles. Signed-in users can add their own free routing key to avoid the shared limit.
Where do the fuel prices come from?
From the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which publishes retail diesel and gasoline averages weekly for eleven regions. TruckRadar pulls them daily and picks the regions your pickup and drop-off fall in. They are regional averages, not the price at a particular pump, so you can override them with the price you actually pay.
Can TruckRadar check whether a broker is legitimate?
Enter an MC or DOT number and it reads five public FMCSA datasets to flag no active authority, a revocation pending, a missing broker bond, missing liability insurance, authority less than six months old and similar warning signs. It is a first filter, not a guarantee, and every result reminds you to call the phone number FMCSA has on file rather than the one on the load offer.
Does TruckRadar plan hours of service?
It simulates the federal property-carrying rules — 11 hours driving, a 14-hour window, a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, 10-hour resets, and the 70-hour eight-day cycle with a 34-hour restart — to show when you would really arrive and whether a delivery appointment is legally reachable. Give it a pickup appointment and it works backwards to the latest legal departure time. It is a planning estimate, not an ELD, and it does not replace your logs.
Does it work in Canada?
Place search, routing, truck stops, the calculator and the lane rate index all cover Canada. Two things do not: the weather alerts come from the U.S. National Weather Service, and the fuel prices come from the U.S. EIA. Canadian legs show a note saying so, and you can enter your own fuel price per gallon instead.
Where do the lane rates come from?
From drivers and dispatchers reporting what they were actually paid. Nothing is shown for a lane until at least three separate reports agree, figures far from the median are dropped as typos, and every answer says whether it is reading your exact market or falling back to a statewide average. It is user-reported and labelled as such on every screen — a sanity check, not a paid rate feed.
What is the TruckRadar TMS and when is it coming?
The Transport Management System is a separate paid product for carriers and dispatch offices: a dispatch board, driver and equipment records, rate confirmations and BOLs, invoicing and settlements, IFTA mileage and a customer portal. It is in development and has no release date yet. It will be priced per truck and will not change anything about the free calculator, which stays free.
Do you sell my data or my lanes?
No. There are no ads and no data sales. Your trucks, saved loads and preferred lanes are stored in your own browser, not on the server. Reported lane rates are only ever shown as an average across at least three people and never attached to your name, and you can delete any report you have made.

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