Are you running your dump truck business by checking your bank balance at the end of each month? If that’s your primary method for measuring success, you’re not alone – but you’re missing critical opportunities to maximize profitability and catch problems before they hurt your bottom line.
Most dump truck owners and small hauling companies rely on outdated financial indicators that only tell part of the story. By the time you see a problem in your bank statement, it’s often too late to fix it for that period. The most successful hauling businesses track specific dump truck KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that provide early warning signals and actionable insights for immediate improvement.
This comprehensive guide will show you exactly which metrics matter most for your hauling business, how to calculate them, and most importantly, how to use them to increase your profits and operational efficiency. And as a bonus — you can download a FREE tool that calculates your truck costs and quotes, so you can apply these KPIs directly to your own operation.
I recently spoke with the owner of a small dump truck fleet who shared his “foolproof” method for tracking business performance: checking his bank balance periodically. If the number looked good, he assumed everything was fine. If it was low, he’d worry but wasn’t sure what to do about it.
This approach might seem practical, but it’s costing him thousands of dollars in missed opportunities and hidden inefficiencies. Here’s why the “bank balance method” fails:
The reality is that successful dump truck businesses, the ones consistently profitable year after year, track specific performance metrics that reveal exactly where money is made and lost.
Running a dump truck fleet means watching more than just your bank account. If you want real visibility into your trucking company profitability, you need to know the numbers that matter.
Let’s break down the most important ones with simple examples, formulas, and why each one matters for your business.
This KPI measures how much money each truck generates over a specific time frame. It’s a direct measure of dump truck productivity and trucking company profitability.
Total revenue can look impressive, but this KPI tells you if each truck is pulling its weight. One underperforming truck can drag down your overall fleet performance.
Data to collect:
Formula: Revenue per Truck = Total Revenue ÷ Number of Trucks ÷ Time Period (Days/Weeks/Months)
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Now you can compare truck productivity more clearly. If Truck A makes $2,000/day and Truck B only $1,200/day, something’s off — maybe routes, loading times, or driver delays. This metric supports your dump truck ROI calculation and gives clear visibility into your fleet’s performance.
Recommended Frequency: Weekly and monthly reviews
Tools to use: QuickBooks, Excel, or dump truck dispatcher software that tracks job and revenue per unit.
Cost per mile is a must-have for longer, more consistent hauls. But if you’re running short jobs with frequent stops, long idle times, or tight city routes, tracking cost per day (or even per truck per day) might give you a clearer view.
To get accurate numbers, list all your fixed and variable costs first. Here’s a sample expense table to guide you:
| Expense Type | Cost |
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Repair & Maintenance Includes truck and trailer repairs, scheduled maintenance, labor, and roadside assistance |
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Tires All tire purchases, repairs, replacements, and re-treading |
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Fuel Costs Diesel or gasoline fuel expenses |
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Truck Insurance Premiums Liability, cargo, physical damage, and excess insurance |
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Truck and Trailer Lease or Loan Payments Monthly lease or loan payments including interest (exclude depreciation or tax credits) |
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Driver Labor Wages paid hourly, per trip, or per load — include overtime and payroll taxes |
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Tolls and Parking Fees Highway tolls, job site parking, or staging costs |
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Permit Costs Oversize, overweight, seasonal, and HazMat permits |
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Administrative or Other Overhead Office rent, bookkeeping, compliance, registration, phone plans, and misc. expenses |
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| Total | $ |
Before the step-by-step process, let’s differentiate first these 2 types of costs to consider:
These are the expenses that don’t change whether your truck is moving or parked:
Knowing your daily fixed cost helps you decide if waiting for a better-paying job is actually worth it. Even idle time comes at a price when fixed costs stack up.
These costs rise with use:
These are the costs that scale with your mileage. Reducing waste in fuel or improving maintenance can have a big impact over time.
Data to collect:
Once you have total costs, you can break them down in different ways depending on the type of work you do.
The figures below are just estimates to give you an idea of how to calculate cost per mile in a dump truck business.
Formula: Total Costs ÷ Total Miles Driven
Example:
Fixed Costs = $240,000
Variable Costs = $160,000
Miles Driven = 100,000
Cost per Mile = $400,000 ÷ 100,000 = $4.00/mile
This is your break-even point for longer hauls. If a job pays less than this, you’re losing money every mile.
Formula: Total Costs ÷ Total Operating Days
Example:
Total Costs = $400,000
Operating Days = 250
Cost per Day = $1,600
This is helpful when your work involves a lot of stop-and-go driving, traffic delays, or site-based hauling where distance isn’t the biggest cost driver.
Formula: Daily Cost ÷ Number of Active Trucks
Example: $1,600 ÷ 4 trucks = $400 per truck per day
This helps you compare individual truck performance or check if your fleet is producing enough daily revenue to cover itself.
Formula (weekly): Monthly Costs ÷ 4.33
Example:
If your total monthly operating cost is $20,000, then: Cost per Week = $20,000 ÷ 4.33 = $4,620.78
You can also look at total monthly costs directly if that’s how you review your books.
Recommended Frequency:
Tools to Use:
The profit margin per job measures the percentage of revenue that remains after deducting the cost to complete each job. It’s a leading dump truck profitability metric.
Not all jobs are equal. This KPI highlights which jobs are worth repeating and which ones aren’t.
Data to collect:
Formula: Profit Margin = (Revenue – Cost) ÷ Revenue × 100%
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Revenue = $600, Cost = $480
($600 – $480) ÷ $600 × 100 = 20%
Now you know this job is earning a 20% dump truck profit margin. If another job pays $500 but costs $480, the margin drops to just 4%. That second job might not be worth your time once you factor in risk and wear on your equipment. This metric helps you focus on profitable work.
Recommended Frequency: Per job or weekly review
Tools to use: Job costing spreadsheets, invoicing systems, or dump truck dispatcher software with profit tracking.
This KPI measures the average income you generate per unit hauled. It’s essential for rate setting and quoting. Comparing this across hauls helps you avoid underpricing and keeps your business competitive.
Data to collect:
Formula: Average Rate = Revenue ÷ Tons (or Cubic Yards) Hauled
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Revenue = $3,600
Tons Hauled = 90
$3,600 ÷ 90 = $40 per ton
What this tells you: If you quoted the work per unit, you can compare this number with what you quoted. If you aren’t hitting the desired number, you know that you need to make adjustments to your pricing, or you need to figure out how to improve delivery. Once you have this number per unit for a specific job, you can use this number to quote similar jobs.
Recommended Frequency: Per job and monthly summary
Tools to use: Dispatch records, scale tickets, load sheets, spreadsheet calculator
Cash flow measures how much cash is actually available to run your business day to day, versus what you’re owed. Strong profit margins don’t help if you’re not getting paid on time. Hauling business cash flow is key to meeting payroll, repairs, and fuel bills.
Data to collect:
Key Metrics:
Example:
Invoiced: $20,000
Paid: $9,000
Realized cash flow = 45%
If you’re operating on less than half of your earned revenue, you’re at risk. This can delay truck repairs, slow hiring, or block fuel purchases. A healthy hauling business cash flow keeps your operation running smoothly.
Recommended Frequency: Weekly for expenses; monthly for DSO and aging
Tools to use: QuickBooks, Xero, or invoicing software with accounts receivable tracking
Tracking financial performance is critical, but in the day-to-day of managing a dump truck fleet, the real difference-makers are operational. These are the numbers that reveal how efficiently your trucks are running, how reliable your scheduling is, and how well your dispatching decisions turn into revenue.
If you’re a bulk hauler, these dump truck KPIs help you move beyond guesswork and start measuring what matters.
Truck utilization rate shows how much of your truck’s available time is actually used for hauling work. If your trucks spend too much time parked, delayed at job sites, or waiting for assignments, that unused time adds overhead without generating revenue.
This dump truck KPI is a key indicator of how effectively you’re using your equipment. The higher the truck utilization rate, the more you spread fixed costs over billable hours, which increases your dump truck ROI calculation.
Data to collect:
Formula: Truck Utilization Rate = (Loaded Hours ÷ Total Available Hours) × 100
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Available hours per week = 60
Loaded hours = 36
36 ÷ 60 × 100 = 60% utilization rate
This truck is only working 60% of the time it’s available. That 40% idle time costs money without bringing in revenue. A good benchmark for dump truck fleet efficiency metrics is 80% or higher. Anything less might point to dispatch gaps, long wait times, or under booking.
Recommended Frequency: Weekly or biweekly for trend accuracy
Tools to use: Telematics or dump truck dispatcher software with time tracking such as Samsara, Motive, or Verizon Connect
This KPI is a core dump truck fleet efficiency metric. It tracks how many full hauling cycles each truck completes on a daily basis.
This matters because it’s a quick way to check the effectiveness of your daily planning and routing. If this number drops over time, you may need to review your hauling cycle time or improve dispatch coordination.
Data to collect:
Formula: Average Loads per Truck per Day = Total Loads Completed ÷ Total Trucks ÷ Total Days
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Loads completed = 60
Trucks = 5
Days = 4
60 ÷ 5 ÷ 4 = 3 loads per truck per day
If you’re averaging 3 loads per truck per day and your internal target is 4, you’re likely losing revenue if you are charging based on loads or other units other than hours. Monitoring this helps you measure dump truck productivity and pinpoint where delays are happening – loading, transit, or drop-off.
You will likely need to do this on a job-by-job basis since some jobs may require moving a load a few hundred yards and have little wait time, while others may have to travel miles through city traffic and wait on extended load or dump times. This is typically only applicable to long-term jobs.
Recommended Frequency: Daily and weekly
Tools to use: Load tracking spreadsheets or specialty software.
Deadhead miles percentage metric shows how many miles are run without a load—meaning fuel and time are spent but not paid for. It’s a vital dump truck KPI when analyzing cost and efficiency.
Every deadhead mile reduces your profit. This is also part of broader truck fleet performance metrics and directly impacts your dump truck cost per mile calculation.
If you are billing by the hour, this metric may not seem as important to you. After all, isn’t your customer paying for this time that you are empty and traveling back to the quarry? While that is true if you have included the added cost for this empty haul back to the quarry, you are having to charge your customer more than if you weren’t empty.
If with a little planning, you could reduce this deadhead mileage, you could charge your customer less and still have room for a little more profit. But this comes at the added cost of better planning and a reduction in flexibility.
Data to collect:
Formula: Deadhead Miles % = (Empty Miles ÷ Total Miles) × 100
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Total miles = 1,000
Empty miles = 200
200 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 20% deadhead miles
A 20% deadhead rate means you’re not earning revenue on 1 out of every 5 miles. Aim for 10–12% or lower. Use this KPI to optimize return loads, improve partnerships, or expand your network.
Recommended Frequency: Weekly and monthly
Tools to use: GPS/Telematics software with mileage tracking (e.g., Geotab, Samsara, Trimble)
This KPI tracks how reliably your team delivers materials on schedule. It reflects dispatch quality and driver efficiency, making it one of the more actionable driver performance metrics.
Frequent delays damage your reputation and can lead to lost business. For dump truck operators working with contractors, consistency is often more important than speed.
Data to collect:
Formula: On-Time Delivery % = (On-Time Loads ÷ Total Loads) × 100
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Total loads = 100
On-time loads = 95
95 ÷ 100 × 100 = 95%
If this number slips, investigate dispatch delays, route planning, or driver check-in procedures. It also helps support better overall dump truck profitability metrics.
Recommended Frequency: Tracked daily, reported weekly
Tools to use: GPS tracking tools, delivery logs, and electronic logging devices (ELDs)
This dump truck KPI shows how many scheduled jobs are completed in a day or week. It’s a vital number when tracking dump truck business financial tracking and reliability.
This matters because it helps identify patterns of missed jobs, cancellations, or resource mismanagement. A low rate might indicate overloaded schedules or driver/equipment availability problems.
This metric is extremely important if you are using sub-contractors. If you have a scorecard of how your sub-contractors perform, you can give loads to those lease haulers that have the best completion rate.
Data to collect:
Formula: Load Completion Rate = (Completed Loads ÷ Scheduled Loads) × 100
Step-by-step Calculation Example:
Scheduled jobs = 50
Completed jobs = 42
42 ÷ 50 × 100 = 84%
An 84% completion rate could cost you thousands each week in lost revenue. This metric uncovers scheduling issues or maintenance bottlenecks that impact profitability. Use it alongside driver performance metrics and maintenance reports to improve hauling business cash flow.
Recommended Frequency: Daily and weekly
Tools to use: Dispatcher scheduling tools, load tracking apps. Dump Truck Dispatcher has a revenue reporting feature that shows you the performance of each sub-contractor for the specified period.
Before you can measure progress, you need a clear baseline. Benchmarks are the reference points that help you judge if your hauling business is running at a healthy level—or if costs, downtime, or inefficiencies are pulling you down.
While ATRI and other industry reports provide helpful insights, keep in mind that their data usually reflects the previous year. For local bulk hauling, it’s better to blend those reports with real-time sources like:
For bulk hauling fleets, the most useful benchmarks to track are:
Every fleet is different. Seasonal jobs, regional tolls, or quarry-to-site operations will shift your numbers. Instead of chasing a “perfect” national average, focus on:
Even the best metrics for dump truck companies won’t help if you’re using them the wrong way. Here are a few mistakes that can throw off your trucking business performance indicators and how to avoid them:
You don’t have to crunch the numbers yourself. Modern tools can track KPIs automatically, saving you time and giving you clearer insights.
Running a dump truck operation means dealing with tight margins, unpredictable fuel prices, and constant pressure to keep trucks moving. But the companies that win long term are the ones that track what matters and use that data to make better calls day after day.
By focusing on the KPIs that tie directly to profit, you gain the insight needed to stay competitive even when market conditions shift. This guide outlined how to track those numbers, avoid common mistakes, and set up a 30-day action plan to get started.
Interested in learning how a system can give your business an edge? If you have more than 10 trucks and want to see how we can help improve your numbers, click the big red “Request Demo” button at the top of the page or call 864-214-2558.
Understanding KPIs is only the first step. The real question is: what do your numbers look like?
With our plug-and-play Truck Cost & Quote Calculator, you’ll be able to:
Download the free calculator that shows your true hourly cost and helps you quote jobs the right way.
