What does a mile really cost you?
Gross pay hides the cost of your car. Add your real costs below to get your true operating cost per mile — the pay floor no rideshare or delivery offer should ever drop below.
Runs entirely in your browser. Use this number as your minimum $/mile when grading offers.
Grade an offer with this floor Track this automaticallyWhy cost per mile is the number that protects your profit
The gig apps show you gross pay. Your car doesn't work for free. Every mile spends fuel or electricity, wears tires and brakes, and quietly burns through the resale value of the vehicle. Your true cost per mile rolls all of that into one number, in three parts:
- Fixed — payment, insurance, registration, and depreciation, spread across the miles you drive. Drive more miles and the fixed cost per mile falls.
- Energy — fuel price ÷ MPG, or electricity price ÷ miles-per-kWh for an EV.
- Maintenance — tires, oil, brakes, and repairs averaged to a monthly figure.
Once you know it, the rule is simple: never take an offer that pays less per mile than it costs you to drive. That's the floor OfferIQ enforces automatically — it hard-fails any offer below your cost per mile, even when the hourly looks tempting.
Know your number. Then let OfferIQ defend it.
OfferIQ keeps your cost per mile current from your real car costs and applies it to every offer you screenshot — so money-losing runs get flagged before you accept.
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Cost-per-mile FAQ
How do I calculate my true cost per mile?
Add up your fixed monthly car costs (payment, insurance, registration, depreciation) and divide by the miles you drive, then add your energy cost per mile (fuel price ÷ MPG, or electricity price ÷ miles-per-kWh) and your maintenance cost per mile. This calculator does all three and shows the split.
What is the average cost per mile to drive for rideshare?
It varies widely by vehicle and market — often somewhere around $0.30–$0.60 per mile once fuel, maintenance, insurance, and depreciation are counted. Your number is what matters. Enter your real costs to get it, then use it as the floor no offer should pay below.
Should I use this instead of the IRS standard mileage rate?
They answer different questions. The IRS standard mileage rate is for your tax deduction. Your true cost per mile is for decision-making — knowing which offers actually make money. OfferIQ tracks both: business miles for your deduction and cost per mile for grading offers.
Does OfferIQ track this automatically?
Yes. OfferIQ builds your cost profile once, keeps your operating cost per mile up to date from your real fixed, energy, and maintenance costs, and feeds it straight into offer grading — so it hard-fails any offer that pays below what your car costs to run.