Last Mile Delivery Cost Calculator

Last-mile delivery is the leg from a local depot to the customer’s door. Each stop uses driver time and vehicle resources. This calculator adds up one route’s costs (driver, fuel, vehicle and per-package overhead) and divides them by the stops made and by the deliveries that actually succeeded, so you can price deliveries, compare routes or sanity-check a courier quote.

How to use this tool

1. Enter the stops on a typical route, the route distance and the paid hours.
2. Add the driver’s hourly pay and the extra employer cost on top of it.
3. Enter fuel economy, fuel price, per-mile maintenance and the daily fixed vehicle cost.
4. Add per-package overhead and the share of first attempts that fail.

Formula

Route cost = hours × wage × (1 + burden) + miles ÷ mpg × fuel price + miles × running cost + fixed cost + stops × overhead

Cost per successful delivery = route cost ÷ (stops × (1 − failure rate))

A failed attempt still uses driver time and fuel, so its cost is spread over the deliveries that succeed. With failures, cost per success exceeds cost per attempt; with no failures they are equal. Assumes one package per stop and equal average cost per attempt. Future redelivery costs are not included.

Example

A van makes 120 stops on an 80-mile, 9-hour route. Driver pay of $22 an hour plus 25% benefits is $247.50; fuel at 14 mpg and $3.60 a gallon is $20.57; maintenance at $0.20 a mile is $16; the fixed vehicle cost is $60 and $0.30 of overhead per package adds $36. The route costs $380.07, or $3.17 per stop. With 5% failed first attempts only 114 parcels are delivered, so each successful delivery costs $3.33.