If you’ve been running the same weekly load for the same customer at the same price since the day you got your authority, and you’ve never once asked for more even though your insurance renewal, your tire bill and your shop’s labor rate have all gone up since then, this one’s for you, because that load is probably paying you a little less every month and you might not even know it.

Most owner-operators and small fleets don’t have a pricing department. You’ve got a phone, a settlement sheet, maybe one or two customers you haul for directly, and a broker or two who keeps offering you the same lane every week. Asking any of them for more money feels risky. They pay on time. They keep you loaded. Why rock the boat?

Because your costs didn’t ask your permission before they went up. When your rate sits still and your costs climb, you’re the one covering the difference. This isn’t about being greedy. It’s about knowing your numbers well enough to make one honest phone call.

Your Costs Moved Even If Your Rate Didn’t

The American Transportation Research Institute’s yearly cost study found that running a truck cost a record of about $2.34 a mile in 2025, according to coverage of the report. Leave fuel out and costs still rose 4.2% in a single year. Repairs and maintenance were up 8.6%, tires 6.4%, and tolls more than 13%. The same study found the truckload carriers it tracked were running operating margins under 1%. Think about that. On a $3,000 load, that’s less than $30 left after every bill gets paid. There’s no room in that for a rate you set two years ago and never touched.

Those are averages across fleets of every size. If you’re buying tires one set at a time and insuring one truck without a fleet discount, your costs are often higher than average, not lower.

Now look at the market. For the week of October 10 to 16, DAT’s numbers had the national dry van spot rate at $2.26 a mile before fuel, around 35% higher than a year earlier. Add the fuel surcharge and it came to about $3.09 a mile. There were close to ten loads posted for every truck. When trucks are that hard to find, a customer who already has a reliable one on their freight knows what it would cost to replace you. That’s leverage you’ve earned. Most small carriers never use it.

Know Your Number Before You Pick Up the Phone

Before you ask for anything, you have to know what it costs you to run that load. Not a guess. Your real cost per mile. Add up the last three months of every expense: truck payment, insurance, fuel, maintenance, tires, permits, your ELD, your phone, and what you pay yourself. Then divide by every mile you drove in those three months, empty miles included. If you’ve never done this, stop and do it before anything else in this article. It’s the most important number in your business.

Here’s an example. Say your regular Thursday load is 340 loaded miles, and you run 60 miles empty to get to the pickup. The customer pays $850 flat with no fuel surcharge. You actually drove 400 miles for $850, which works out to about $2.13 a mile. If your cost per mile is $2.05, you clear roughly $30 for a full day. If your cost has crept up to $2.20, you lost about $30 hauling their freight.

That’s why the empty miles have to be in the math. A lot of carriers figure their rate on loaded miles only and then wonder why the money never adds up at the end of the month. It’s the same check we walked through in How to Qualify Freight Before You Chase It, just pointed at a load you already have.

Get Fuel Out of Your Rate

If your regular customer pays one flat number with no fuel surcharge, fix that first. With a flat rate, every time diesel goes up, it comes straight out of your pocket. A fuel surcharge splits your pay in two. The rate covers the truck and the driver, and the surcharge moves up and down with the price of diesel. Most surcharge schedules are tied to the government’s weekly national diesel average from the Energy Information Administration, which anybody can look up for free. Go back to that DAT number. Roughly 83 cents of every $3.09 mile was fuel. If you aren’t getting paid for fuel separately, you’re eating it.

Make the Call

You don’t need a meeting or a slideshow. For most small carriers this is a phone call to the person who books your truck, then a short email so it’s in writing. Give them 30 days’ notice before the new rate starts. Talk about how you’ve taken care of their freight, give them the reason, then give them one number and a start date. Only say what’s true. If you’ve been late twice this year, don’t claim a perfect record. It might go something like this:

Short, honest and specific. No apology and no threat. You’re telling a customer what it costs to keep doing a good job for them. Then send that email the same day: the new rate, the start date, how the surcharge works, and a thank-you.

What About Broker Freight

If you’re running the same lane for a broker every week, the same thinking applies. You just say it a little differently. A broker who’s handed you the same Tuesday load four weeks in a row has stopped shopping it. They’re counting on you, and that’s worth something.

Some brokers will say yes. Some will post it and find somebody cheaper. That’s okay. You already did the math, so you know whether losing that load really hurts you or just frees up your truck for something that pays.

If They Say No

A no on the rate doesn’t have to be a no on everything. Ask for the fuel surcharge by itself. Ask to get paid detention after two hours at their dock. Ask if they’ve got a second load that week, because two loads from the same customer usually cuts your empty miles and changes the whole picture. Or agree to hold the price for 60 or 90 days and put a date on the calendar to talk again.

And if the load still doesn’t cover your cost after all that? Keep running it right until you’ve got something to replace it. Don’t let your service slip because you’re frustrated. Pull up a map, search for manufacturers and distributors within 5, 10 and 20 miles of where you park your truck, and start calling. Build the next customer before you let this one go, and once you land them, keep them the way we laid out in How to Keep a Shipper After the First Load.

Questions Carriers Ask

How much should I ask for? Start from your cost, not a percentage you picked out of the air. Take your cost per mile on that load with the empty miles included, add what you need to earn on top of it, and that’s your number. If it’s been more than a year since the rate changed, your costs alone have probably gone up several percent. ATRI found non-fuel costs rose 4.2% in 2025 by themselves.

Will I lose the customer? You might, and anybody who tells you different is guessing. That’s exactly why you run the numbers first. Before you dial, you’ll know whether losing that load costs you money or saves you money. A customer who’s happy with your service would usually rather pay a fair rate than start over with a truck they don’t know, but don’t bluff about walking unless you mean it.

I just got my authority. Does this apply to me? More than anybody. Set your first rates from your real cost, not from whatever the broker offers. Put a fuel surcharge in from day one. And tell every direct customer up front that you look at your rates once a year. Then that phone call is never a surprise.

I’m leased on to a carrier. What can I do? Your carrier sets the rate with the customer, but you can still figure your own cost per mile and see whether the percentage or per-mile pay you’re getting actually covers it. That number tells you when it’s time to push for a better lease, or start planning for your own authority.

This Week’s Assignment

Pick the one load you’ve been running the longest at the same price. Pull your last three months of expenses and figure your real cost per mile, empty miles included. Then figure what that load actually pays for every mile you drive to run it. If the second number isn’t comfortably above the first, write down your new rate and a start date 30 days out, and make the call before Friday.

Bottom Line

You don’t need a pricing department to run your trucking company like a business. You need your cost per mile, a fuel surcharge, and the nerve to make one phone call a year. The customers worth keeping can handle that conversation. The ones who can’t were costing you money anyway.

Innovative Logistics Group