Employee Cost Calculator for Trucking

Hiring your first driver? The true cost is always more than the hourly wage. Enter pay rate, hours, payroll tax, workers' comp, and health insurance — see the real all-in annual cost and true cost per hour before you make an offer.

Calculate True Employee Cost

Hourly Wage ($/hr)

Hours per Week

Weeks per Year

Employer Payroll Tax (%)

Workers' Comp (%)

Health Insurance ($/month)

Compare to a target cost per hour ($, optional)

Annual Wages$0.00

Employer Payroll Tax$0.00

Workers' Comp$0.00

Annual Health Insurance$0.00

Total Annual Cost$0.00

True Cost per Hour$0.00

TruckingToolCalc calculators are for informational and educational purposes only. Results are estimates based on the inputs you provide and should not be relied upon as financial, legal, or professional advice. Always verify figures with a qualified accountant or business advisor before making pricing or business decisions. TruckingToolCalc accepts no liability for decisions made based on calculator outputs.

Free — No sign-up required

Don't lose
your numbers.

Close this tab and your breakdown is gone. We'll email it to you — every figure, line by line — ready to drop into a quote or hand to your accountant.

Your results by email. No spam, ever.

We’ll occasionally send useful trucking tools and tips. Unsubscribe anytime.

Delivered to your inbox
Save or forward for your records
Your email stays private

We use your email to send your results and occasional trucking tools and tips. Every email includes an unsubscribe link. Privacy Policy.

One quick check.

If you see a checkbox below, click it to confirm you're human — this is what sends your results. If nothing appears, you're already done.

Once you see a confirmation message above, your results are on the way.

Sent! Check your inbox.

We've emailed your results to your inbox. Check spam if it's not there in a minute.

Something went wrong.

We couldn't send your results. Please try again.

↓Take Your Numbers Further

Small Fleet Edition

$47

Built for 2+ truck operations. Compare cost per truck, driver options, and load profitability across your whole fleet — all run on your own numbers.

Request Invoice — $47 All 3 products are $47 — compare the full lineup →

Employee Cost Calculator — Frequently Asked Questions

Trucking carries real physical risk — loading, coupling, highway driving — so workers' comp rates for drivers run noticeably higher than office-based roles. Check your actual quoted rate rather than guessing, since it varies by carrier and claims history.

If you pay per diem, add its annual cost into the health insurance field (or a custom addition) as a rough placeholder — this calculator's built-in fields cover the most common cost categories but you can approximate anything specific to your pay structure.

It varies by benefits offered and your state's workers' comp rates, but on-costs commonly add somewhere in the range of 20-40% above base wage once payroll tax, workers' comp, and health insurance are included.

It's the cost half of that decision — pair it with your expected revenue per truck if you added a second driver or truck to see whether the additional cost is covered by the extra capacity.

Before — knowing your true cost per hour first means you can set a wage offer that you know is sustainable, rather than working backward from a number that turns out to be unaffordable once taxes and insurance are added.