How much a car hauler earns in the US – real numbers

The first question of an owner who looks at a car hauler as a business is simple: how much does it bring in. There is no single-number answer, and anyone who names one is describing someone else's operation – a different trailer, a different region, a different share of empty miles. You will have to do your own math, but it takes one evening.

Why the average rate tells you nothing

Rates in car hauling change week to week and lane to lane. In winter the flow goes south, by spring it turns back, quarter-end lifts demand at dealers, and auction days gather cars in one place and clear them out in two days. A national average rolls all of that into one number and loses exactly what you control: which loads you take and how far you run empty.

What makes up the revenue

• Number of slots: 2–3 on a wedge, 5–7 on a stinger, 9 on a full-size car hauler.
• Loaded miles for the week – the only miles you get paid for.
• Empty miles between delivery and the next pickup: they don't add revenue but they burn fuel.
• Density of stops on the route: auctions, dealers and private addresses combine into a load differently.
• Load type: an auction car, a dealer delivery and a private order are priced differently.
• Season and lane: the same route costs differently in January and in May.

You are paid per car, not per trailer. A simple consequence follows: a half-built load is almost always worse than a full one, even if the rate per slot is higher. You have to count the whole trailer.

The formula people use

Weekly revenue is the sum of the rates for every car you moved. Then convert it to miles: add loaded and empty miles and divide the revenue by total miles. You get a rate per mile you can compare against your costs, against last week and against any offer that comes in on Monday.

A worked example, numbers for illustration

A load of 7 cars, 1,480 loaded miles, a rate of $3,250. Plus 220 empty miles to the next pickup, 1,700 miles in total. Per loaded mile that is $2.20, over all miles – $1.91. That 29-cent gap per mile is the price of the empty run.

What eats the revenue

• Fuel: a loaded two-deck trailer burns noticeably more than an empty one.
• Insurance: in car hauling it costs more than usual, because cargo coverage for the value of the vehicles is added on top of liability.
• Maintenance: hydraulics, cables and straps, tires, brakes, roadside repairs.
• Toll roads, scales, permits, IFTA.
• Parking, overnights and food on the road.
• Load board subscriptions, phone service, bookkeeping.
• The dispatcher's fee, if you work with a dispatcher.

What raises the rate per mile

• Season and lane: in winter the flow goes south, in spring it comes back, and the return leg pays less than the outbound one.
• Auction schedules: cars appear in batches on known days, and the week is built around them.
• Quarter-end at dealers: deliveries get denser, windows get tighter, rates go up.
• Trailer type: enclosed pays more than open, but its market is narrower and insurance requirements are higher.
• Vehicle type: an inop, a large SUV or a pickup takes more space and more time.

None of these factors works on its own. The week counts as a whole: two expensive loads with six hundred empty miles between them lose to four average ones that run along the same line.

Three mistakes that make the number lie

1. Counting income by loaded miles and ignoring the empty ones. Empty miles cost money and time and bring in nothing.
2. Looking at gross. Gross revenue looks good and says nothing about what is left for you.
3. Comparing yourself to a fleet. A company with ten trucks has different insurance, different broker setups and a different cushion.

What to do with this next

Work out your rate per mile over the last four weeks and keep it in front of you: every offer is compared against it, not against a feeling. That leaves the question of what help with finding loads costs – it is covered on the Pricing page, which also has a worked example for a single load.