How it compares
Napkin math vs a spreadsheet vs a decision engine
Most owner-operators price a load one of three ways: in their head, in a spreadsheet, or with a tool. All three can be right. They differ in what they leave out — and the two things most often left out, deadhead and a current cost per mile, both make a load look better than it is.
| In your head | Spreadsheet | LoadMerit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rate per mile | Rate ÷ loaded miles, in your head | One formula, once you have written it | Loaded and effective RPM, both shown |
| Deadhead | Usually left out — it is the miles you were not paid for | Only if the sheet has a column for it | Always in the effective figure, with the percentage |
| Your cost per mile | A remembered number, often last year's | Whatever you last updated | Your saved profile, or a stated default until you set one |
| Fuel | Gut feel on the current price | A number you typed in some week | EIA weekly on-highway diesel, auto-filled, with the gallons shown |
| A walk-away number | Rarely computed under time pressure | Possible, if you built it | The larger of target RPM × miles and cost + minimum profit |
| A counteroffer | Instinct | Instinct | Derived from the floor plus a risk premium, rounded up |
| A record afterwards | None | Whatever you remember to type | Saved with what it actually settled at, on a paid plan |
Diesel comes from the EIA weekly on-highway retail price, auto-filled. LoadMerit is decision-support software — not a broker, carrier, dispatcher, load board or TMS — and it makes no claim about what any load will earn.
Questions
What each method actually catches
Is napkin math wrong?
No. Rate divided by loaded miles is a real number and experienced operators carry a good sense of their lane. What it usually leaves out is deadhead — the miles you drive unpaid to reach the pickup — and a cost per mile that is current rather than remembered. Those two omissions move the answer in the same direction: they make a load look better than it is.
What does a spreadsheet do that mental arithmetic does not?
It is consistent, and it keeps a record. If you have built a sheet with deadhead, a current cost per mile and a floor, it will answer as well as anything. The practical problems are that it lives on a laptop rather than in the cab, it is only as fresh as the last time you updated the fuel price, and it does not tell you what to counter with.
What does LoadMerit add?
A single answer under time pressure — Book, Negotiate or Pass — with the arithmetic shown, on a phone, while the broker is waiting. It always includes deadhead, fills diesel from the EIA weekly on-highway price, computes a walk-away floor and a counteroffer, and scores the load's risk factors. It is decision support: it does not book, negotiate or dispatch anything, and the call is yours.
Do I have to pay to get the recommendation?
No. The free calculator at https://www.loadmerit.com/calculator returns the full analysis — the recommendation, the floor, the counteroffer and the risk score — with no account and no card. Nothing is saved. A free account adds your own truck and cost profile, 10 analyses a day and 3 saved at a time.
So what is the paid plan for?
Records rather than a better verdict. LoadMerit Copilot is $49 a month and keeps unlimited saved loads, records what each one actually settled at — which is what builds a floor from your own history rather than a target — and produces the tax and mileage log, the monthly P&L PDF, the QuickBooks-format CSV and the fuel log. Monthly plans start with a 7-day free trial on your first subscription.
Where do the default numbers come from?
Until you set your own, the engine uses stated defaults — $1.80 per mile all-in and a $2.00 target effective rate — and says so on every result. They are tool defaults, not a claim about your truck, which is why setting your real costs changes the answer.
LoadMerit does not guarantee income, employment, carrier clients, broker relationships, freight availability, load acceptance, business success, or profitable outcomes. Any examples, scenarios, or calculations are illustrative and depend on user-entered assumptions and changing real-world conditions.