Van cost-per-mile calculator

Quoting a job usually starts with labour and materials — the van that got you there rarely gets its own line. But a van costs money whether it's moving or parked, and spreading that cost properly across the miles it actually does is the difference between a quote that covers the real cost of running the business and one that quietly eats into it.

Fuel isn't the only cost

Fuel cost per mile comes from the price at the pump and the van's real-world mpg — straightforward to work out, and the part most people already have a rough feel for. The part that gets missed is everything else: insurance, road tax, servicing, tyres, and finance or lease payments, none of which scale down just because the van did fewer miles this year. Divide that fixed annual total by annual mileage and it becomes a genuine cost per mile too — one that falls as mileage rises, and rises sharply if the van sits idle more than planned.

A worked example

Diesel at 145p a litre, a van doing 35mpg, covering 12,000 miles a year: fuel comes to roughly 18.8p a mile. Add £3,600 a year in insurance, tax, servicing and finance, spread across the same 12,000 miles, and that's another 30p a mile. Total cost per mile: around 48.8p — which on a 40-mile round trip to a job is just under £20 before a single tool comes out of the van.

What this isn't

This doesn't account for depreciation on a van bought outright rather than financed, congestion charges or ULEZ fees on specific routes, or the extra wear from heavy loads or short stop-start journeys, which drag real-world mpg below the manufacturer's figure. Use your actual fuel spend over a few months if you have it — it'll be more accurate than the official mpg rating for exactly the kind of driving a trades van does.