Truck Roll Cost: What a Service Visit Really Costs Before Anyone Touches a Tool
The fuel receipt is the smallest part of a trip. The true truck roll cost includes the drive time nobody invoices — and it should set your call-out minimum.
Ask what a service visit costs and the answer is usually a fuel number. It's the most visible cost and the smallest one. A trip spends two things: the vehicle's share of the working day, and the drive time of the person in it — time paid at a burdened rate and recovered by nothing, because no invoice line says 'windshield'.
The split
- Vehicle per call = daily vehicle cost ÷ calls per day
- Drive labor per call = (daily drive minutes ÷ 60) ÷ calls per day × burdened hourly cost
- Trip cost = vehicle per call + drive labor per call
A suburban service day: $28 of vehicle cost (fuel, wear, insurance share), 50 minutes of total driving, four calls, a $38 burdened rate. Each trip carries $7 of vehicle and 12.5 minutes of labor — $7.92. The true truck roll cost is $14.92. The fuel receipt said $7; it was half right.
| Calls per day | Vehicle/call | Drive labor/call | Trip cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 (dense route) | $4.67 | $5.28 | $9.95 |
| 4 (typical) | $7.00 | $7.92 | $14.92 |
| 2 (cross-town) | $14.00 | $15.83 | $29.83 |
Density, not distance, is the variable that matters. Halving the driving on the same day — tighter routing, batching by area, fewer supplier runs mid-route — moves the trip cost nearly in half. At 900 trips a year, the difference between the middle and bottom rows is about $13,400 of annual cost that no price increase would ever recover as cleanly.
Where the number goes
- The trip line in the Flat Rate Calculator — replacing the guess with the true cost.
- The call-out minimum — it must exceed the trip cost, or a canceled call loses money.
- Zone pricing — far suburbs carry a higher trip cost, and the price can say so.
- The effective hourly rate — trips are unpaid hours, and this prices them.
Cost your trips with the truck roll calculator →
Frequently asked questions
What is a truck roll?
Field-service shorthand for one site visit: a tech and a vehicle dispatched to a customer. Its cost is the vehicle's share of the day plus the drive time the trip carries at your burdened labor rate — usually the larger half, and the one no fuel receipt shows.
How do you calculate the cost of a truck roll?
Split the day across its calls. With $28 of vehicle cost, 50 minutes of driving and 4 calls: each trip carries $7 of vehicle and about 12.5 minutes of $38 labor ($7.92) — a true cost of about $14.92 per roll. Density is what makes trips cheap: the same tech on 2 cross-town calls roughly doubles it.
Should my minimum service charge be higher than my trip cost?
Yes, comfortably. If a customer cancels after you've rolled, the trip is your only revenue opportunity on the visit — a minimum below the true trip cost means a canceled call loses money. Build the minimum from trip cost plus your smallest diagnostic block.
Tools for this
Ready to run the numbers?
Open the Truck Roll Cost Calculator and apply this guide with your own figures.
Open the Truck Roll Cost Calculator →