Fuel is the cost you see — rego, insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation are the ones that quietly add up. Total the real annual cost of a work vehicle.
Roll vehicle costs into your overheads in traqR so your charge-out rate covers the real cost of getting to site. Try it free for 14 days.
Start free trialWork out annual fuel from your kilometres and economy — then remember it’s often less than half the true cost of running a vehicle.
Rego, insurance, servicing, tyres and finance or depreciation turn up whether the ute moves or not. These are the costs people forget when they price a job.
Divide the total by your kilometres to get a cost per km, or by 52 for a weekly figure — the numbers that make vehicle cost easy to build into pricing.
More than most tradies think. Once you add fuel, rego, insurance, servicing, tyres, and finance or depreciation, a work ute doing 25,000 km a year commonly costs $10,000–$18,000 a year to run — often 60–90 cents per kilometre. Fuel alone is usually less than half of that.
Yes. Even with no loan, the vehicle loses value every year and will need replacing — that’s a real cost. A simple approach is to divide the drop in value over the years you’ll keep it. Ignoring it makes an owned vehicle look cheaper than it is and leaves you short when it’s time to replace it.
Two common approaches: build the total vehicle cost into your business overheads (which your charge-out rate already covers), or recover it directly with a call-out fee or a per-km travel charge on jobs. Either works — the mistake is doing neither and absorbing it.
Multiply the picture across every vehicle and the numbers get big fast. Our fleet cost calculator estimates the total annual cost of running multiple vehicles at once.
This calculator is a general estimate. Real running costs vary with the vehicle, how it’s driven and used, insurance, finance terms and depreciation. Use your own figures and check with your accountant on how vehicle costs are treated for tax.
Roll vehicle costs into your overheads in traqR so your charge-out rate reflects what it really costs to run. Try it free for 14 days.