How Much Money Should I Make As An Owner-Operator vs Company Driver?

Have you ever wondered: how much money would I make as an owner operator or should I make as an owner operator vs being a company driver.

Well of course it varies and owner operator wages go up and down a lot more than a company driver because as a company driver you just get paid per mile or percentage of revenue or things like that.

But as an owner operator your expense side of it is really going to vary with maintenance and taxes and truck payments and all of those things.

So the question becomes: how much more should I make as an owner operator after all of the expenses vs when I was a company driver.

For me the answer is $10,000 a year, you should make at least that much more as an owner operator. And the reason you need to make that much more money is because you’re carrying a lot of risk.

You’ve got a truck to pay for, you have insurance to pay for, and you have all of these other costs. And you’re going to have those costs even if you’re not turning the wheels.

So that’s the risk side. The reward side should be $10,000, that’s my number.

Your number doesn’t have to be the same. But I encourage it to be pretty close to that. If you’re not sure if that’s right, contact us, talk to us about it, we are happy to talk to you more about what we mean by that.