How this is calculated
A lease-purchase only survives if the truck out-earns its own weekly drag. Gross pay is just miles × pay-per-mile. The weekly costs are the lease payment, fuel (miles × fuel-per-mile), and your other fixed deductions added together. Net is gross minus those costs, and net margin is net as a share of gross.
Break-even miles is the honesty test. It's (lease + other deductions) ÷ (pay-per-mile − fuel-per-mile) — the miles you must run just to not lose money. With the defaults that's ($700 + $250) ÷ ($1.40 − $0.55) ≈ 1,118 miles a week. There's a hard guard: if your pay rate doesn't clear your fuel cost per mile, the bottom of that fraction is zero or negative and the lease can never break even — every mile loses money before the lease is even paid.
The verdict. The deal is a trap (red) if the week loses money, if it never breaks even, or if it needs more miles than you expect to run. It's survivable (green) only when net margin clears your healthy-margin threshold and break-even stays under your safety ceiling; otherwise it's tight (yellow). Those two thresholds — 25% margin and a 70%-of-miles ceiling — are editable fields, not baked-in constants. Change them and the verdict re-decides live.
The punitive clauses don't change the weekly numbers — they're where lease-purchases actually fail. Balloon payments, per-mile overage penalties, forced-maintenance markups, and no-walkaway escrow forfeiture each turn a marginal deal into a loss, so the tool surfaces them as named warnings to weigh alongside the math.
Already leased and running? Use the Owner-Operator Settlement Calculator to see what you actually cleared this week.
Frequently asked questions
- Is lease-purchase trucking worth it?
- It can be, but only if the truck reliably out-earns its weekly lease, fuel, and deductions with margin to spare. This tool computes your break-even miles and a net margin so you can judge your contract instead of guessing.
- How do I calculate break-even miles on a lease-purchase?
- Break-even miles = (weekly lease + other fixed deductions) ÷ (pay-per-mile − fuel-cost-per-mile). It's the miles you must run just to not lose money. If it's near or above the miles you can realistically run, the lease is a trap.
- What makes a lease-purchase a trap?
- A break-even point you can't hit week after week, a margin too thin to absorb a bad week or a repair, and punitive clauses — balloon payments, overage penalties, forced-maintenance markups, and escrow forfeiture — that drain whatever profit is left.
- What is a balloon payment in a lease-purchase truck contract?
- A large lump sum due at the end of the lease to actually take ownership. Many drivers run the whole term and still can't cover it, so they never own the truck despite years of payments.
- What pay-per-mile do I need for a lease-purchase to work?
- Enough that your pay rate clears your fuel cost per mile with real room left over for the lease and deductions. If your rate barely beats fuel, the lease can never break even no matter how many miles you run.
How to use this calculator
- Enter your weekly numbers Lease payment, realistic miles, pay-per-mile, fuel cost per mile, and total other deductions.
- Check any punitive clauses Balloon payment, overage penalty, forced maintenance, escrow forfeit — tick the ones in your contract.
- Read the verdict See whether it's survivable, tight, or a trap, your break-even miles, and the clause warnings, then decide before you sign.