Running Costs

The real per-mile cost of driving for a rideshare app

Six hundred miles, thirty-two hours logged in, one ordinary sedan. Here is that week written up the way an accountant would, and the gap between what the app deposited and what the driver actually earned.

Budget Pilot · September 28, 2026 · 4 min read

The payout screen shows one number: what landed in your account. A profit-and-loss statement shows two, and the space between them is where most drivers’ hourly rate quietly shrinks. The week below is a composite built for illustration. Every input is labeled, every total is arithmetic you can check, and none of it describes any particular app’s pay formula.

Statement of operations, one week

Composite driver · 32 hours logged in · 600 miles total, 380 with a rider aboard

Income

Fares paid out to driver$650.00

Tips$45.00

Total income$695.00

Expenses paid in cash this week

Fuel600 mi ÷ 30 mpg = 20 gal, at $3.50$70.00

Car washes and cleaning supplies$12.00

Share of phone and data plan$10.00

Cash expenses$92.00

Expenses accrued, paid later

Maintenance and tires600 mi × $0.08$48.00

Depreciation600 mi × $0.15$90.00

Added insurance cost, weekly share$30.00

Accrued expenses$168.00

Total expenses$260.00

Net before tax$435.00

Tax set-asideyour figure; see belowblank

$13.59net per logged-in hour
$435 ÷ 32

$18.84what it feels like per hour
($695 − $92) ÷ 32

43.3¢cost per mile driven
$260 ÷ 600

68.4¢cost per paid mile
$260 ÷ 380

Reading the statement

The two hourly rates are the whole story. A driver who subtracts only what leaves the wallet this week (fuel, washes, the phone) sees $603 of profit and roughly $18.84 an hour. The $168 of accrued costs is just as real, it simply arrives later: as a brake job, a set of tires, or a trade-in offer lower than expected. Counting it drops the week to $435, about $13.59 an hour. Neither number is a claim about what rideshare pays; both are what this illustration’s inputs produce.

Deadhead miles are expenses with no income line. Of the 600 miles, 220 were driven empty: to pickups, back toward busy areas, home at the end of the shift. That is why the cost per paid mile (68.4¢) sits so far above the cost per mile driven (43.3¢). If you only track trip miles, you are pricing the job as if the empty miles were free.

Where the accrued lines come from

These are the lines to replace with your own numbers first, because they are the ones most people have never estimated.

Depreciation. Take what the car is worth today, subtract what you expect it to be worth after a stretch of heavy driving, and divide by the miles. The illustration assumed this:

($18,000 now − $12,000 later) ÷ 40,000 miles = $0.15 per mile

Look up comparable listings at today’s mileage and at forty thousand more; the difference is your own figure. High-mileage driving pulls the car into older, cheaper price bands faster, which is the part that never shows on a statement until you sell. We take this up at length in the bill that never arrives.

Maintenance and tires. Of the 8¢ a mile, 2¢ is tires: an $800 set lasting 40,000 miles. The other 6¢ is a placeholder for oil, brakes, filters and the repairs that heavy mileage pulls forward. Your owner’s manual may list a “severe service” schedule, and frequent short trips with idling can fall under it. Check which one applies to how you actually drive, and build your number from a full per-mile worksheet.

Insurance. A personal auto policy may exclude or limit coverage while you’re logged into a rideshare app, and the details differ by insurer and by state. The $30 here stands for whatever it costs you to close that gap, typically through an endorsement or a different policy. Ask your insurer directly, in writing: what is covered while the app is on and waiting, while a ride is accepted, and while a passenger is aboard? Don’t rely on a general description of what the app provides; read its current terms yourself.

The blank line

We left the tax set-aside empty on purpose. Income from driving for an app is generally reportable, and self-employed people may owe self-employment tax on top of income tax, but the amount depends on your whole return. The IRS publishes a standard mileage rate each year that some drivers can use in place of actual expenses; it is a tax figure, not a measure of what your car costs you, and the two can differ substantially. Our basics on car expenses and taxes explains who to ask, and irs.gov has the current rate and rules. Fill in the line with a number from a tax professional or your own return, not a round guess.

Which inputs move the net line most

Split the expenses into the ones that scale with miles and the ones that don’t. Fuel, maintenance and depreciation scale: in this week they come to about 34.7¢ a mile (11.7¢ fuel, 8¢ upkeep, 15¢ depreciation). Washes, phone and insurance are closer to fixed. That split tells you where effort pays.

Cut 70 deadhead miles: 70 × $0.3467 ≈ $24.27 more net
Fuel up 50¢/gal: 20 gal × $0.50 = $10.00 less net

In this illustration, trimming empty miles is worth more than a sizable swing at the pump. Your own ratio will differ, which is the reason to work it out rather than borrow ours.

Running it on your own week

You need four things you already have: the weekly payout summary, your odometer at the start and end of the week, your fuel receipts, and the number of hours you were logged in. Everything else is a per-mile rate you estimate once and reuse. After two or three weeks the statement stops being an exercise and becomes a baseline, and the question it answers is narrower than “is this worth it?” It is: at my car’s real cost per mile, which hours and which areas leave the net line where I need it to be?