NEMT profit per vehicle calculator: what each van earns

How to use the profit per vehicle calculator

Fill in the numbers for one typical vehicle. Every field starts with an example value, so replace each one with your own. The results update as you type.

1. Enter trips per day for one vehicle and the days on the road each month. Count each one-way leg as a trip.
2. Enter your average revenue per trip across all payers.
3. Enter the driver cost per hour and the paid driver hours per day.
4. Enter the miles driven per day and your fuel cost per mile.
5. Enter the monthly insurance, maintenance, vehicle payment, and software costs for that vehicle.
6. Enter your number of vehicles to see fleet totals.

What each input means and where to find your number

For revenue, start with your own statements. If you are still planning, our guides to how much Medicaid pays for NEMT and NEMT broker rates show published rates to build from.

For driver pay, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median wage of $17.93 an hour for shuttle drivers and chauffeurs and $17.04 an hour for ambulance drivers and attendants (except EMTs), both for May 2025. On top of the wage, employers pay 6.2% for Social Security and 1.45% for Medicare, or 7.65% in total. Our guide to NEMT driver pay covers pay models in more detail.

For fuel, divide the price per gallon by the vehicle’s miles per gallon. The U.S. Energy Information Administration put regular gasoline at $4.478 a gallon in the week of September 21, 2026. At that price, a van that gets 15 miles per gallon spends about 30 cents on fuel for every mile.

How to read the result

The headline is monthly profit per vehicle: revenue minus the costs that vehicle carries. The profit margin is that profit as a share of revenue. Profit per trip spreads it across the month’s trips.

The fleet totals multiply one vehicle by your fleet size, which assumes the vehicles are alike. If you run sedans and wheelchair vans, run the calculator once for each type. Revenue per trip also changes with the payer, so a van that runs mostly private-pay trips can earn a very different margin from one that runs mostly Medicaid work.

Rerun the numbers each month with last month’s trips and bills, and again whenever fuel, insurance, or a payer’s rates change.

Two things to keep in mind:

• Shared overhead. Dispatch and office staff, rent, and your own pay are not in the per-vehicle costs. Subtract them from the fleet profit, or use the break-even calculator, which counts them as fixed costs.
• Idle time. A van that sits empty for hours still costs its driver, insurance, and payment. That is why trips per day is the input to watch most closely. See vehicle utilization and trips per hour.

Worked example

These are the calculator’s example numbers, not industry figures. One vehicle runs 8 trips a day for 22 days at $45 a trip, which brings in $7,920 a month.

Profit is $7,920 minus $6,049, or $1,871 a month. That is a 23.6% margin, or about $10.63 per trip. Three vehicles like this one earn $5,613 a month before shared overhead.

Now change one number. At 10 trips a day in the same hours and miles, revenue rises to $9,900 and profit rises to $3,851.

Seeing your real numbers

HealthRide’s payer summary shows completed trips and revenue billed per payer over any period, which gives you a real average revenue per trip. Driver activity reports show hours from real clock-ins and miles from GPS records, so the cost side can come from your own data too. See HealthRide reports.