Quick Example (Monthly)
$6,800 (37.8%)Truck 1 Net Profit
Truck 1 Revenue $18,000
Truck 1 Dump Fees $2,800
Truck 1 Labor $5,400
Truck 1 Fuel $1,200
Truck 1 Payment + Insurance $1,800
Glossary definition
Per-Truck P&L
Profit and loss tracked by vehicle so you know exactly which truck earns its keep and which one quietly bleeds your junk removal business dry every month.
Last updated: Mar 2026
Per-Truck P&L
Definition
Per-Truck P&L is a separate income statement for each vehicle in your fleet showing revenue, direct costs, and net profit individually.
Used for
Identifying underperforming vehicles before they drain five figures annually
Holding crews accountable to per-truck revenue and cost benchmarks
Making data-backed fleet expansion and retirement decisions
Breakdown
What it means
Means
- A standalone income statement per vehicle capturing all revenue collected on jobs that truck completed, minus every cost directly tied to operating it that month.
- Every individual job ticket, dump receipt, fuel fill-up, oil change, and tire replacement is coded to the specific truck VIN or unit number that incurred the expense.
- The clearest lens for spotting a truck netting $7,200 per month alongside one barely clearing $1,800 — a gap that company-level P&L completely hides from you.
- A rolling financial scorecard that turns fleet management from guesswork into a data-driven decision about keeping, replacing, or benching each vehicle in your operation.
Used for
- Pinpointing which truck-and-crew combination generates the highest gross margin so you can replicate their routing, pacing, and upselling habits across the fleet.
- Deciding whether to retire a high-mileage vehicle, sell it, or invest $3,000–$5,000 in repairs based on that truck's trailing three-month profit trend.
- Setting weekly and monthly crew performance benchmarks — for example, requiring each truck to hit $4,000 in gross profit per week before bonuses kick in.
- Building an honest fleet expansion model where you only add truck number four after trucks one through three each sustain 35%+ net margins for two consecutive quarters.
Excludes
- Shared overhead like office rent, software subscriptions, marketing spend, or admin salaries — those belong on your company-level P&L and get distorted if you try to split them per truck.
- Owner compensation or distributions — track these at the entity level because allocating your salary across trucks creates misleading per-vehicle margins.
- One-time capital expenditures such as a new truck purchase price — depreciation or the monthly loan payment hits the truck P&L, but the lump-sum asset cost does not.
Why it matters
Operator impact
Most three-truck operators discover one vehicle generates 50–60% of total company profit while another barely breaks even — per-truck P&L is the only way to see this split clearly.
The underperforming truck is usually a crew or routing problem, not a mechanical one — swap the crew to a different vehicle for two weeks and watch the numbers follow the people.
A truck costing $2,500 per month in fixed expenses (payment, insurance, registration, maintenance reserve) must generate at least $6,500–$8,000 in monthly revenue to justify keeping it on the road.
Fleet expansion decisions should be grounded in per-truck ROI data, not top-line company revenue — total revenue can grow 30% while per-truck profit drops if you add a vehicle too early.
Seasonal dips hit harder than you expect: January and February revenue per truck typically drops 25–40% in northern markets, and without per-truck tracking you will not see which vehicle should be parked.
Lenders and potential buyers value junk removal businesses with per-truck financials significantly higher because the data proves operational maturity and de-risks the acquisition.
Mistakes
Common mistakes
Only tracking P&L at the company level — a three-truck operator in Tampa discovered his newest truck lost $1,400 per month for six months before he started tracking per vehicle, costing him $8,400 in hidden losses.
Adding a new truck before existing fleet units are each profitable — one Phoenix operator scaled from two to four trucks in 90 days, watched monthly overhead jump $5,800, and nearly defaulted on an SBA loan.
Blaming the truck when the problem is the crew — swap the crew between two vehicles for two weeks and track the numbers. If the low margin follows the people, the fix is training or termination, not a new truck.
Splitting fuel and dump fees evenly across trucks instead of tracking per vehicle — this masks a 20–35% variance in actual costs between trucks and makes your per-truck margins fiction, not fact.
Ignoring maintenance cost trends per truck — a gradual climb from $300 to $900 per month in repairs over two quarters signals the vehicle is approaching the replacement threshold, typically around 150,000–180,000 miles on a box truck.
FAQ
When do I need per-truck P&L?
You need per-truck P&L as soon as you operate two or more trucks. With a single vehicle, your company P&L and truck P&L are identical. The moment you add a second truck, revenue and costs blend together in a company-level report and you lose visibility into which unit actually earns money. Most operators who wait until three or four trucks to start tracking per vehicle discover they have been subsidizing a money-losing unit for months.
What is a healthy per-truck monthly revenue for junk removal?
A healthy per-truck monthly revenue is $12,000 to $20,000 for residential junk removal in most U.S. metro markets. Below $10,000 per month typically means the truck is not completing enough jobs — usually four to six per day — to cover its fixed and variable costs. Top-performing trucks in high-density markets like Dallas, Atlanta, or Denver regularly hit $22,000 or more by running tight routes and maintaining a $400-plus average ticket.
How do I track per-truck P&L in junk removal software?
You track per-truck P&L by assigning every job, dump fee, fuel receipt, and maintenance expense to a specific vehicle unit number. ScaleYourJunk's Growth plan at $299 per month does this automatically — each completed job tags revenue and costs to the truck, and the dashboard generates monthly per-vehicle profit reports. Without software, operators use spreadsheets, but manual entry errors typically corrupt the data within two to three weeks.
What costs should I include in per-truck P&L?
Include every cost that is directly caused by or assigned to a specific truck. This means fuel, dump and transfer fees, crew labor hours, the monthly loan or lease payment, commercial auto insurance, maintenance, repairs, registration, and DOT compliance expenses. Do not include shared overhead like office rent, marketing spend, or software subscriptions — those belong on your company-level P&L. The goal is to see what each truck truly costs to operate versus what it earns.
What per-truck profit margin should I target in junk removal?
Target a net per-truck profit margin of 30 to 42 percent for residential junk removal work. Gross margin per truck — revenue minus variable costs only — should sit between 50 and 62 percent. If a truck's net margin drops below 20 percent for two consecutive months, investigate the crew's efficiency, routing density, and average ticket size before the problem compounds. Commercial and construction debris trucks typically run tighter at 22 to 32 percent net due to heavier dump fees.
Resources
Related Resources
Glossary
Fleet Management Glossary
Understand the maintenance, vehicle records, compliance checks, and per-truck cost tracking that support fleet planning and help you review downtime.
Feature
Reports & Analytics
Review recorded revenue, expenses, labor and truck results, and check that costs are complete.
Guide
Scaling from 1 to 5 Trucks
A step-by-step guide to adding trucks profitably — when to hire, how to finance, and the per-truck benchmarks that signal readiness.
Guide
Job Costing
Understand how to calculate true profit per job so your per-truck P&L starts with accurate revenue and cost data at the ticket level.
Per-Truck P&L Built Into Your Dashboard
ScaleYourJunk Growth plan tracks revenue, costs, and profit per vehicle — the data you need to run a fleet.