Two lanes that earn the same total margin dollars can be wildly different businesses once you account for distance. A 1,500-mile lane and a 250-mile lane that both net $400 are not equally good — the short lane is far richer per mile. Rate-per-mile is how brokers normalize lanes against each other, and it's where carrier buy-rate pressure shows up first. This report ranks lanes by margin and breaks each one down into revenue, carrier cost, and margin per mile so you can decide which lanes to chase, which to repower, and which to drop.
What this report answers
Which lanes produce the most margin, and which carry the most volume? Where is a high dollar-margin lane actually thin on margin rate? And per mile — what are we selling at, what are we buying at, and what's left? The Lane Leaderboard page ranks lanes by margin dollars and exposes thin lanes hiding inside big totals; the Rate per Mile Economics page sets revenue per mile against carrier cost per mile with the margin-per-mile spread, and scatters volume against margin rate to flag high-volume thin lanes that are quietly diluting the book.
The metrics that matter
Every rate here is a SUM/SUM ratio over loaded miles, which is what makes lanes comparable regardless of length. Revenue per Mile is your sell-rate density, Carrier Cost per Mile is your buy-rate density, and the gap between them is Margin per Mile — the cleanest measure of lane efficiency. A lane where carrier cost per mile is climbing toward revenue per mile is a buy-rate problem you can see before it shows up as a thin overall margin.
Why the data is trapped
The TMS — McLeod, Tai, AscendTMS, Aljex, Turvo — stores origin, destination, miles, sell rate, and carrier cost on every load, but rolling that up into per-lane rate-per-mile economics is not a native report. Brokers end up exporting loads and pivoting by lane in a spreadsheet, recomputing rate-per-mile by hand each time. This template models the lane roll-up and the per-mile ratios directly off your export.
How to read it
Rank lanes by margin, then check margin rate and margin per mile next to it — a top-dollar lane with a thin rate is a repower or renegotiation target, not a growth target. Use the revenue-versus-cost-per-mile comparison to spot lanes where the carrier buy rate is creeping up, and the volume-versus-margin scatter to find high-volume lanes that are diluting your blended margin. The sample on this page uses entirely synthetic data — generic labels and made-up dollar figures, no real loads, carriers, or customers.
Metrics it tracks
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total Lane Margin $ | Gross margin dollars across all loads, sliceable by origin-destination lane. |
| Lane Gross Margin % | Total margin ÷ total revenue (SUM/SUM) — the blended margin rate across lanes. |
| Loaded Volume | Count of loads, sliceable per lane. |
| Margin per Mile | Total margin ÷ total loaded miles (SUM/SUM) — margin efficiency normalized by distance. |
| Revenue per Mile | Total revenue ÷ total loaded miles (SUM/SUM) — the customer sell-rate density per mile. |
| Carrier Cost per Mile | Total carrier cost ÷ total loaded miles (SUM/SUM) — the carrier buy-rate density per mile. |
Used by: Brokerage owners, operations managers
Frequently asked questions
What is rate-per-mile and why does it matter for a freight broker?
Rate-per-mile normalizes a lane by distance — revenue per mile is your sell-rate density, carrier cost per mile is your buy-rate density, and the difference is margin per mile. It lets you compare a short lane and a long lane on the same footing, and it's where carrier buy-rate creep shows up before it dents your overall margin.
How do I find which lanes to drop or repower?
Rank lanes by margin dollars, then read margin rate and margin per mile alongside. A lane that's big on dollars but thin on rate, or one where carrier cost per mile is climbing toward revenue per mile, is a repower or renegotiation candidate. The volume-versus-margin scatter surfaces high-volume thin lanes diluting the book.
Can I build this on my own lane data?
Yes. Export your loads with origin, destination, loaded miles, revenue, and carrier cost from your TMS and use this as a template — we model it into a Power BI report. The sample uses synthetic data, so there are no real lanes or rates in what you see here.
Build this report on your own data
Clone this Freight brokerages template — describe it and we’ll generate sample data so you can try it free, or upload your own export. You get a fully modeled, branded Power BI project that opens in Power BI Desktop.
Use this as a template →