← Medical courier route margin calculator
A route offer's flat dollar figure does not say whether it covers your real time and vehicle cost. Two routes paying the same amount can have very different margins once paid wait, mileage, consumables, and overhead are counted against them.
Open the free route margin calculator
Wait time beyond the grace period. Clinics, labs, and pharmacies rarely have a specimen or delivery ready the instant a courier arrives. A contract's grace period absorbs some of that; everything past it is calendar time the courier is not free to use elsewhere.
Loaded labor, not a driver's take-home rate. Payroll burden and non-driving paid time belong in the labor figure, or the margin looks better than the route actually pays.
Per-mile vehicle cost and per-stop consumables. Fuel, maintenance, and depreciation scale with miles; coolers, labels, and gel packs scale with stops. Both are real costs a flat per-route rate can obscure.
A scheduled route paying $300 for 6 stops over 35 miles, 2.5 scheduled hours, 45 minutes of wait against a 15-minute grace period, a $28/hour loaded labor rate, $0.72/mile vehicle cost, $1.50 per-stop consumables, and 10% overhead:
| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| Billable wait | 30 minutes (45 minus the 15-minute grace) |
| Labor cost | $84.00 (3.0 paid hours at $28) |
| Vehicle cost | $25.20 (35 miles at $0.72) |
| Consumables | $9.00 (6 stops at $1.50) |
| Overhead (10% of revenue) | $30.00 |
| Direct cost | $148.20 |
| Contribution margin | $151.80 (50.6% of revenue) |
| Margin per vehicle-hour | $50.60 |
This is contribution margin before taxes and owner draw, not take-home profit — a positive result is a starting point for deciding whether the contract is worthwhile, not a guarantee that it is.
Subtract loaded labor (including paid wait beyond any grace period), vehicle cost per mile, per-stop consumables, and overhead from the route's revenue to get contribution margin. A $300 route with 6 stops, 35 miles, 2.5 scheduled hours, and 45 minutes of wait with a 15-minute grace period costs $148.20 in direct costs, leaving a $151.80 margin — 50.6% of revenue, before taxes and owner draw.
Only the wait beyond whatever grace period is built into the contract. With a 15-minute grace period against 45 minutes of actual wait, 30 minutes counts as billable time and is paid at the loaded labor rate like any other hour on the route — the first 15 minutes is absorbed as normal route friction.
Total margin does not say whether a route is a good use of a limited number of driving hours in a day. Margin per vehicle-hour divides the contribution margin by the hours the route actually occupies — including billable wait — so two routes with the same dollar margin but different time commitments can be compared directly.