If you can't say in one sentence how your driver pay compares with the market, you are probably either overpaying or losing drivers to carriers that pay more. Driver pay benchmarking is the fastest way to find out which. Most fleets set pay once, adjust it when a driver threatens to quit, and never check it against real data. This guide shows how to benchmark your CDL-A driver pay properly and what to do with the result.
Start with the two numbers that frame the market
Two public data sets give you a reliable baseline. The first is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Its occupational outlook for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers lists a median pay of $58,640 per year ($28.19 per hour) as of May 2025, across about 2.2 million jobs, with roughly 214,500 openings projected each year. Keep in mind that this figure blends local, regional and long-haul drivers, so it is a floor for OTR comparisons, not a target.
The second is the American Transportation Research Institute. In its 2025 cost data, reported by Transport Topics, driver wages averaged 81.8 cents per mile (up from 79.8 cents in 2024) and driver benefits averaged 21 cents per mile (up from 19.7 cents). Together that is 102.8 cents per mile, and total operating cost reached $2.336 per mile. Note that ATRI's figure is an industry average across many fleets and pay structures, so do not compare it directly with the rate on your own pay sheet. Use it to understand how large driver cost is in your budget: roughly 44 percent of the average cost to run a truck mile.
Compare total weekly pay, not just the cents-per-mile rate
Drivers don't spend cents per mile. They spend weekly settlements. Two carriers can advertise the same rate and deliver very different paychecks, depending on how many paid miles a driver actually gets. When you benchmark, build a simple table for each competitor you recruit against:
- Base rate per mile and how miles are calculated (practical, hub, or shortest route)
- Average paid miles per week for a typical truck, not the best driver
- Extra pay: detention, layover, stop pay, breakdown pay, safety and fuel bonuses
- Guaranteed minimums, if any, and for how long
- Sign-on and referral bonuses, and when they are paid
Pull competitor details from their public job ads and driver forums, then check them against what applicants tell your recruiters. When a candidate declines your offer, ask what the other carrier offered. After a month of asking, you will have real market data that no survey can match.
Benchmark against drivers you are actually competing for
A new graduate, a two-year driver and a ten-year driver with a clean record are three different labor markets. So are dry van, reefer and flatbed. Segment your benchmark by equipment type, experience tier and home-time pattern. If you run regional freight with weekly home time, your competition is other regional carriers, not the national mega-fleets that recruit green drivers at volume. Write down the three or four carriers a driver would realistically choose instead of you, and track only those.
Run the math before you change a rate
Raising pay feels expensive until you put numbers on it. Here is a worked example with assumptions you should replace with your own:
- Assume each truck runs 2,500 paid miles per week.
- Assume you raise the base rate by 3 cents per mile.
- Cost per truck: 2,500 x $0.03 = $75 per week, or about $3,900 per year.
- For a 20-truck fleet, that is about $78,000 per year before payroll taxes.
Now compare that with what you lose when drivers leave. Our post on what losing one driver costs you shows how to calculate your own turnover cost. If a 3-cent increase prevents even a few departures a year, plus the idle days each one creates, it may pay for itself. If your turnover is already low and your seats fill within days, the data may tell you the opposite: that you are at or above market and should spend elsewhere.
Know the signals that pay is the problem
Pay is not always the reason drivers leave, so look for evidence before you act. Pay is likely your issue when:
- Applicants often say another carrier offered more, and your offer-acceptance rate is falling
- Exit interviews mention weekly settlements, not dispatch or equipment
- Seats take longer to fill than they did a year ago, even with the same ad budget
- Your best drivers leave for a specific competitor
If the exit reasons point to dispatch, home time or equipment, a raise will not fix them. Fix the actual cause first, then revisit the rate.
Make pay easy to understand
Transparency costs nothing. Publish your pay structure in the job ad and spell it out again in the offer: rate, typical weekly miles, accessorials and bonus rules. Drivers who feel surprised by their first settlement are the ones who quit in the first 90 days. A clear pay sheet also gives your recruiters something concrete to say on the first call, which matters when speed-to-contact decides who gets the driver.
Key takeaways
- Use BLS and ATRI data for context, but benchmark against the specific carriers your drivers would choose instead of you.
- Compare weekly pay and paid miles, not just the headline cents-per-mile rate.
- Segment by equipment, experience and home time. One market average hides the real picture.
- Price any raise per truck and per year, then weigh it against your measured turnover cost.
- Confirm that pay is actually the reason drivers leave before you spend on it.
- Publish a clear pay structure to cut early-tenure surprises.
When your team doesn't have time to run the numbers
Benchmarking pay, tracking competitors and keeping a steady flow of qualified applicants is a lot to add to a small safety or operations team. If you would rather hand the sourcing and qualifying to a specialist and keep your focus on running freight, an outsourced recruiting partner that is paid per seated driver can take that load off your plate.
Photo: Shashidhara halady, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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