DriverSumDriver Pay Structures: Hourly, Per-Mile, Per-Load, Salary — How to Compare a Weekly Number
Why the weekly number is not the offer
Recruiting ads lead with a weekly figure, but that figure is built on a structure — hourly, per-mile, per-load, percentage, or salary — and each structure hides different assumptions: how many hours, how many miles, how much unpaid waiting, and who absorbs a slow week. Comparing offers by the headline alone is how drivers end up working more hours for less money than the job they left. This guide gives you the conversion questions for each structure, so any offer can be reduced to the only fair comparisons: pay per hour actually worked, and pay per week actually lived.
Hourly pay: the most transparent structure
Hourly pay dominates local work — delivery, waste, transit, municipal fleets, much box truck and shuttle work. Its virtue is honesty: every hour on the clock is paid, including loading, fueling, and waiting that other structures may silently exclude. The questions that matter: When does the clock start and stop — at the yard, at first stop, after a pre-trip? Is overtime paid after 8 hours a day, 40 a week, or not at all (some arrangements differ)? Are there guaranteed minimum hours, or can a short route mean a short check? Hourly plus predictable overtime is often worth more than a bigger-sounding salary.
Per-mile pay: know which miles, and what is not a mile
Per-mile (CPM) pay is the classic regional and OTR structure. Its traps are definitional. Are miles paid by odometer, by routing software, or by a household-goods table that runs shorter than the road? Are empty (deadhead) miles paid at the same rate? Most importantly: what work is not driving at all — loading supervision, fueling, inspections, detention at docks — and is any of it paid separately? A strong CPM with long unpaid detention can net less per working hour than a modest CPM with paid detention. Ask for the average weekly miles the fleet actually runs, not the maximum a recruiter has seen, and ask what a slow week looks like.
Per-load and percentage pay: shared risk
Per-load pay (common in port drayage, dump, and some tanker work) pays for completed moves; percentage-of-load pay (common in flatbed and owner-operator arrangements) pays a share of what the load bills. Both share the freight market's risk with you: efficient days and good dispatch pay well; congestion, terminal delays, and thin freight come straight out of your check. The questions: What is the typical number of loads per day for this fleet — and the worst recent week, not the best? Who pays for waiting, chassis problems, or a cancelled load? For percentage: percentage of what — gross linehaul, and are fuel surcharges inside or outside the number? Never evaluate per-load or percentage pay without asking about the floor: is there any minimum for a day fully worked?
Salary and day rates: stability with fine print
Weekly salary and day-rate arrangements (common in dedicated routes, chauffeur and staff roles, and some shuttle work) buy predictability: the check is the check. The fine print is hours. A salary for a route that quietly grows from nine hours to twelve is a pay cut wearing a stable costume. Ask what the schedule actually ran last month, whether extra days are paid extra, and how the salary treats holidays and route cancellations. For gig and 1099 arrangements, add one more conversion: gross receipts are not pay. Fuel, maintenance, depreciation, insurance, and self-employment tax all come out before the number is comparable to a W-2 wage — run that subtraction honestly, on your own real costs.
Guaranteed, estimated, range, or claim: read the label
Every pay figure has an evidence status, and DriverSum labels it: guaranteed means the employer contractually commits to it; a range means the structure produces outcomes between two points; an estimate is a projection; and an unverified employer claim is simply what a listing asserts, not yet checked. Treat each label differently. A guaranteed figure can be planned around. A range should be evaluated at its lower half. An estimate deserves the structure questions in this guide. A claim deserves all of them, in writing, before you resign from anywhere. If a listing will not say which kind of number it is advertising, that silence is itself information.