Introduction
Small and midsize service fleet owners operate on razor-thin margins. Every mile driven and every dollar spent on a work van or truck needs to count. New 2025 benchmark data offers a clear picture of what efficient fleet costs look like. In particular, a Cost per Mile (CPM) of about $0.24 and an annual Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) around $9,584 per vehicle emerged as lean fleet benchmarks for service providers.
This article breaks down each key metric – CPM, TCO, fuel costs, and service costs – in plain language and explains why they matter for your business outcomes. We'll also highlight operational strategies (optimized routes, smart maintenance, centralized tracking, etc.) that help real fleets hit these low cost marks. Finally, we link specific fleet management product features to cost-control benefits, so you can see how the right tools turn data into savings.
Understanding Key Fleet Cost Metrics
Effective fleet management starts with understanding the core cost metrics that impact your bottom line. Below is a snapshot of 2025 benchmark values for service provider fleets versus the overall fleet averages, followed by detailed explanations of each metric and why it matters:
| Metric (2025) | Service Fleets | All Fleets (Avg) |
|---|---|---|
| Annual Miles per Vehicle | ~37,036 | ~33,368 |
| Cost per Mile (CPM) | $0.24 | $0.24 |
| Fuel Cost per Mile | $0.15 | $0.14 |
| Maintenance Cost per Mile | $0.06 | $0.07 |
| Annual TCO per Vehicle | $9,584 | $10,169 |
These figures show that well-run service fleets drive slightly more miles than average yet manage to keep costs per mile low. In fact, at $0.24 per mile, service providers were right in line with the national fleet average for CPM. Their median TCO of $9,584 per asset is about 6% lower than the fleet-wide average of ~$10,169. Let's break down each metric and why it's critical for small-to-midsize (SMB) fleet operations.
Cost per Mile (CPM): The Efficiency Metric
Cost per Mile (CPM) is the total cost to operate a vehicle divided by the miles driven. It encapsulates operational efficiency – essentially, how much money you spend for every mile your vehicles travel. This includes fuel, maintenance, tire wear, and even a portion of insurance and depreciation allocated per mile. A low CPM means your fleet is running cost-efficiently; a high CPM means each mile is eating more of your budget.
In 2025, service provider fleets achieved a CPM of about $0.24 on average. To put this in context, that's significantly leaner than some other industries – for example, government fleets ran around $0.27 per mile (due to lower utilization), and trucking fleets were up at $0.31 per mile (due to expensive equipment and fuel). For an SMB fleet, hitting ~$0.24 means you're operating on the frontier of efficiency, turning miles into revenue at a cost on par with the best in the business.
"A difference of just $0.03 per mile ($0.27 vs $0.24) might sound small, but over ~37,000 miles a year that's over $1,100 saved per vehicle annually. In a fleet of 10 vehicles, that's roughly $11,000 per year back in your pocket."
Why CPM matters:
Cost per mile directly affects profit per job and pricing. Many service businesses (plumbing, HVAC, delivery, etc.) factor mileage into their service rates or fuel surcharges. If your CPM is lower, you can price services more competitively or simply enjoy better margins. Small fleets don't have the luxury of absorbing high operating costs – a lean CPM can be the difference between a profitable month and running at a loss.
What drives a low CPM?
It comes from controlling the components that go into each mile's cost. The two biggest factors are typically fuel and maintenance, but CPM is also influenced by how well you utilize vehicles. The fact that service fleets in 2025 drove ~37k miles/year versus ~33k average indicates they spread fixed costs over more miles, helping bring the per-mile figure down. Optimized routing and dispatch play a role here – by reducing empty or unnecessary miles, fleets can accomplish more work with only the miles that truly matter. Additionally, consistent preventive maintenance keeps vehicles running efficiently mile after mile, so you're not paying extra due to breakdowns or poor fuel economy.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): The Big-Picture Cost per Vehicle
While CPM looks at unit cost per mile, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) tells you the annual (or lifetime) cost to own and operate each vehicle. TCO includes everything: purchase or lease payments (or depreciation if owned), insurance, registration, taxes, fuel, maintenance, repairs, tires, and even indirect costs like downtime or administrative overhead. It's the comprehensive sum of what a vehicle costs your business over a period of time. Most fleet managers track TCO on a yearly basis per vehicle to gauge how cost-effective each asset is.
According to 2025 benchmarks, the median TCO for a service fleet vehicle was about $9,584 for the year. That's a strong number, coming in below the overall fleet average of ~$10,169 per vehicle. In contrast, certain heavy-use fleets had far higher TCOs (for instance, a typical trucking rig's TCO was ~$19.6k in 2025). For an SMB, a $9.6k annual cost means you're keeping ownership costs in check – your vehicles are costing less than $800 a month all-in.
Why TCO matters:
TCO is essentially your budget per vehicle. Small business fleet owners often focus on the big expenses like a truck's purchase price or monthly payment, but it's the sum of all the little costs that often determine profitability. If you only budget for fuel and a payment but ignore maintenance, you'll be in for nasty surprises. Tracking TCO lets you see the true cost of doing business with your fleet.
Critically, TCO trends signal when it's time for a change. A rising TCO can indicate a vehicle is aging and maintenance costs are spiking, or fuel inefficiency, or frequent downtime. If one unit's TCO is thousands above the benchmark, you might retire or replace it. Fleet experts emphasize replacing vehicles before they become money pits – as a vehicle ages, its operating costs climb while its resale value drops, so the key is to replace it at the optimal point in its life cycle.
How to keep TCO low:
The formula is simple in concept – minimize each component of cost – but it takes discipline. You control TCO by managing fuel spend, maintenance/repair costs, depreciation and asset lifespan, and downtime. Service fleets in 2025 kept TCO low partly by managing fuel and maintenance well (we see they had slightly lower maintenance CPM than average) and perhaps by operating cost-effective vehicles. Many SMBs use reliable pickup or cargo van models and hold onto them a bit longer. That can be smart as long as maintenance is under control. The goal is a sweet spot: long vehicle life, but not at the expense of exorbitant upkeep.
Fuel Costs: Taming Your Largest Variable Expense
For most fleets, fuel is the single largest variable cost driving both CPM and TCO. In the service fleet benchmark data, fuel cost averaged about $0.15 per mile for service vehicles, which is roughly 60% of their total operating cost per mile. (The overall fleet average fuel cost was ~$0.14 per mile on $0.24 CPM.) This means well over half of what you spend per mile is literally burned up in the tank. Fuel costs matter immensely because they can swing quickly with fuel price changes or inefficient driving.
Why fuel efficiency matters to SMBs:
Unlike big fleets, small businesses often can't negotiate bulk fuel contracts or surcharges to offset fuel prices. Every dollar saved on fuel goes straight to your bottom line. If you can reduce fuel consumption, you immediately lower your CPM and annual costs. For example, shaving just 10% off fuel usage (through better routes or driving behavior) could save on the order of $500+ per vehicle per year in fuel for a service fleet – real money for an SMB. Also, fuel efficiency ties into your service capacity: less time fueling or fewer fuel expenses mean you can do more jobs per dollar.
Key strategies to control fuel cost:
- Optimized routing: Efficient route planning and dispatch ensure drivers cover the shortest or most traffic-free routes to get their jobs done. This avoids unnecessary mileage. Using GPS and telematics for route optimization can significantly reduce total miles and idle time, which directly cuts fuel burn.
- Managing idle time: Idling is a silent killer of fuel economy. Every minute a vehicle idles is essentially 0 MPG. A service van or pickup might use around 0.5 gallons/hour. That means even one vehicle idling an hour a day could waste over $700 of fuel in a year (assuming ~$3.50/gal). Cutting excessive idle time via automatic engine shut-offs or simply driver training can yield huge savings.
- Driver behavior and speed: Aggressive driving (rapid acceleration, hard braking) and high speeds devour fuel. Smooth driving at moderate speeds improves MPG. For instance, consistently driving at 70 mph vs 60 mph can noticeably increase fuel usage. Many SMB fleet owners now use driver monitoring dashboards (as part of telematics solutions) to monitor behaviors like speeding or harsh driving.
Maintenance & Service Costs: Preventive Care vs. Costly Repairs
The other major slice of fleet operating cost is maintenance and service. In our benchmark, maintenance cost per mile averaged about $0.06 for service fleets, slightly better (lower) than the $0.07 per mile fleet-wide average. This suggests that efficient service fleets are practicing good maintenance to keep repair costs down. Maintenance expenses include routine servicing (oil changes, inspections, tire rotations, brake pads, etc.) as well as repairs (fixing unexpected breakdowns, parts failures, etc.).
Why maintenance costs matter:
Uncontrolled maintenance costs can wreck your budget and cripple your fleet's reliability. For SMBs that can't afford spare vehicles, a truck in the shop is a job that doesn't get done (and revenue lost) on top of the repair bill. Staying on top of maintenance is crucial to avoid catastrophic failures and to extend vehicle life at a reasonable cost. The goal is to find that balance where you spend a little in preventive maintenance to save a lot in avoidable repairs.
"Studies estimate that unplanned repairs cost 3 to 9 times more than scheduled maintenance – put another way, postponing a $60 oil change could lead to a $6,000 engine replacement."
Best practices to control service costs:
- Follow a preventive maintenance schedule religiously. Perform oil changes, inspections, filter replacements, tire rotations, and other service on time (or earlier if the vehicle's duty cycle is severe). Scheduled downtime is far preferable to unscheduled breakdowns.
- Use maintenance alerts and logs. Many SMBs are turning to simple fleet maintenance software or apps to track when each vehicle is due for service and to log all work done. Automatic PM reminders ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
- Train drivers to report issues early. Your technicians or service vendors can only fix problems they know about. Encourage drivers to do quick daily vehicle checks (lights, tires, odd noises) and have an easy way for them to report defects.
- Track maintenance cost per vehicle. Over time, this helps identify units that are becoming too costly. Having each service logged (parts, labor, cost) in one place makes it easy to see these patterns.
From Data to Action: Linking Fleet Management Features to Cost Control
Understanding the metrics is half the battle – the other half is acting on them. Today's fleet management software and telematics tools can directly assist SMB fleet owners in controlling costs by reinforcing best practices like those discussed. Below are several key product features (and associated fleet behaviors) that map to the cost areas we just covered, paired with the cost-control benefits they deliver:
Fuel & Idle Tracking → GPS Monitoring + Driver Behavior Dashboard
Implementing GPS tracking devices in your vehicles, combined with a driver behavior dashboard, lets you monitor fuel usage and idling in real time. You can see exactly when and where vehicles idle excessively or if a driver is speeding and guzzling gas. With this data transparency, fleet managers can coach drivers to reduce idle time and adopt fuel-efficient driving habits.
Service CPM Management → Automated Service Logs + Maintenance Alerts
To keep maintenance costs per mile low, you need consistency and visibility. Automated service logging and maintenance alert features do just that. Every time a vehicle gets serviced, it's recorded in a central log. You can then track each vehicle's maintenance CPM and total spend easily. More importantly, maintenance alerts tied to odometer or calendar intervals will remind you when PM is due.
High TCO Intervention → Asset Cost Visibility + Replacement Guidance
When a fleet platform gives you asset-level cost reports, you gain the power to identify which vehicles are costing you the most. You might discover, for example, that one older truck has a TCO 20% higher than the others due to frequent repairs. With full cost visibility, you can make informed decisions about vehicle lifecycle.
Route Optimization & Dispatch → Efficient Dispatching + Real-Time Tracking
Modern dispatch software can integrate with mapping tools and real-time vehicle trackers to optimize routes and schedules for your drivers. When a job comes in, the system can assign it to the nearest or most appropriate vehicle and chart an optimal route factoring in current traffic. This level of route optimization and real-time dispatch cuts down on total miles driven.
Conclusion: Lean Fleet Management for Competitive Advantage
Running a small or midsize service fleet is a constant balancing act between meeting customer needs and controlling expenses. The 2025 benchmark of $0.24 per mile and $9.6k annual TCO provides a concrete target for what efficient fleet costs look like – essentially, what's achievable when a fleet is managed proactively. By breaking down CPM, TCO, fuel, and maintenance costs, we see that no single magic bullet cuts costs; rather, it's about excelling in many small practices: optimizing routes, training drivers, performing preventive maintenance, and leveraging data to make decisions.
The good news for SMB fleet owners is that you don't need a massive budget or staff to emulate these successes – modern fleet management solutions put powerful capabilities within reach. By using the right tools (GPS tracking, maintenance software, etc.) and instilling a culture of cost awareness, even a lean team can drastically improve its cost control. The result is not just a lower CPM or TCO on paper, but a more resilient and profitable business. Savings on fuel and repairs can be reinvested in growth or passed on as competitive pricing to win more business.
As you benchmark your own fleet against that $0.24 CPM figure, remember that it's both a goal and a moving target. Continuously monitor your performance – if your CPM starts creeping up, dig into why (is it fuel prices, vehicle health, driver habits?). Use the metrics and tools outlined in this article to adjust course. Managing a fleet is an ongoing process of improvement. But with data-driven insights and smart use of technology, a lean, cost-efficient fleet is an attainable advantage for any service provider.