A food truck's profit margin is one month's sales minus food, crew wages, commissary and parking, fuel, insurance and any app commission, divided by sales. For example, the calculator below opens with a food truck in US dollars: $22,000 of sales a month, 31% food and packaging, 28% labor, $1,800 for the commissary, parking and permits, and $5,600 for fuel, propane, insurance and repairs. Replace the example with your own month to see your margin, and what moving app orders to pickup on your own page would change.
Part of the free Restaurant profit margin calculator.
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Your net margin
Example numbersFood, drink and labor together.
What you would keep if no order paid commission.
Delivery apps take $825 a month: 51% of the profit you would otherwise keep.
At 25% commission, once 29% of your sales come through the apps, the month makes nothing.
The same $3,300 of orders on your own ordering page, paying a 2.9% card fee ($95.70) instead of commission.
Moving those orders to your own page would keep $729 more a month, $8,752 a year.
Compare with US restaurants
US limited-service median income before taxes, 2024: 4% of sales (food and drink 32.4%, labor 31.7%). From the National Restaurant Association's survey of more than 900 US restaurants. Medians, not targets.
Move app regulars to your own ordering page
Make a Menuthere ordering page with your menu and a QR code. Orders on it pay 0% commission, so regulars who order direct leave you more.
Sales, food and labor as a share of sales, rent and other costs. Example numbers are filled in to start.
The share of sales that comes through the apps and their average commission. The calculator takes it off your margin.
See your margin with the apps and with the same orders coming direct, then copy the numbers for your partner or accountant.
Treat the commissary as your rent
A truck has no dining room, but it still needs a kitchen base, often a shared commissary, and somewhere to park overnight. Put the commissary fee, parking, permits and event pitch fees in the rent and occupancy box, so the margin shows the true cost of having somewhere to trade.
Re-check fuel every month
US on-highway diesel averaged $6.28 a gallon in the week of October 19, 2026, $2.66 more than a year before, and regular gasoline $4.28. Driving between pitches and running a generator can swing other costs by hundreds of dollars a month, so update that line from your receipts.
Cost a slow pitch, not only a festival
One big event can make a month look healthy. Run the calculator once for an ordinary month of lunch pitches and once with your events, and set prices so the ordinary month still leaves a margin after wages and fuel.
Questions owners ask
Checked against
Put your items on a Menuthere page. Customers pick, fill in their details and the order arrives on your WhatsApp. Free, with no commission.