What does one mile of pizza delivery actually cost in 2026?

About $0.47 nationally for a typical newer compact sedan, and anywhere from roughly $0.42 to $0.60 depending on the state, mostly because of insurance. The modeled composition nationally: depreciation about $0.15, fuel about $0.12, insurance about $0.10 with delivery loading, maintenance and tires about $0.09, and registration about $0.01.

Why is gas such a small part of delivery cost?

Because the costs a shop never sees at the pump dominate. Insurance and depreciation together are more than half the mile; fuel is only about a quarter. That is why setting a driver payment by watching gas prices misses most of the picture: gas could fall 20% and the true cost of the mile would drop barely two cents.

Are EVs cheaper for pizza delivery?

Usually, and meaningfully. A representative EV models out near $0.40 per mile, roughly $0.07 below the compact-sedan benchmark, because electricity replaces most of the fuel spend and maintenance drops, partly offset by higher depreciation and insurance. The advantage grows where electricity is cheap and shrinks where it is expensive, which the interactive tool on this page shows by state.

ReportAugust 2026 · Component studyInteractive · Citable with attribution

The True Cost of a Delivery Mile 2026: What's Actually Inside It

Every pizza run puts miles on somebody's car. Here is what each of those miles is really made of, by state and by vehicle, and why the cost every shop watches is the smallest part of the answer.

25%

of the mile is fuel, the only cost shops watch

53%

is insurance + depreciation, which never show a per-mile bill

$0.20

spread between a used compact and a new pickup on the same route

$0.40

the EV mile, already the cheapest new vehicle in most states

Build your own mile

The national average delivery mile costs a modeled $0.47, but no shop operates at the national average. Pick your state and the kind of car your drivers actually run:

Build your mile

Pick a state and a vehicle. Watch what the mile is made of.

State

Vehicle

$0.44/mile

≈ $6,600 per driver per year at 15,000 delivery miles

Illustrative modeled composition; state figure is the documented midpoint, insurance derived as the state's variable component. Nothing is stored.

The shape of the mile is the whole story

Whatever state you picked, the bar keeps the same surprising shape: fuel is the thin slice. Depreciation, the value a driver's car sheds with every run, is the largest component and is invisible until trade-in day. Insurance, repriced annually by carriers territory by territory, is the component that varies most between states, which is why the whole cheap-state-to-California spread is essentially an insurance spread. Maintenance arrives lumpy and late. The pump price, the one number on a forty-foot sign, is about a quarter of the truth. Shops that set driver payments by watching gas are steering by the smallest gauge on the dash: gas could fall 20% tomorrow and the true mile would get about two cents cheaper.

The vehicle decision is a $0.20 decision

Flip the vehicle selector above and watch the total swing: the same route costs a modeled $0.38 in a three-year-old compact and $0.58 in a new pickup. A shop paying every driver one rate is overpaying its Civics and underpaying its Tacomas on every run, and the underpaid half is where legal exposure lives. The EV row is the one to watch through 2027: at roughly $0.40 per mile, electric sedans already run the cheapest new-vehicle mile in most states, with the advantage set by local electricity prices. Vehicle-by-vehicle economics get the full treatment in our delivery car guide.

What a shop should do with this

Three rules fall straight out of the shape of the bar. Localize: the biggest variable, insurance, is priced by ZIP-level territory, so one rate across stores misprices somewhere. Classify: twenty cents of spread by vehicle means the rate should know what is parked outside. Refresh: the dominant components reprice on annual insurance and monthly fuel cycles, so a rate has a shelf life. Those three rules are exactly the documented-rate structure that current wage law measures against, per this year's State of Delivery Reimbursement study, and the 10-point self-audit tests any shop's current program against them in two minutes.

Data sources

State insurance rate filings: public rating examples from state insurance department portals (SERFF; Florida's FLOIR IRFS), standard-market carrier entities, delivery-use loading applied
U.S. Energy Information Administration: regional gasoline prices and state electricity prices (the EV fuel input)
Vehicle pricing data: current MSRP and model-year values via commercial vehicle-data APIs, depreciated over delivery-service life
AAA "Your Driving Costs": per-mile maintenance and tire allowance schedules
State fee tables: registration, title, and fee schedules by state
IRS notices: standard mileage rates for the comparison line ($0.76 since July 1, 2026)

Methodology and citation

Modeled composition for a representative vehicle at 15,000 annual delivery miles. National baseline for a new compact sedan: depreciation $0.15, fuel $0.12, insurance $0.10 (delivery-loaded), maintenance and tires $0.09, registration $0.01. State totals are RatesReady documented midpoints, with insurance derived as each state's variable component; vehicle classes apply size, age, and powertrain adjustments. All figures are illustrative estimates. Cite as "RatesReady, The True Cost of a Delivery Mile 2026" with a link to this page; state, metro, and class-level cuts available on request.

This report is educational analysis, not financial, insurance, or legal advice. Actual costs vary by ZIP code, driver, vehicle, and data period.