Food Truck Profit Calculator

Estimating food truck profit is essential in the food business to evaluate whether your food truck is doing well. Manual calculation can be tricky, so you don’t have to calculate by hand — we created the Food Truck Profit Calculator to help you estimate your food truck profit.

We cover:

• What is a Food Truck Profit Calculator?
• How is Food Truck Profit Calculated?
• A real-world example

Let's dive deep in this guide.

What is a Food Truck Profit Calculator?

A food truck profit calculator is a simple but powerful online financial tool that helps food truck business owners estimate the monthly profit and margin. It considers these factors:

• Average Daily Sales – How much revenue your truck makes per day.
• Operating Days Per Month – How many days you run the truck in a typical month.
• COGS % (Cost of Goods Sold) – The percentage of sales that go toward food and beverage costs.
• Monthly Fixed Expenses – All non-food costs such as labor, insurance, maintenance, permits, and fuel.

When you correctly enter the required values, the calculator displays:

• Monthly revenue
• Food costs (COGS)
• Fixed expenses
• Total expenses
• Net profit
• Profit margin percentage

Ultimately, this helps you measure business performance and make informed decisions — for example whether to reduce costs, increase sales, or adjust pricing.

How is Food Truck Profit Calculated?

The logic behind the food truck profit calculation is a simple, straightforward formula:

1. Monthly Revenue = Average Daily Sales × Operating Days per Month
2. COGS (Food Costs) = Monthly Revenue × (COGS % ÷ 100)
3. Total Expenses = COGS + Monthly Fixed Expenses
4. Profit = Monthly Revenue – Total Expenses
5. Profit Margin (%) = (Profit ÷ Monthly Revenue) × 100

The formula focuses on two major types of costs:

• Variable costs (COGS): costs that change with sales, such as food and beverages.
• Fixed costs: Regular monthly expenses such as labor, fuel, insurance, and permits.

A real-world example

Let’s walk through a real-world example step-by-step so you can clearly understand the logic:

Scenario:

• Average Daily Sales: $1,000
• Operating Days: 26
• COGS %: 32%
• Fixed Expenses: $7,000

Let's perform the calculation:

• Step 1: Monthly Revenue = $1,000 × 26 = $26,000
• Step 2: COGS = $26,000 × 0.32 = $8,320
• Step 3: Total Expenses = $8,320 + $7,000 = $15,320
• Step 4: Profit = $26,000 – $15,320 = $10,680
• Step 5: Profit Margin = ($10,680 ÷ $26,000) × 100 = 41.1%

Thus, the food truck is doing great, earning a profit of $10,680 per month with a strong margin.