What it is
The Fleet TCO Comparison Worksheet is a total cost of ownership model that puts up to three vehicle or fleet options side by side on a like-for-like basis. You enter each annual cost line once — acquisition or lease, fuel, maintenance, insurance, licensing, downtime, driver allocation and resale credit — and the worksheet computes annual TCO, cost per mile, lifetime cost over the holding period, a keep-vs-replace breakeven and a fuel-price sensitivity view, then names a recommended option. It is the difference between buying on sticker price and buying on what a vehicle actually costs to run.
The model's organizing metric is cost per mile, which it treats as the single most important fleet number because it normalizes very different vehicles and utilization levels onto one comparable scale. A high-mileage truck and a low-mileage van can be judged fairly only once their cost is divided by the miles they actually do. The worksheet computes this automatically from your annual totals and expected mileage, and carries it through to the summary dashboard.
Two analyses sit alongside the core comparison: a keep-vs-replace mini-model that weighs the rising cost of an aging vehicle against the acquisition cost of a newer one, and a fuel-price sensitivity table that re-prices fuel at low, base and high scenarios so you can see whether your recommended option still wins when fuel moves. Both reflect the reality that fleet decisions are made under uncertainty.
What it's used for
Fleets use this worksheet to make acquisition and replacement decisions on economics rather than instinct, and to defend those decisions to finance with a transparent model. It is most useful at budget time, at lease renewal, and whenever someone proposes switching vehicle classes or fuel types.
- ✓ Comparing up to three vehicle or fleet options on a true total-cost basis instead of sticker or lease price.
- ✓ Computing cost per mile for each option so vehicles with very different utilization can be judged fairly.
- ✓ Running a keep-vs-replace breakeven on an aging unit to decide whether the next year of running costs justifies replacement.
- ✓ Stress-testing the recommendation against fuel-price swings with a low/base/high sensitivity table.
- ✓ Building a fleet-renewal or fuel-switch business case that finance can audit line by line.
- ✓ Evaluating buy-versus-lease and conventional-versus-EV options by forcing every cost into the same framework.
- ✓ Setting a benchmark cost-per-mile target and identifying which options or units fall outside it.
Who uses it
The worksheet bridges operations and finance, so it is used by the people who run the vehicles and the people who pay for them. Its transparent formulas make it credible to a CFO and usable by a fleet manager.
Context & good to know
Total cost of ownership is the discipline of counting every dollar a vehicle costs across its working life — not just the purchase or lease price, but fuel, maintenance, insurance, downtime, licensing and the resale value you eventually recover. The reason it matters is that acquisition price is often the smallest part of the picture: for a light-duty fleet vehicle, total cost per mile commonly runs in the rough range of $0.55–$0.75, and fuel and maintenance dwarf the monthly payment over a multi-year hold. Buying on sticker price alone routinely selects the more expensive vehicle.
Cost per mile is the metric this worksheet is built to surface because it is the great equalizer. Fleet software has converged on the same idea: Geotab and Samsara compute cost-per-mile and TCO views from telematics fuel and mileage data, and Fleetio rolls maintenance and operating cost per unit into the same picture. The spreadsheet gives a buyer the underlying model, which is useful both as a standalone tool and as a way to understand what those platforms are actually calculating.
The keep-vs-replace question is where TCO earns its keep. Every vehicle has an economic life, the point where rising maintenance and downtime overtake the cost of a newer unit's payment. Replace too early and you waste capital; too late and repair and reliability costs eat the saving. The worksheet's mini-model makes the breakeven explicit so the decision is timed on numbers rather than on which truck happens to be in the shop this week.
Fuel is the most volatile line in the whole model, which is why the sensitivity sheet exists. A recommendation that wins at today's fuel price may flip if fuel rises 20%, and a fleet committing to a multi-year hold needs to know that before it signs. Cross-checking the recommended option against the high-fuel scenario is a cheap insurance policy against a regret purchase.