Ship the car or drive it

Ship the car when the cash and the days of driving are worse than a shipping range you have actually looked at. Drive it when the nights, the fuel, and the wear are cheaper than that range and you can spare the person who has to sit in the seat. Keep those pieces in separate lines. The mistake is one blended "cost per mile" that hides a hotel inside a tax rate, or hides depreciation inside a tank of gas.

RideShipper's shipping number is a range, not a fare. World Media Group LLC does not drive the car and does not sell the hotel. The calculator for this choice is the tool at the end. Every assumption in it should stay visible.

Put the two trips in one table#

A benchmark for nights and meals, not a hotel quote#

For official travel in the continental United States from October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027, the General Services Administration set the standard lodging per diem at $113 a night and the standard meals and incidental expenses rate at $68. The agency said the lodging figure was a $3 increase after a freeze the year before, and that 295 non-standard areas still get a higher lodging allowance. Meals tiers run from $68 to $92. The notice is Federal Register document 2026-18439, published September 10, 2026.

Those numbers reimburse federal employees. They are not your reservation and not a national hotel average. A big city can be far above $113. Look the city up on the GSA per diem page before you treat the standard rate as the bill. Use it as the planning line, then replace it.

Count nights honestly. A person who can drive the distance in one long day may have no hotel. A person who will not drive that many hours will. Two people can share a room and still buy two meals.

Fuel, wear, and the tax rate you should not paste in#

Fuel is miles divided by the car's miles per gallon, times the gasoline price at the pump. This page does not print a gasoline price or an MPG, because both belong to your car and your week. The ship-versus-drive tool is built to take an editable MPG and a fuel series. Change them if they are wrong.

Wear is the part of driving that is not on the pump receipt: tires, service, and the risk of a repair far from home. Keep it beside fuel. If you set wear to zero, say so. Do not let it sneak back in through another rate.

Depreciation, the car being worth less because it has more miles, is a third idea. Some trips add a lot of miles. Some cars do not lose value in a straight line. If you care, estimate it separately. If you do not, leave the cell blank. Do not smuggle it into the fuel line and then announce that driving "really costs" a single cent figure.

The IRS standard mileage rate for self-employed and business use is 76 cents a mile from July 1 through December 31, 2026, and it was 72.5 cents from January 1 through June 30, 2026. Charity use stays at 14 cents. Medical and military-moving use is 23.5 cents in the second half of 2026. The source is the IRS mileage-rate page, opened November 10, 2026. That business rate is for a tax deduction. It is not an invoice for this drive. Do not subtract 76 cents times the miles from a shipping range and call the difference money saved.

Time on its own line#

Driving takes a person. Shipping takes the car out of your hands for the transit span, and it takes you for the pickup and the delivery. A property-carrying truck driver is on a different clock from a person driving a car. Those hour limits are in 49 CFR 395.3, and they are written out on car shipping cost by distance. A shared trailer also makes extra stops. Do not compare the days you would drive with a truck rule and declare a winner. Write the days you will spend, and the days you will not have the car.

If your time has a wage you believe, multiply. If it does not, leave the line in days. A fake wage makes driving look expensive on paper and does not change the cash you need in the account.

A shipping range is the other column#

Get the range for the lane before you decide the drive is "obviously cheaper." A short trip often loses to driving because the truck has a minimum job cost. A cross-country trip often loses to shipping once hotels and a week of someone's time are written down. The distance shape is cost by distance. The national bands are on what it costs. The side-by-side page is ship versus drive.

One illustration, not your decision: a running sedan, open, Dallas to Seattle.

$877–$1,337 as of November 9, 2026, model v1 RideShipper estimate, updated 2026-11-09, based on 3,588 prices that customers reported paying in MoveAdvisor reviews, adjusted for U.S. diesel at $6.13 a gallon for that week (U.S. Energy Information Administration). In testing, the typical difference between an estimate and a reported price was about 20% of the estimate. This is an estimate, not a quote: the carrier sets the price. No pickup date was supplied, so this estimate uses November 2026. There is no seasonal direction adjustment for this route and month.

Measure your own miles with the distance tool. Then put your MPG, your nights, and your real dates into the comparison. The tool is the calculation. This page is the list of lines you should refuse to blend.