The four things that actually matter for one truck
- Three-year total cost, not the monthly sticker. Hardware, subscription, activation, and the price after the first-year promo expires. A "$20 a month" device with a $150 unit and a rate bump at renewal is a $900-plus decision.
- Contract terms. Month-to-month or annual is fine. A three-year term with early termination fees, for a single truck, means the vendor keeps you by contract rather than by service.
- Support you can reach from the shoulder of a highway. When your fleet is one truck, the driver line is the only line. If support is business-hours or ticket-based, the worst moments are yours alone.
- Whether the extras you'd otherwise buy separately are included. GPS history, IFTA mileage by state, and vehicle diagnostics each replace either a subscription or an afternoon of spreadsheet work every quarter.
Price the exit before you price the device. The cheapest ELD is the one you can leave without a fee when it stops earning your business.
The market in 2026, honestly
Prices below are typical published rates as of late 2026 and move around with promos, so treat them as the shape of the market rather than a quote.
- Motive. Probably the best-known driver app, solid hardware, optional AI dash cam, and automatic IFTA. Typically in the $20 to $25 a month range per truck plus hardware. A strong choice if you want the camera ecosystem and don't mind paying fleet-platform prices for one truck.
- Samsara. Excellent platform, but it is built and priced for fleets: expect roughly $27 to $33 a month and multi-year terms. For a single truck, you are buying an enterprise tool to use five percent of it.
- Garmin eLog. The outlier: around $250 once, no subscription at all. It is compliance-only, no GPS tracking, no IFTA, no support ecosystem to speak of, but if your entire requirement is legal logs at minimum lifetime cost, it is the honest budget answer, and we'd rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
- BigRoad and similar app-first options. Around $20 a month with free or cheap hardware and no long contract. Reasonable middle ground; check hardware reliability reviews and what "support" means after the sale.
- loopELD. $4 a week per truck, which is about $17 a month, with GPS tracking included, IFTA mileage reports, plug-and-play hardware you install yourself in minutes, no multi-year lock-in, and a 24/7 line that drivers call directly. We built the pricing for owner-operators and small fleets first, not as the bottom tier of an enterprise price list.
The three-year math
Take any candidate and run the same simple calculation: hardware, plus 36 months of subscription at the post-promo rate, plus anything you would still pay for separately, like an IFTA service or a GPS tracker for the reefer or trailer.
Run that math and the field usually collapses to a clear answer for your situation. A $250 one-time device wins if you truly need nothing but logs. A bundled platform wins the moment you would otherwise pay for even one extra subscription, because $17 to $25 a month that replaces an IFTA service and a tracker is cheaper than the "free" spreadsheet weekend you actually spend each quarter.
Compare three-year totals, not monthly prices. Promos expire, hardware fails, and quarters keep coming.
Contract red flags, single-truck edition
- Multi-year terms with auto-renewal and a narrow cancellation window. Standard in fleet deals, unjustifiable for one truck.
- Early termination fees charged per remaining month. That is the vendor pricing your regret.
- Leased hardware with return conditions. A failed return inspection can quietly cost more than the device.
- "Platform fees" or minimum seat counts. If the plan assumes five vehicles, you are subsidizing four trucks you don't own.
- Support tiers. If reaching a human costs extra, the base product doesn't include the thing you'll actually need.
Where loopELD is not the right answer
If your requirement is the absolute minimum lifetime spend and nothing else, a one-time-purchase logger like the Garmin does that job, and no subscription beats a low subscription. If you are committed to a specific camera-first safety ecosystem, buy the platform whose camera you want, because bolting cameras onto a different vendor's ELD is friction you don't need.
For everyone in between, one or a handful of trucks, wanting logs, GPS, IFTA, and a phone that answers at night, without a three-year contract, that middle is exactly who we built for.
Before you buy any of them
- Check the device on the FMCSA registered list yourself, and glance at the revoked list while you're there.
- Confirm the cable matches your truck: OBD-II, J1939, or J1708 are not interchangeable, and pre-2000 engines change the conversation entirely.
- Ask what happens to your data if you leave: format, cost, and how long they keep it.
- Call the support line once, before you're a customer, at an inconvenient hour. Time it. That number is the product.
