What is the Cost of Telematics?

Many industries rely on vehicles and drivers to conduct business. As these businesses grow, maintaining a steady stream of revenue and 5-star job completions means maintaining a grasp over employees and assets. To do so, businesses in these companies look to telematics providers to monitor their movements. One of the first questions they ask when investigating options is “What is the cost of telematics?” But before we cover the cost of telematics for business fleets, there are two things to address. 

First, GPS Insight focuses on more than just a low price. While our “Basic” tier offers one of the lower prices in the market, many customers come to us for our higher level of technical and training support. They believe the value of our more engaged, U.S.-based primary support and a dedicated customer success manager is worth the added cost. 

Second, it’s important to note that we don’t offer a one-size-fits-all solution. There are many different options including GPS fleet tracking, dashcams, Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), and more customizable features to help solve your unique fleet challenges, etc. While this article will briefly detail standard telematics pricing, please note that several factors can cause these numbers to change when customizing your fleet management software with GPS Insight.

Telematics System Cost Breakdown

The pricing for telematics devices is variable depending on what features you are looking for and is billed on a per-vehicle/per-month basis. The per-unit cost correlates to what solution and features you need to overcome your unique business challenges and get the best results. For base-level fleet telematics providers, the cost of real-time GPS tracking is between:

14.95 – $32.95 per month, per vehicle.

Asset tracking (for trailers, equipment, etc.) works a little differently. Asset tracking starts at $12.95 with GPS Insight (depending on the type of equipment) and is structured by the number of times it communicates back to the server per day. The default number of location pings for asset tracking is four times a day. However, the frequency can be adjusted depending on the type of device and equipment that’s being tracked. 

Many businesses are also considering field service management software. This helps them manage people in addition to vehicles. Our platform provides cost savings by having add-ons on stand-by for users who’d like to group their fleet operations software into a singular dashboard to oversee:

• Driver/Vehicle Location
• Driver Behavior
• Vehicle Maintenance
• Fuel Efficiency
• Telematics Data 

GPS Insight has an in-network provider for these trackable attributes to provide a well-balanced informatics system that can help businesses like yours improve their bottom lines.  

Get a custom price quote.

Find out how much a GPS Insight solution will be for your fleet vehicles.

Buying Options for Telematics Solutions

The other factor that can increase or decrease the costs is how you buy. Customers can choose either a 1-year or 3-year agreement and receive most of the accompanying hardware at zero cost with free installation, which saves businesses that sign on even more. In some cases, customers have very precise hardware requirements. In these rare cases, there may be additional monthly subscription fees or installation fees for devices. Customers who choose to sign month-to-month contracts will have hardware costs starting at $39.95 per vehicle without signing a contract. 

Professional vs. Self-Installation Cost

With installation, you have the option to self-install to reduce costs (note: free professional installation is included with one-year or longer contracts with Standard and Enterprise). Pro-install is available for all tiers and all contract lengths at an additional fee, when applicable. Some factors can cause the installation cost to change. These include vehicle or asset type, along with any additional add-ons to install like driver ID. 

GPS Insight also offers installation guides (written and video) demonstrating how to perform the installation. These guides can help you or your maintenance team perform your installation. This is something to consider: It could save on upfront costs for your overall telematics price. However, it’s extremely important to perform installations correctly so there are no reporting issues with the tracking device and its installation location reveals no chance of driver tampering. Make sure that you weigh the positives and negatives of whether professional or self-installation is right for your business.

Telematics Meets Fleet Management

It’s important to remember that the cost of telematics can fluctuate based on what you need in a solution. Also, no two platforms are the same and GPS Insight has solutions that cater to a variety of industries and applications. Our job is to help fleets to improve negative driving behaviors, reduce maintenance costs, decrease fuel consumption, and maintain visibility over their employees and assets. Give us a call to find out if we are a good fit to solve your unique challenges.