Samsara is among the best fleet management systems available, with comprehensive features, 24/7 support, and lots of integrations.
You’ll typically spend a minimum of between $27 and $33 per vehicle, per month, according to our research, and you’ll be required to sign up for a three-year contract.
18% of US logistics professionals are currently prioritizing new technology adoption to gain a competitive advantage, according to 2026 Tech.co survey data. Are you?
In this review, we’ll outline some of the pros and cons of Samsara as a fleet management system, including its features and cost, and compare it with the best competitors.
Key Takeaways
- Samsara is one of the best fleet management platforms on the market, with excellent driver and vehicle management tools.
- Samsara does not publicly list its pricing, but our research indicates the software costs between $27-$33 per month. For hardware, you can expect to pay between $99-$148 per vehicle.
- Samsara is a great option for larger fleets due to its suite of additional services that cover tasks like asset tracking, its long-term contracts, and 24-hour support.
- Samsara does not offer free installation aid, unlike some providers, although there is a free 30-day trial available.
- Samsara offers integrations with field service, dash cams, and asset tracking – the latter of which can combat cargo thefts, which are up 82% since 2020.
Pros
- Great for optimizing routes to save time
- Great for vehicle tracking
- Customizable driver management tools
Cons
- 3 year minimum for contracts
- No free installation
- Driver ID token costs extra ($9.99 each)
- Price from: $27/Month
- Compliance: DVIR, IFTA, ELD
- Best for large fleets
- Great Routing & Dispatch Features
- 24/7 Support
- Free 30-Day Trial
Why Should You Trust Us? Our Research Methodology
Like all our reviews, this one is written by humans and draws on independent research we conduct in-house. For fleet systems, we’ve assessed 20 products using six core assessment categories, which were split up into a further 51 different areas.
Our six core testing categories are price, tracking, driver management, vehicle management, product features, and support. Read our full methodology for this page to learn more.
What Are Samsara’s Driver and Vehicle Management Features?
Samsara offers a comprehensive set of functions for vehicle tracking, maintenance, fuel, and safety, which helped it finish second on our latest round of fleet management software research.
The system’s big rival, Verizon Connect, has just as much (or a hair more) data stuffed into its reporting tools, but Samsara squarely beats Teletrac, Azuga, and many other fine fleet systems.
Live tracking the geographical positions of a fleet using Samsara. Source: Samsara
How does Samsara handle vehicle maintenance and security?
With Samsara software, managers can track all scheduled preventative needs, as well as proactively diagnose unexpected problems in the moment (addressing existing mechanical issues was a top priority for 52% of experts Tech.co surveyed in January 2026). Here are the top benefits you’ll receive when it comes to vehicle upkeep and security.
- Real-time vehicle diagnostics function: Samsara will alert you to issues like failing batteries and engine faults, helping you avoid road breakdowns and extend vehicle lifetime.
- Hardware diagnostic reports: Samsara will auto-generate hardware diagnostic reports for your records, making paper trails easy.
- Preventive maintenance software (US only): A robust maintenance program that logs all previous work for each vehicle, so managers can easily predict upcoming needs.
- A powered equipment utilization report: Samsara will help you evaluate the daily use of vehicles, trailers, or powered assets on a deep level with this report template, which determines vehicle ROI and points towards the best future investments.
- Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIRs): Drivers can submit this key compliance data from their mobile app with a few clicks, while Samsara’s AI will ensure their walkaround checks are thorough and include high-quality imagery.
- Track vehicle engine temperatures and cargo temperatures: Not every fleet system has these two less-common telematics, but they’re crucial for fleets transporting refrigerated goods.
Samsara addresses the top maintenance priority for 86% of industry experts Tech.co surveyed in January 2026: scheduled preventative needs. Samara beats nearly every other fleet system for maintenance tracking, with just Verizon matching it.
Samsara’s temperature tracking functions log all temperature changes for its assigned vehicles or assets. Source: Samsara
How does Samsara help reduce fuel costs?
In 2026, reducing operational costs is the biggest way fleets are trying to save money, with 44% saying as much in our latest industry survey. Samsara’s fuel tools can help cut down usage, and include:
- Fuel Usage Report: Samsara logs a lot of data, including vehicle name, current driver, current fuel level, amount of fuel used, estimated cost, runtime, and idle time. Reports can run on any custom time period, helping fleets spot and avoid fuel-wasting practices, like idling or tanking up at costlier gas stations.
- Graphical view: Managers can track fuel-burning habits, like when and for how long a given vehicle was speeding.
- Alerts: Samsara can warn managers in real time with speeding and idling alerts to further save fuel economy.
- Fuel card integrations (US only): Samsara integrates with Wex, Fuelman, Comdata, EFS, and Fleet One. Samsara also offers fuel card fraud tools to monitor for misuse with these third-party cards.
Azuga remains our pick as the best for fuel tracking, with driver ID tokens at no extra charge. However, Samsara is head and shoulders above most systems and remains better than Azuga overall.
What safety features does Samsara have?
Samsara has stand-out safety tools, matching or surpassing every fleet system we tested, particularly thanks to its extensive Driver ID options:
- Multiple types of Driver ID: Samsara users can track each driver’s performance, even when they switch vehicles, either manually, with a camera ID, with the driver app, or with ID tokens (tokens are an extra $9.99 per driver).
- Safety scores: Managers can track each driver in relation to others, allowing them to reward top performers.
- Alerts can be triggered by events like speeding or harsh braking.
- Panic button and crash reporting function (US only): Not every fleet system offers these, but Samsara has them for no extra charge, ensuring fast collision response.
- Theft prevention: GPS trackers like Samsara Gateways can monitor equipment from a dashboard, while a site visibility tool uses AI to detect activity across multiple sites. This is a growing concern for today’s fleets: Tech.co data found asset tracking adoption spiked from 27% to 48% in December 2025, due to a recent surge in cargo theft.
- Safety Inbox: Samsara’s tool displays a centralized view of automatically detected events based on data, including safety and speeding occasions.
Learn more about how to use AI to optimize your fleet.
Samsara fleet map lets managers view trips with both a left-hand sidebar list and a map. Source: Samsara
For safety-conscious fleets that need a driver monitoring system, this is a core benefit that can justify a switch to Samsara and away from their current provider. One Samsara client, Liberty Energy, reported a 50% reduction in collisions thanks to AI-powered in-cab alerts.
How does Samsara handle vehicle tracking?
Optimizing fleet journeys is the top benefit of a fleet management system, so Samsara’s stellar tracking tools are a big reason it stands out. You’ll get a broad range of fleet reports, plus:
- Driver record: This Samsara tool gives managers insight into route arrivals and departures, vehicle assignment, DVIR completion, and more.
- One-second refresh rates: Samsara lets managers stay up to date in near-real-time.
- Custom locations: This helps managers quickly build routes, set scheduled arrival times, and track historical performance data.
- Automatic optimization: Samsara’s dispatch tools help match vehicles to routes, and can calculate departure times and automatically optimize routes for up to 20 stops at a time (a big benefit for the 47% of fleets Tech.co survey data says are trying to remain sustainable through better optimization)
- AI-powered real-time custom alerts: SMS or email notifications can track arrivals, geofencing, or if a container temperature exceeds a given amount.
- Driver alerts: Drivers can get traffic and weather updates on the go.
Verizon has slightly more advanced feature options, but Samsara has a great set of tools to meet any fleet’s tracking needs. Vehicle upkeep remains a top priority for about a fifth (19%) of the sector, recent Tech.co data confirms.
Read more about the best route planning software on the market.
How Does Samsara Handle ELD Compliance?
The Samsara Driver App allows drivers to stay in compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)’s ELD (electronic logging device) mandate. They can track their Hours of Service (HOS) from their Android or iOS tablet or phone, and the platform’s automatically compiled report will always be available to share during a roadside inspection.
Operators and managers will also have access to all their drivers’ HOS and records of duty status on the same platform as their drivers’ GPS data, sensor data, DVIRs, and documents, making any audits painless. Or as painless as an audit can be, at least.
Our research suggests Samsara has the best ELD solution on the market, after considering its price, reporting functions, mobile app, installation, and support.
How Much does Samsara Cost?
Our research found Samsara pricing is typically:
- Between $27 and $33 per vehicle, per month, for a software subscription.
- Between $99 and $148 per vehicle for hardware, with lower prices for longer contracts.
These prices include five-year warranties for most hardware and vary by fleet size, contract length, and features chosen.
They are around the industry average when it comes to paying for a fleet system — the similarly feature-packed Verizon Connect system starts at a slightly lower $23.50 per vehicle, per month, price point.
Samsara’s contracts come with a fairly long three-year minimum, locking users into the service even if they’d otherwise leave. In December 2025, US freight volumes fell to their lowest levels since April 2020, making long-term contracts a major financial consideration. If you need to avoid that commitment, consider going for Teletrac Navman, since we rate it highly overall and it offers one-year contracts.
Samsara does offer a free trial. They’ll mail their hardware units for free, allowing fleet managers to install the devices and try out the software for 30 days.
Compare more fleet systems with this table:
| Price from The typical lowest starting price. The lowest price available for your business will depend on your needs | Rating Based on price, tracking features, driver management, vehicle management, product features, and help and support | Price rating | Contract length | Warranty | Free trial | Free demo | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SPONSORED  | Best Samsara Alternative  |  |  |  |  |  | ||
| 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.2 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.3 | ||
| 2.5 | 2.5 | 3.9 | 3.4 | 3.3 | 2.5 | 2.5 | ||
| 3-year minimum | 3-year minimum (initial) | 1 year or monthly | 12-60 months | 1 year | 3 years | Monthly | ||
| 5 years for most hardware | Factory warranty for US; none for CA | 5 years | First 12 months | 1-3 years | Lifetime | Lifetime | ||
| | | | | | | | ||
| | | | | | | |
Samsara is great for small businesses, due to a simple interface and 24/7 support that both make it easy to use. That being said, there are cheaper providers out there, like Fleetio, and really small fleets might not need all of the bells and whistles that Samsara provides.
This is partly why Samsara platform is even better for large businesses: it has economic long-term contracts, a broad feature range, and tangential services that include asset tracking, field service, and dash cams. One Samsara client, Univar Solutions, was able to decrease harsh driving events by 40% using Samsara’s AI dash cams.
The niche fleets that Samsara supports include:
- Electric vehicle fleets (Granted, Tech.co survey data shows intent to adopt EVs collapsed from 38% last November to 13% in December, following government rollbacks on fuel standards.)
- Construction and transit
- Fleets with refrigerated food that need reefer monitoring systems
- School bus fleets
- Snow plows that need a coverage map to track which streets still need work
Plus, Samsara is best for companies switching away from their current fleet management system: it has the elegant, feature-rich, and inexpensive system that they’ll need.
Expert tip: Samsara is for long-term planners
Samsara offers a lot of resource-saving functionality, making it an investment in the future. That’s increasingly appealing to many fleets in 2026, given the steady decline in freight volume that we’ve been seeing for months.
The data reflects this shift toward long-term thinking: Just 15% of fleets said that managing financial pressure was a top priority in December 2025, down from 20% in November. At the same time, plans to adapt new technology ticked up, rising to 18% from 16%.
Samsara Help and Support
Samsara offers all the live support options a fleet needs: email, chatbot, and around-the-clock phone service. Although, granted, 24/7 support isn’t uncommon — rivals from Verizon to Linxup will match Samsara’s hours.
Samsara also offers an online knowledge base with articles and videos to answer common questions.
Users will have to rely on those resources when self-installing their hardware, as Samsara doesn’t provide installation aid. This isn’t uncommon: Verizon doesn’t offer help with set-up either.
Unlike Samsara, Verizon lacks chatbot support, so we scored Samsara higher for support (although Teletrac Navman beats both systems in this area, since it offers installation aid to all fleets of 10 vehicles or more).
We take our impartial research and analysis seriously, so you can have complete confidence that we're giving you the clearest, most useful recommendations.
After conducting an initial exploration to identify the most relevant, popular, and established tools in the market, we put them through their paces with a research framework designed in-house to see their real strengths and weaknesses. In this case, we analyzed 20 fleet management products across 51 different areas of investigation.
Based on years of market and user needs research, we've established a fleet management testing methodology that scores each product in six core assessment areas and six additional subcategories, covering everything, from the driver management features to value for money, customer support, and much more.
Our main testing categories for fleet management systems are:
- Price: The cost associated with using the fleet management software, including upfront costs, subscription fees, hardware costs (if applicable), and any additional charges for advanced features or add-ons.
- Tracking: The core functionality of the fleet management software, which involves monitoring and tracking the location and movements of vehicles in real-time, including features such as GPS tracking, route optimization, and geofencing.
- Driver management: The features and tools provided by the fleet management software to manage and monitor driver activities. This can include driver behavior monitoring, driver performance reports, and driver identification.
- Vehicle management: The functionalities that allow for the efficient management and maintenance of vehicles, such as vehicle health monitoring and maintenance scheduling.
- Product features: The additional functionalities and capabilities offered by the fleet management software, beyond basic tracking and management, such as real-time alerts and notifications, or driver routing and dispatching.
- Support: The resources, assistance, and guidance provided by the fleet management software company to users, including phone support, email or chat support, and online forums.
When it comes to calculating a product's final score, not all testing and research categories are weighted evenly, as we know some aspects matter more to our readers than others, which are merely “nice to have”. After hundreds of hours, our process is complete, and the results should ensure you can find the best solution for your needs.
At Tech.co, we have a number of full-time in-house researchers, who re-run testing and research processes regularly to ensure our results remain reflective of the present day.
Verdict: Samsara Is a Great Pick for Long Haul or Last Mile Fleets
Samsara is one of, if not the, best fleet system on the market.
It covers all core and specialized fleet management features: routing and dispatch, fuel tracking, compliance, maintenance, driver safety, and more. It’s easy to use, has 24/7 phone support, and is great for fleets, large and small.
Samsara has one big competitor that matches its impressive features, Verizon Connect. Get a Samsara quote below — or check out custom quotes from all the best fleet systems.
Samsara’s system can even create reports on a fleet’s diesel vehicles to track which ones are performing the worst and are the best candidates for replacement with an EV.
Prices may vary based on the length of the license with Samsara and the number of fleets your business is operating with. Plus, newer models, such as Samsara’s latest AI dash cams, may be more expensive.
- If you have an Installer role, tap ‘Install Devices.’ If you are registered as an Admin, you can find this under the ‘More’ menu.
- Click ‘Install new device’ and follow the instructions.
- You should see options to install Vehicle Gateways (VGs), Front or Dual-Facing Cameras, Asset Tags (ATs), Asset Gateways (AGs), and Environmental Monitor Sensors.
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