If you frequently drive your car for work, then one of these best budget mileage trackers is exactly what you need. You undoubtedly know how wearisome the process of logging every mile you drive can be. You know, remembering to check your car odometer at the start and end of each drive and doing all the calculations to get all the data ready for tax time can be quite taxing. Luckily, there is a simple solution – a trustworthy mileage tracker app. Looking for an easy 12-week ATO Logbook Tracking solution? Click here. Something that will start logging your miles automatically whenever you start a drive until its end and generate reports with the details you need when filing IRS taxes. No matter whether you are: an independent contractor, a small business owner, a rideshare or delivery driver, a real estate agent, a long-distance truck driver, a sales representative or you drive your personal car for any other similar business purposes, you can forget about the old-fashioned pen-and-paper method. Start saving your money and time by using an application that will automatically track your miles driven on the job, which will enable you to deduct gas and other business-related vehicle expenses on your tax returns. Better yet, save more on gas and time by using a navigation app like Waze to find the best routes and beat traffic. Now you may think: ‘Yeah, but an automated mileage tracker will cost me a fortune. I can’t afford it.’ Fortunately, you’d be wrong. Even if you’re on a tight budget, but you’d still like a reliable mileage tracker that will offer you peace of mind about your vehicle business expenses at tax time, there are several great options for you to consider—all Android and iPhone compatible. But we also have a detailed list of the best iPhone mileage apps and the best Android mileage trackers. What You’ll Learn Toggle 1. GOFAR2. TripLog3. Hurdlr4. TrackMyDrive5. Stride Drive6. MileWizIn a Nutshell 1. GOFAR As one of the best budget mileage trackers, GOFAR is an: Affordable all-in-one fully automated mileage tracker, car logbook app, OBD2 scanner and vehicle business expense tracker, which is also IRS compliant and tax-deductible. Even a 7-year-old child can easily install it in a couple of minutes without any technical know-how. Categorising your trips as business or personal has never been easier with a single swipe and it also lets you export spreadsheet reports to your email. What’s more, this intelligent device works seamlessly and is 100% reliable as it automatically tracks your mileage even if you forget or lose your smartphone. Here’s how GOFAR provides you with real-time report logs especially for business-related car expenses: GOFAR is all you need if you’re a super-busy self-employed entrepreneur, delivery, rideshare (Uber, Lyft) or any other professional driver. It’s also perfect for young inexperienced drivers or any other individuals who need meticulous and accurate vehicle tracking. This mileage tracker pays itself off quickly as its remarkable features help you start saving on fuel, tax and car servicing from day one. And it’s tax-deductible! Don’t take our word for it. See it for yourself. Availability and Pricing GOFAR business mileage tracking OBD2 device is available on Amazon, and you can download GOFAR free mileage tracking app on Apple and Google Play Store. It’s best that you visit GOFAR website for all the pricing details. 2. TripLog This app tracks your mileage and fuel expenses and is also fully IRS compliant. Unless you’re ready to pay for this app, you need to know that you can track no more than five vehicles for tax returns with the TripLog free plan. It doesn’t mean you won’t be able to track your mileage at all. It just means you’ll need to put in lots of time and effort to do it manually by clicking on each trip and entering the sub-menu to classify every single drive. However, you’ll need to set aside some money to unlock many other useful features of this mileage tracker, such as: Tracking your mileage automatically Storing the photos of your receipts for various vehicle expenses on the cloud Getting unlimited reports ready for the IRS Backing all your travel data up to the cloud Tracking expenses with bank transactions Check out their quick guide for mileage tracking to see their amazing MagicTrip, auto start and many other options mostly available to paid users only: TripLog claims to help its users to get the most out of their tax deductions each year when filing their tax returns with the IRS compliant mileage logs and driving expenses. Availability and Pricing You can get this gas and mileage tracker app on Google Play or Apple Store for free with limited options and some in-app purchases offered. However, you’ll be able to experience its real benefits such as customisable comprehensive tax compliant reports only if you upgrade to a paid version for one or more users, which also has a 30-day free trial available. The annual cost for the full feature plan of TripLog for one user is $40. We recommend that you follow the link to check the exact pricing for each app version and decide which suits your needs best. 3. Hurdlr When tracking your mileage and expenses with Hurdlr, either manually or automatically, you always get an estimate of the taxes you owe, which makes tax return filing easier. Here’s how drivers can track mileage with this app: It also connects with many other platforms and banks to ease the pressure of all the business expense tracking on small business owners and other independent contractors who frequently use their cars for business travels. Hurdlr needs to use GPS to track your trips, which means it needs to be running in the background constantly and this could quickly drain your battery. Thus, it may not be your top choice if you’re looking for a mileage app that can preserve your phone battery for a long period. Since it allows you to log your mileage for taxes easily and even to file your taxes directly from the app, despite occasional bugs, its pros outweigh the cons. Availability and Pricing Hurdlr is available for Android and iOS users with some in-app purchases as a free or premium account. The free plan is pretty decent for part-timers, but if you want unlimited full automation of all its tracking features, real-time tax calculations, speed tagging, setting work hours or creating rules, set out $7.99 per month or $60 per year for their Premium plan. 4. TrackMyDrive TrackMyDrive app runs in the background on your mobile phone and automatically tracks and calculates every drive you take. Then, you can easily categorise your trips as personal or business, just like with many other mileage trackers. This app allows you to create custom categories and it automatically syncs with your account so that you can see all of your trips and reports on your PC. It’s also available as an iPad app. Here’s what features this mileage tracker offers: Admittedly, they are thin, but the app is among the most affordable mileage trackers. Availability and Pricing You can get TrackMyDrive app for free on Android and iOS but only for NO more than ten trips per month. If you drive more frequently, then you’ll need to pay for the premium membership, which is available at only $8.99 per year for unlimited trips. 5. Stride Drive Stride Drive is one of the best mileage budget trackers designed with Uber and Lyft drivers in mind, which has most of the essential features of a mileage tracker: tracking your vehicle mileage, generating reports and IRS-ready tax summaries, as well as providing categories for other deductible expenses such as tolls, parking, car washes etc. For example, here’s how this free app works and how it can help Uber, Lyft and other drivers save on taxes: Still, this app doesn’t offer customized features some other mileage tracking apps do. Also, many reviewers have complained that their auto tracking detection doesn’t work properly, so you always have to open the app to make sure it’s working because there’s no widget you can put on the home screen to check it quickly. The biggest drawback is that you cannot make a distinction between business and personal mileage, which is a key feature of every serious mileage tracker be it paid or free. In addition to your vehicle’s mileage, it’s true that this app tracks other business expenses, but they are limited to $1,000 for a single expense. This means that the app will flag any business expense you incur which is higher than the limited amount as false and you won’t be able to track and deduct it. All these flaws become somewhat understandable when you realise that this free app is made by a company that deals with offering people health insurance, whereas ridesharing, taxes and finances are obviously not their cup of tea. Availability and Pricing Stride Drive is freely available on iOS and Android. 6. MileWiz Screenshot source: itunes.apple.com MileWiz allows you to track your miles and categorize your drives manually or automatically according to your set work hours, days or places you frequently travel to. The app can be paused when you’re making a personal trip and it allows you to make manual adjustments and log additional expenses (e.g. tools or parking). You can also store all the data in their cloud storage or export them to a CSV file. They claim to automatically detect your drives with high accuracy (above 95%) using their proprietary trip detection algorithms. However, many reviewers on iTunes reported the issues with this feature. Although the app is easy to use and its graphics are very good, the question is whether it’s worth the not so small investment even if its features perfectly fit your needs. Availability and Pricing Android and iOS users can get MileWiz for free, but the free version is limited to tracking up to 20 trips per month, which is not suitable for full-time workers or rideshare drivers. If you want unlimited trip coverage, you’ll need to upgrade to one of their paid versions: For individuals – $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year for one driver For teams – $49.99 per team member annually (no monthly payment option or team discount available). There’s also a free 30-day trial available so you can test the waters if you please. In a Nutshell So, this is what we’d answer if you asked us: ‘What are the best budget mileage trackers?’ Now it’s your turn to pick the one that best suits your needs and budget and finally get rid of the old pen-and-paper method of tracking your mileage and business expenses. If you frequently use your personal car for business purposes, then a trustworthy fully automated mileage tracker without any recurring fees is a perfect choice for you. The sooner you grab it, the more money, time and nerves you’ll save.