What GPS vehicle tracking actually costs

The device and its installation are a one-time cost. The platform subscription is monthly and charged per vehicle. Those are two different items and an offer should show them separately.

Some providers merge them into a single monthly instalment in which the device is rented. The figure looks lower and there is nothing to pay up front, but the device never becomes yours, and the instalment does not drop once the hardware has long since paid for itself. If you choose that model, ask what happens to the device at the end of the contract.

The sensible minimum: SIM card and mobile data, device updates, platform access for several users, the mobile app, stored history and support. With us all of that is in the subscription, and history runs six months on Basic and twelve months on Pro / Fleet.

If any of it is billed separately, most often the SIM and the data, that is not a detail, it changes the whole comparison. Ask for it in writing in the offer rather than as a remark in a meeting.

The price per vehicle is one number in a contract. What you actually pay over three years is often decided by the terms and conditions: contract length, automatic renewal, removal fees and the rules about who may touch the equipment.

These are not invented risks. The published terms of one of the larger providers in the region state that the contract renews automatically for the same period unless cancelled a month before it expires, that terminating before the twenty-fourth month carries a per-vehicle removal fee, and that only an authorised installer may fit the equipment, and otherwise the customer has to buy it outright. All of it is properly written and lawful, and none of it is visible in the price per vehicle.

So ask for the terms and conditions before you sign, not just the offer. If you cannot get them up front, that is already an answer.

The usual explanation is that the price depends on the vehicle and the configuration. For reading data off the vehicle itself that is true: what can be read really does differ from model to model, which is why we quote that part individually too.

For basic position tracking the argument does not hold. The device, the SIM, the platform and the support cost the same whether the vehicle is a van or a passenger car. That price can be published, and we publish it.

For a fleet of five vehicles on Basic that is five times €7 a month, plus €50–120 per vehicle once for the device and basic installation. The minimum monthly invoice per company is €25, so very small fleets pay that floor rather than the per-vehicle sum.

The exact figure for your fleet is confirmed in the offer, because vehicle type and installation conditions move the one-time part. The monthly part is fixed and published.