MileIQ Alternative 2026: Free, Unlimited, and On-Device

MileIQ is the best-known name in mileage tracking, and its swipe-to-classify gesture is genuinely good design. The catch shows up in week two: the free plan stops at 40 drives a month, and a delivery driver, realtor, or contractor burns through that before the 10th. Unlimited tracking costs $13.99 a month, or $139.92 a year on the annual plan.

Full disclosure before the comparison: MileTrack is our product. That is exactly why this page also spells out where MileIQ remains the better choice.

The comparison at a glance

Criteria	MileTrack	MileIQ
Price	$0 (currently free)	Free: 40 drives/mo; Unlimited: $13.99/mo or $11.66/mo billed annually
Drive limit	Unlimited	40/month on free plan
Automatic detection	Yes — phone sensors	Yes
Classification	Business / commute / personal	Swipe: business / personal
Commute handling	Separate category built in	Handled via custom purposes
Data storage	On-device	Vendor cloud
Exports	PDF, CSV, XLSX, IRS-ready fields	PDF/spreadsheet reports
Team features	No	Yes (Teams plans)
Platform	iPhone (no Android yet)	iOS and Android
Track record	Early access	10+ years on the market

Where MileIQ still wins

• You are on Android. MileTrack has no Android app yet; MileIQ has a mature one.
• Your company reimburses through MileIQ Teams. Admin dashboards, centralized reporting, and payroll-friendly workflows are things MileTrack does not do.
• You want a decade-old product. MileIQ has been through every iOS location-permission change since 2015; MileTrack is in early access and its feature set is still growing.

Where MileTrack wins

• The cap, or rather the absence of one. Every drive is tracked and classified, free. No mid-month lockout, no “unlock 12 drives” prompt in April when you need last year’s log.
• The price. $0 against $139.92 a year. Over three tax years that is $419.76 — roughly the deduction value of 550 business miles at the 2026 IRS rate.
• A commute category that actually exists. US rules make commuting personal mileage, and mixing it into business miles is a classic audit flag. MileTrack classifies business, commute, and personal as three separate buckets from day one.
• Privacy by architecture. A year of your movements is sensitive data. MileTrack keeps trips on your iPhone — they leave the device only as the report you export yourself.
• No subscription mechanics. Nothing to cancel, no annual renewal to remember.

And the honest limits: iPhone only for now, no team features, and the product is in free early access — the feature set is smaller than a ten-year-old incumbent’s.

The math that actually matters

A mileage app exists to protect a deduction. At 2026 rates — 72.5¢ per mile January–June, 76¢ from July 1 — a courier logging 20,000 business miles protects roughly $14,900 in deductions. The app fee is noise next to that number; what is not noise is completeness. Drives that never get logged, because the free tier ran out or tracking was off, are deductions that never existed. That is the real case against a capped free plan: the cap does not cost you $13.99, it costs you the untracked miles.

How a defensible log is built — and what the IRS expects it to contain — is covered in how to track mileage for taxes and the IRS log requirements guide.

Switching without losing your history

1. Export everything from MileIQ first. Download your reports for every year you claimed — the IRS record-keeping window means old logs stay relevant for at least three years.
2. Pick a clean start date. The first of a month keeps the bookkeeping tidy.
3. Note your odometer. Start the new log with a dated odometer reading; the year-end business-use percentage depends on it.
4. Run both for two weeks. Let automatic detection prove itself on your actual routes before cancelling anything.
5. Cancel the subscription, keep the archive. The exported reports are your history; the new log carries the future.

MileTrack is free on the App Store — no account, no card. Install it, grant motion and location permissions, and the first drives appear on their own. For the broader market view, see the best mileage tracker apps for taxes comparison.

Tax note: this article is general orientation, not tax advice. Competitor pricing verified 2026-09-03 — check the linked official pages before deciding.