GuideWhat 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 and 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. Reading data from the vehicle needs the Box CAN and Pro, and we confirm your model first.

For basic position tracking the argument does not hold. The SIM, the platform and the support cost the same whether the vehicle is a van or a passenger car. There the price need not wait for a meeting: we send it by email the moment you ask.

The monthly part is the number of vehicles times the plan's price per vehicle, which we send by email the moment you ask. The device with basic installation for each vehicle is paid once. All prices exclude VAT.

The one-time part comes in the offer, because vehicle type and installation conditions move it. The monthly part is fixed per vehicle and arrives by email.