ELD Devices for Owner-Operators Compared: Price, Registration and Detention Records

Which ELD is the best choice for an owner-operator or small fleet?

No single electronic logging device (ELD) is best for every owner-operator. On six vendors’ published terms, HOS247 has the lowest monthly price with no contract, $19 per vehicle, and a carrier who bills detention needs a tracking tier, from $22. catuh sells no ELD and has road-tested none; this is what the vendors’ pages support as of October 5, 2026, not a ranking:

• Lowest published monthly price, no contract: HOS247 ELD Compliance, $19 per vehicle per month. The device is $79 on monthly billing, free on a prepaid year. The plan lists the compliance log only.
• Stop times for a detention invoice: HOS247 ELD Track at $22 is the lowest published plan that lists vehicle tracking. Matrack Premium at $24.95 lists GPS tracking and geofences, and Matrack’s page lists data export in CSV, PDF and JSON. Motive’s help centre documents a location-history export, in PDF or CSV, but Motive shows no price.
• Lowest first year: twelve months of HOS247 at $19 is $228 with the device waived (our arithmetic; HOS247 prints no yearly price). TruckingOffice publishes $240 per year. Blue Ink Tech’s annual plan plus hardware comes to $490, also our arithmetic.
• Five trucks or more: per-truck prices at HOS247 and Matrack do not change with fleet size on their pages. Blue Ink Tech lists free hardware for fleets of 5+. Motive and Samsara sell by quote.
• No monthly fee: no pricing page among the six lists a plan without a recurring charge.

How do the six ELDs compare on published facts?

Four vendors publish prices between $19 and $30 per month and state no long-term contract; Motive and Samsara show no price on their ELD pages. That is what their pages said when we read them on October 5, 2026 (see the vendor links in the table). All six have a device on the archived copy of FMCSA’s registered list described below; the two that sell by quote are kept to show what a quote has to answer.

“Not stated” means the vendor’s page does not say, not that the product lacks the feature. TruckingOffice’s FAQ quotes different figures from its plan cards; the table uses the plan cards on the TruckingOffice pricing page, read October 5, 2026. The HOS247 product page says plans start “at just $17/month” and advertises “no monthly fee options”; the HOS247 pricing page lists neither, and the table uses the pricing page.

Beyond price: Blue Ink Tech says its location comes from the driver’s phone or tablet, so its route history depends on that phone being in the truck.

Is every ELD on the market registered with FMCSA?

No. Registration rests on the provider’s own certification, and FMCSA removes devices from the list: on August 6, 2026 it removed five, and carriers had up to 60 days to replace them. Under 49 CFR 395.22(a), a carrier “must use only an ELD that is listed on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s registered ELDs list.” The August 2026 notice names the five devices; none belongs to the six vendors here.

The table below is read from an Internet Archive copy of FMCSA’s registered list, captured August 19, 2026. It is an archived copy, not today’s list.

None of the ELD identifiers printed in that table is on the archived revoked list, captured August 31, 2026. Matrack’s page prints the reference ML2-001 beside its registration statement, while FMCSA’s list is keyed by model number and ELD identifier, so match the identifier printed on the unit you receive to a row on FMCSA’s list. A status can change on any day, so look the device up on FMCSA’s live list before you pay.

What does an ELD actually record at a shipper or receiver?

The rule requires date, time and location at each duty-status change, at engine power-up and shut-down, and at least every 1 hour while the truck moves. It does not require a facility arrival or departure event.

Location in that log is coarse by design. Appendix A specifies coordinates to two decimal places and says reporting accuracy “will be on the order of” ±1 mile. A compliance log shows that the driver went on duty, not driving, somewhere near the facility, not when the truck reached the gate or left the dock.

Where does detention fit in choosing an ELD?

After compliance, as the tiebreaker: detention is billed from an arrival time and a departure time, and those come from a tracking plan’s location history or geofence report, not from the mandated log. On the two priced vendors that split their plans, that report sits one tier up: $22 instead of $19 at HOS247 and $24.95 instead of $19.95 at Matrack, a step of $3 and $5 a month by our arithmetic, from pricing pages read October 5, 2026.

ATRI’s 2024 research found that “94.5 percent of fleets charge detention fees” and that “they are paid for fewer than 50 percent of those invoices.” catuh’s reading of that gap is that the invoice often goes out without a record of the hours.

The practical step is to audit which stops last month have no recorded arrival and departure, then capture those times with a tool already in the truck. A carrier or broker with the two times in hand can state the hours held and the source of each time on the invoice. If the rate confirmation requires in and out times signed on the BOL or proof of delivery, get the signature and keep the ELD export as the second record.

How do you check an ELD before you pay for it?

Check the FMCSA list first, then ask the vendor for a sample stop report before you ask about price. Six checks, in order:

1. Look the device up on FMCSA’s registered list. Match the device name, model number and ELD identifier, and check the revoked list on the same site.
2. Find the plan that includes location history. On HOS247 and Matrack, tracking is not listed in the entry plan.
3. Ask where the location comes from. A device on the diagnostic port and an app on the driver’s phone fail in different ways when a phone dies at a dock.
4. Request a sample export for one stop. You want arrival time, departure time and the address in a PDF or CSV you can attach to an invoice.
5. Ask how long location history is kept. The regulation makes the carrier keep a back-up of ELD records for 6 months; it sets no retention period for a vendor’s tracking data.
6. Price the first year, not the month. Add hardware and compare monthly billing with a prepaid year, since three vendors here waive hardware on annual plans.

When does this comparison not apply?

It does not apply if the rule does not require you to run an ELD, or if detention is not part of your freight. 49 CFR 395.8 lets a driver log manually when records are required on not more than 8 days within any 30-day period, in certain driveaway-towaway operations, or in a vehicle manufactured before model year 2000. Short-haul drivers who meet 49 CFR 395.1(e) are exempt from 395.8 altogether.

It also covers six vendors, not the market, and a device absent from the table is not worse. Where a broker’s own tracking app or the facility’s signed times are what the rate confirmation names, those control the claim, whatever the ELD exports.