GPS Insight Fleet Management Review: Is it Right for Your Business?

GPS Insight Logo on white background

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Known for its cheap month-to-month contracts and helpful 24/7 customer service, GPS Insight is a big name on the fleet management scene – with a stellar reputation to match. But is it the right GPS fleet management system for your business?

To help you find the answer to that question, we’ve put GPS Insight under the microscope, analyzing its features, pricing options, and customer support. During our hands-on test of the platform, GPS Insight thoroughly impressed us, especially considering how low the price tag is. It’s got great reporting features and is easy to use overall – although we think it lags behind the competition a jot when it comes to maintenance features.

The following review is an in-depth summary of what we found – both good and bad – and how GPS Insight compares to competitors such as Verizon and Samsara.

GPS Insight Logo on white background
GPS Insight
Pricing $14.95 to $32.95 per vehicle, per month
Quick overview

Founded in 2004, GPS Insight is a prominent provider of fleet management solutions, designed to enhance operational efficiency and ensure compliance across fleet operations.

With comparatively cheap starting prices compared to the competition, it is one of our favorite choices for smaller businesses. That's to say, it covers all the core features and functionalities we wanted, whether that was tracking and driver management tools or maintenance scheduling and alerts.

All its features are packaged in a streamlined, intuitive platform that we found incredibly simple to use. And with solid customer service options, including 24/7 responses in emergencies, and assured compliance with the US Department of Transportation (including IFTA, ELD, and eDVIRs), it is an appealing proposition for most fleet businesses.

Larger fleet businesses might pine for more advanced features, but businesses on a budget will find superb value for money in GPS Insight.

Strengths

Cheap no-contract, month-to-month, or one and three-year contract options

Intuitive user interface

Advanced tracking and comprehensive reporting

Excellent customer support options, including 24/7 assistance

Weaknesses

Limited third-party integrations

No free trial available

Less extensive features for maintenance and tracking

GPS Insight Review: Test Summary

My time testing GPS Insight has proved it is a commendable choice for fleet management software.

It nails the basics with a user-friendly interface and a robust suite of driver management features via its impressive map and reporting tool kits. I could do all the tasks a fleet manager would expect to perform, from trailing old routes to assessing driver misdemeanors.

I don’t feel it has the extent of features in these areas to match the big-money buys of Verizon Connect and Samsara, while its maintenance management tools lacked the predictive analytics those competitors offered.

But given GPS Insight comes in at so much cheaper per month, and offers flexible month-to-month contracts to boot, I think it offers exceptional value for money. Many small to medium-sized fleet businesses will find GPS Insight an attractive option for these essential tracking and management tools.

Matt Reed - Senior Writer at Expert Market
Matt Reed Senior Writer at Expert Market

GPS Insight Review: Features

After getting to grips with GPS Insight, we found some excellent features well worth pointing out. Let’s go through a few of them.

GPS Insight’s Layout

After logging in to GPS Insight, we got to grips with an intelligently designed layout, which made it really simple to get started quickly.

Specifically, there are prominently placed links to its major tools of Fleet Tracking Map, Reports, and Alerts sections, alongside other solutions for fleet tracking, like integrated Driveri dashcam access, and tutorials on core functionality.

Screenshot of the 'Explore' landing page you arrive at after logging into GPS Insight
The 'Explore' landing page you arrive at after logging into GPS Insight - Source: Expert Market

There’s also a left-hand sidebar for the same navigational purposes, as seen above, featuring further page sections such as maintenance tools and help center options. It remains visible across all sections of the GPS Insight program.

While the design is not particularly flashy or exciting, this functionality-first layout made it incredibly easy to find whatever feature we wanted to dive into within GPS Insight. The same cannot be said for all fleet management tools, which makes GPS Insight one of the best options for beginners.

Map Interface: Efficient real-time vehicle tracking

We found GPS Insight’s map interface intuitive to use from first look.

It overlays live driver-vehicle and asset data, such as your hauling trailers, onto Google Maps. You’ll find all the public landmarks you usually get on Google Maps, plus you can save custom landmarks to keep tabs on your regular stopping points, like your local Home Depot or garage.

On the left-hand side, there’s a list of all your data points too, while you can also search for any particular one using the search bar above the map.

Map View on the GPS Insight software app showing different driver positions and details
The Map View within GPS Insight's software - Source: Expert Market

Each map item is interactable, configurable, and color-coded for its current status, helping you easily identify vehicles’ current statuses – such as being stationary (red) or on the move (green) – and the type of vehicle, based on its grouping. You can also geofence important areas on the map, as seen below.

GPS Insight - Map View - Geofencing
An example of Geofencing capabilities on the GPS Insight - Source: Expert Market

While it ultimately depends on your hardware, we found GPS Insight’s 30-second refresh rate sufficiently speedy in our testing too, matching the highest-cost competitors like Verizon – although they’re both slightly slower than Motive’s 1-3 second refresh rate. If you need a quicker update, manually refresh the map by pressing the countdown on the top right-hand corner.

Screenshot of the GPS Insight software in map view, highlighting the ability to refresh the data in the top right-hand corner
By pressing the countdown in the top-right corner of the map view, you can refresh the on-screen data - Source: Expert Market

By switching the tab from ‘Current’ to ‘History’, you can also visualize historical data on the map view, such as previous routes taken by drivers. For fleet managers needing to verify job completion or assess whether the routes taken are optimized to their schedules, being able to playback and review past routes visually is another appealing feature.

Reporting Tools: Customizable report generation

In the reports section of GPS Insight, you can create customized dashboards for metrics across six core categories: Activity, Diagnostic, Driver, Landmark, Speeding, and Stop Detail. There are 39 different reporting subsections available overall, offering heaps of data to look into including fuel usage and harsh acceleration summaries to full diagnostics and vehicle maintenance reports.

Screenshot of the Reports section of the GPS Insight software
The Reports section of the GPS Insight software has a huge number of pre-built packages - Source: Expert Market

Each report allows customization of what’s included too, whether that’s fine-tuning the data source (e.g. which drivers or vehicles to include in your report), time frame (over any period from the current day to all previously recorded data), or report specific customizations like the length of idle time or how many miles over the speed limit a driver violation was.

Out of the options, we most enjoyed using the Driver Scorecard dashboard which provides intuitive data visualizations of collective and individual driver behavior (such as hard breaking, speeding, etc.) across your chosen time frame.

The ability to set customized weightings, based on what is most crucial to you, lets you make a driver dashboard most relevant to your workplace and allows comparison of performance across your team.

GPS Insight Driver Scorecard page within the reporting section
The Driver Scorecard reporting section breaks down how your drivers are performing - Source: Expert Market

Driver Management: Streamlined driver data

The driver dashboard is one of many tools you can use to keep track of your drivers’ activity and empower you to stamp out unsafe and inefficient driving behavior. 

In the reporting section, you can analyze driver data by creating driver violation reports, which collate the number of times each driver has done something dangerous within 100 miles. These violations include rapid acceleration, harsh braking, hard right and left turning events, idling (for 300 seconds or 5 minutes), and speeding.

Meanwhile, in the map interface, you can keep track of driver activity  – i.e. movement and stops – plus other driver-vehicle details, including their MPH, ignition record stops how long they lasted, and the direction they’re currently headed in.

Screenshot from GPS Insight software showing map view and driver pane
After clicking on a driver, vehicle, landmark or asset on the Map view, available data on the item is shown in a pane on the right-hand side - Source: Expert Market

In the same pane, you can set up custom alerts so that you know instantly when a driver idles, accelerates rapidly, brakes harshly, or makes a hard turn. And should you want to reprimand them immediately, or you need to contact a driver for any other reason, you can easily send and receive SMS messages to/from your drivers, too.

GPS Insight map view showing a driver's route in a green line on Google Maps, with a pane featuring an SMS message to the driver
In the right-hand driver pane on GPS Insight's map view, you can send messages to your drivers - Source: Expert Market

Maintenance Management: Scheduling and alerts

With GPS Insight you can create alerts for vehicle maintenance, too. The system tracks vehicle usage data, such as mileage, and alerts you when relevant figures are exceeded. This way, you can have your vehicles serviced when you want them to be based on actual usage.

Image of GPS Insight Maintenance tab, showing how you can create a maintenance task
Creating a maintenance reminder for a tyre replacement on our Pump Truck every 20,000 miles in GPS Insight - Source: Expert Market

The maintenance tab provides an overview of all the service reminders you have set for each vehicle, with easy-to-see, red markers for those that are overdue based on the listed frequency and current odometer/engine hour readings.

Maintenance tab on the GPS Insight platform showing an overview of tasks
An overview of the service reminders for all the vehicles on our GPS Insight account - Source: Expert Market

Once maintenance tasks have been completed, you can check them off inside GPS Insight, too. Here you can input the cost of service and update any other metrics you want to track, so you have a complete record of each vehicle’s maintenance history. You can also download the service history of each vehicle as a CSV file should you want to dive into the details yourself.

A pane within GPS Insight where you can record completed services of different jobs, shown in a form like structure
Once a vehicle service has been completed, you can record the details on GPS Insight - Source: Expert Market

GPS Insight Review: Pricing and Costs

We’ll start by saying that GPS Insight is very affordable – it boasts the cheapest monthly starting price that we saw while researching costs across the US fleet management market.

Its telematics pricing works on a per-vehicle, per-month basis. How much this per-unit monthly fee amounts to will depend on the solutions and features you require to manage and monitor your fleet.

Inevitably, this varies from business to business, but what are the rough costs? Let’s explore…

Software costs

Monthly software license$14.95 to $32.95 per vehicle

This price range covers four pricing tiers – Basic, Standard, Pro, and Enterprise – with Basic being the cheapest and Enterprise the most expensive. There is no free trial option available, though you can contact GPS Insight to schedule a demo.

Hardware costs

Hardware costs with GPS Insight vary depending on the type of equipment you need and how long your contract is.

For instance, customers who sign 1- to 3-year agreements for smartphone-based tracking won’t have to pay for hardware at all since they’ll use mobile devices as trackers, according to GPS Insight.

But those on month-to-month agreements using PNP or hardwired devices will have one-time hardware and activation costs at startup. GPS Insight says this will be upwards of $39.95 per vehicle. Keep in mind that this base price is for GPS trackers that, by default, offer only four location pings per day, meaning you may require more capable hardware.

You may also need a dashcam for each vehicle should you want to integrate video footage into GPS Insight, with its Driveri Smart Camera costing between $30 – $60 per month.

For whatever hardware you require, businesses with over 500 vehicles in their fleets tend to be offered prices at the cheaper end of this range. Fleets with fewer than 500 vehicles tend to pay more. By talking to GPS Insight about your needs, you’ll gain a better insight into the exact costs you’ll have to consider.

You’ll also need to be aware that GPS Insight promotes self-installation (in other words, installing the devices in your vehicles yourself). Where that isn’t possible, GPS Insight can send an engineer your way – however, unlike the majority of the suppliers we researched, it will charge you an additional fee to do so.

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GPS Insight vs Competitors

GPS Insight stands out for its customization and ease of use, maintaining a competitive edge in a market brimming with alternatives.

What Does GPS Insight Do Better Than The Competition?

✓ Relatively Low Cost

GPS Insight Basic tracking package starts at $14.95 per month, per vehicle, which is cheaper than the majority of its competitors. For instance, other top providers like Verizon Connect, Samsara, and Azuga often have prices starting from between $25 and $30 per month.

✓ Shorter Contract Lengths

GPS Insight is one of only a handful of providers to offer no-contract length options, meaning you can stop using its service whenever you like month-by-month.

In this sense, it offers greater flexibility than the likes of Verizon and Samsara which require an initial three-year contract commitment. Businesses new to the industry of fleet management and aren’t sure which tools they want to utilize will much prefer this flexibility. While those who are sure they want to continue using GPS Insight can still get one to three contract lengths, and receive discounted fees in the process.

✓ Superb Customer Support

In our analysis of the US fleet management market, we found GPS Insight to have some of the best customer support options. It offers a range of ways to get in touch and request help – including email, a chatbot, and a phone service.

While its team is in the office Monday through Friday, 5am to 7pm PST, they will still immediately respond to critical phone calls and emails that are sent outside of those hours – so, if you have a truly urgent problem, GPS Insight is pretty much available to help 24/7. And non-urgent problems will be picked up as soon as working hours commence again.

GPS Insight also provides an online knowledge center, with documents explaining how to use the system and perform particular functions. It’s worth noting, though, that the information you’ll have access to will depend on the price plan you’ve paid for.

What Could GPS Insight Improve?

While we think GPS Insight offers superb value for money, there are a couple of areas we think it could improve its offering for users.

✖ Lacking Advanced Features

Our testing found GPS Insight lacked the extent of advanced features compared to the best fleet management software, making it less attractive to larger fleet businesses requiring more complex tools. Often these differences were related to automatic and AI-based features that more costly providers like Verizon and Samara bring to the table.

For instance, Verizon Connect Reveal has predictive analytics for maintenance. Its machine learning algorithms analyze vehicle diagnostics data (e.g. fuel usage and engine performance) to identify patterns that may indicate developing issues, such as decreased fuel efficiency, and alert you of their possibility. As discussed, GPS Insight lets you create, edit, and manage maintenance tasks using a pre-set frequency, but the system doesn’t automatically identify any developing issues itself.

Verizon also offers smart dispatching where the nearest technician with suitable vehicles and skills for a job is identified and dispatched accordingly. With GPS Insight, fleet managers can make real-time adjustments to optimized routes and communicate any changes easily with drivers, but the system doesn’t automatically match drivers to specific jobs.

And, relatedly, while most GPS Tracking Systems have route optimization, the likes of Samsara better GPS Insight’s offering by adapting routes to live conditions such as traffic. GPS Insight allows you to view live traffic conditions on the map view, but it won’t adjust routes for you.

✖ Limited Integrations

It also lags behind the competitors in terms of the number of third-party integrations it offers.

Platforms like Fleetio and Netsuite can be integrated into GPS Insight, and handily we also found that several of the best fleet fuel cards (including WEX cards) can be integrated to create fuel transaction reports, too.

However, the likes of Verizon Connect offer a more comprehensive suite of possible options. Verizon’s list of API integrations numbers almost fifty apps across 11 categories, including some of the best dispatching, payroll, and fuel management tools such as Quickbooks.

Again, this may discourage larger fleets who are looking for the most advanced solutions to be integrated when required.

✖ Hardware Refresh Rate and Updates

GPS Insight has a superb 30-second refresh rate, but whether this is true in reality will depend on the hardware installed in your vehicles. It says that some of its hardware only updates its position four times per day by default, so you’ll need to look into the exact tracking devices you are receiving.

The number of vehicles and the amount of data being monitored at once, as well as whether you are using the software via a smartphone or computer, could potentially cause lags or delays on the software itself, too. Especially if you’re running on limited bandwidth or older hardware.


Alternatives to GPS Insight

If you aren’t completely sold on GPS Insight, here’s a brief comparison of our other top-rated Fleet Management companies for you to compare and consider.

Swipe right to see more
0 out of 0

Verizon Connect

Teletrac Navman TN360

Azuga

RAM Tracking

4.1
4.7
4.6
4.6
4.4
4.3
Data Refresh Time

1-3 seconds

Data Refresh Time

30 seconds

Data Refresh Time

30 seconds – 1 minute

Data Refresh Time

In real time

Data Refresh Time

30 – 59 seconds

Data Refresh Time
Driving Performance Tracking
Driving Performance Tracking
Driving Performance Tracking
Driving Performance Tracking
Driving Performance Tracking
Driving Performance Tracking
Fuel Management
Fuel Management
Fuel Management
Fuel Management
Fuel Management
Fuel Management
Fleet Summary Report
Fleet Summary Report
Fleet Summary Report
Fleet Summary Report
Fleet Summary Report
Fleet Summary Report
Compare Quotes Visit Verizon Visit Samsara Visit Teletrac Visit Azuga
Expert Verdict: Is GPS Insight Right For You?

GPS Insight has a fantastic reputation among its users, and it’s not difficult to understand why. With solid driver management and reporting features at some of the lowest prices you’ll come across, there’s little doubt about GPS Insight in terms of value for money.

Its starting price software plan is the cheapest we’ve seen on the US market (though you’ll need to be wary of how things add up for your specific business needs, including hardware costs).

But perhaps our favorite thing about GPS Insight is just how simple it is to use. The platform is intuitive and easy to navigate, with vehicle data, landmark configuration, maintenance management, reports, alerts, and messaging all actionable from the initial dashboard.

It does miss out on more advanced features found with our highest-rated GPS fleet management systems, like Verizon Connect and Samsara. So, larger fleets demanding more complex solutions with more granular data may prefer those options.

But it all depends on whether you’re looking for core actionable insights or more extensive swathes of data. And those advanced features come at an altogether different price point, too.

GPS Insight is incredibly affordable by comparison and doesn’t lock you into lengthy three-year contracts either. Certainly, if you’re a smaller business, GPS Insight will provide everything you need.

Written by:
Matt Reed is a Senior Writer at Expert Market. Adept at evaluating products, he focuses mainly on assessing fleet management and business communication software. Matt began his career in technology publishing with Expert Reviews, where he spent several years putting the latest audio-related products and releases through their paces, revealing his findings in transparent, in-depth articles and guides. Holding a Master’s degree in Journalism from City, University of London, Matt is no stranger to diving into challenging topics and summarising them into practical, helpful information.
Reviewed by:
James thinks all businesses can improve if they use the right technology. At Expert Market, he utilises his 4+ years experience as a researcher to offer specialised advice on a wide range of categories from CRM to Fleet Management.