Samsara vs Motive – Price and Features Comparison 2023

Our research shows that Samsara is a better fleet management system (FMS) than Motive, as it offers more features, is easier to use, and it has increased support options. During our in-depth analysis of the two providers, our research team scored Samsara 4.7/5 overall, compared with Motive's overall score of 4.2/5.

However, Motive (formerly KeepTruckin) does have a higher value-to-cost ratio, due to its minimum 12-month contracts, and it still offers many top features like great driver safety tools, so it remains an attractive pick.

Read on to figure out which fleet management system is for you, from features and support hours to prices and any potentially hidden fees.

Our fleet management ratings are based on Tech.co's unique, in-depth research and user testing, with a focus on the three core needs most relevant to our fleet management audience: optimizing journeys, reducing costs, and improving driver safety.

Here, we'll pit Samsara vs. Motive, exploring their best features and biggest flaws (if any).

In this guide:

• Samsara vs Motive: Head-to-Head
• Samsara vs Motive (formerly Keeptruckin): Pricing and Plans
• Best for Optimizing Journeys: Samsara
• Best for Vehicle Management: Samsara
• Best for Driver Management: Tie
• Our Research and Testing
• Verdict

Just before we dive in, here's an at-a-glance view of how the prices and features compare for three of our top-rated fleet management systems. To find out more about a provider, simply click through to their website on the buttons.

Samsara vs Motive: Head-to-Head

Both Samsara and Motive (formerly KeepTruckin) offer a large range of the features a fleet needs: routing and dispatch, driver messaging, compliance and safety, fuel tracking, reports, alerts, and 24/7 support. The systems both include some features that are less common to fleet management systems, including geofencing and Driver IDs that help a manager identify drivers even when they switch vehicles.

However, Samsara has features that Motive lacks, including the highly useful custom location tool, which lets a fleet set recurring routes, as well as weather and traffic alerts. While Motive offers a faster refresh time and matches Samsara's around-the-clock support hours, Samsara's wealth of features make it a highly functional fleet management system.

• Samsara offers custom locations, which Motive does not support.
• Motive has a fast one to three-second refresh time, while Samsara offers an industry-standard 30 second to one-minute refresh rate.
• Samsara tracks and alerts managers to poor weather and high traffic, while Motive does not.
• Samsara offers integrations with third-party GPS navigators, while Motive does not.

Want to learn more? Check out our full Samsara fleet management review

Samsara vs Motive (formerly Keeptruckin): Pricing and Plans

The fleet management service industry serves a large range of fleet sizes and often offer custom quotes rather than going public with their plans and prices.

We've found that a good range to expect from Samsara is $27 to $33 per vehicle per month for their most popular features, with a hardware range between $99 and $148 per vehicle for one-off costs. Motive's prices are not public, but are estimated to start from $25 per vehicle per month.

Samsara also comes with a minimum contract of three years, compared with Motive's one-year contracts and its monthly plans. That's a big commitment for Samsara users, making Motive the flexible option of the two services. It's a big part of why our researchers gave Motive a higher score for price factors, with 3.9/5 points compared to Samsara's 2.5/5 points.

The two systems offer similar hardware warranties, as Samsara and Motive both offer five-year warranties for their biggest units – cameras, monitors, and dashcams – while smaller items like cables and card readers are only covered with a one-year warranty.

Both services offer online knowledge bases and 24/7 phone and email support for all customers, but it’s worth noting that only Samsara offers chat bot support as well. Neither Samsara nor Motive charges an installation fee, as both systems are designed for easy self-installation.

Samsara vs Motive: Which has the best free plan?

Compared to Motive, Samsara offers a longer free trial, letting users test its software for 30 days, while Motive has a 14-day free trial. 30 days is typical for the industry, although some top fleet management brands only offer a demo, such as Azuga (which has a 4.3/5 from our researchers) or don't specify a length at all like Verizon (scored 4.7/5 overall).

Best for Optimizing Journeys: Samsara

Samsara scores a strong 4.9/5 for the tracking features that support efficient routes, compared with Motive's decent but lower score of 4/5. Our testers found that Samsara wins this round because it offers real-time traffic and weather alerts as well as custom locations, neither of which Motive has.

Both services allow a fleet to automatically optimize drive time across a route with multiple destinations, and both offer reporting tools that track data by driver, vehicle or asset. Samsara’s real-time data covers more than Motive, however, from app logins to document submissions. Samsara offers both SMS and email alerts for geofencing or idling events, while Motive just has email alerts.

Motive has one tracking benefit that Samsara lacks: its devices typically collect GPS fleet tracking location and fleet telematics data for each vehicle every one to three seconds, although assets are reported every minute. This is faster than Samsara's 30 second-to-one-minute refresh time. Motive can also automatically group a vehicle with the assets travelling with it (like trailers), by using telematics data.

Standout Samsara tools:

• Scheduling, dispatch, and route optimization
• Driver record analytics
• Geofencing
• Mileage tracking
• 30 second to one-minute refresh times
• SMS and email alerts
• Weather and traffic notifications
• Smart Map Overlays with custom locations

Standout Motive tools:

• Scheduling, dispatch, and route optimization
• Activity Detail Report
• Geofencing
• Mileage tracking
• One to three-second refresh times
• Email alerts

Samsara's features make it one of the best route planning software options on the market.

Best for Vehicle Management: Samsara

Samsara earned a perfect 5/5 score for vehicle management features, beating Motive's still-great 4.5/5 score for the category. Samsara delivers every core tool our researchers deemed useful for monitoring fleet vehicles specifically, from fuel tracking and diagnostics to maintenance scheduling and DVIR reporting to meet federal regulatory standards.

Motive delivers most of these tools as well, including engine temperature tracking, a feature it lacked just a few years ago. Motive tracks fuel consumption by driver, vehicle, and at a fleet level; Samsara's fuel tracking tools do this and also estimate cost, runtime, and idle time, with custom reports. The “Motive Card” helps set Motive apart, however, since it functions as a normal fuel card while drawing on telematics data to check financial transactions, flagging potential fraud or misuse — combating the roughly five percent of fuel costs that Motive tells our researchers are typically lost to theft.

Both services also offer auto-alerts for diagnostic needs and allow speed-based alerts to be set, using data delivered by the accelerometers that both services include in their hardware units. Since speeding is behind nearly a third of all traffic collision fatalities, this is a big safety benefit both systems can boast.

Standout Samsara and Motive tools:

• Fuel Management
• Vehicle Diagnostics
• Maintenance Scheduling and Records
• Theft Prevention
• Cargo and Engine Temperature
• DVIR Reporting

Samsara's toolkit puts it among the best dispatch software providers for trucking, once again beating the still-above-average Motive.

Best for Driver Management: Tie

Samsara and Motive both aced their driver management assessment, each earning 5/5 points for this category. The two systems deliver on the core features that managers need when monitoring fleet drivers. These are: driving histories, two-way messaging, driver performance tracking, idling and crash reporting, and the hours-of-service tracking required for federally mandated ELD compliance.

Samsara and Motive also deliver useful driver-focused tools that not every fleet management has: scores and performance leaderboards for tracking the best or worst performers, safety trend reports, and a Driver ID tool, which allows fleet managers to track drivers even if they switch vehicles.

Our research team found Motive also offers a safety function dedicated to coaching: Managers can use it to quickly group poor driving events by driver, allowing them to walk driver through “coachable behaviors” like rolling through stop signs or close following. Plus, managers can see if a driver has or hasn’t taken the time to review their recent safety events.

Samsara can deliver Driver ID with two methods, letting drivers either log into their own portal with their unique credentials or wear a physical Driver ID token on their keychain. While the tokens are a more fool-proof tracking method, they'll cost an additional $9.99 per token.

Standout Samsara and Motive tools:

• Driving history
• Messaging
• Driver ID
• Driver behavior management
• Driving style data
• Driver performance
• Idling and crash reporting
• ELD compliance

Our Research and Testing: How did we score Samsara and Motive against other fleet management software?

Tech.co's in-house research team has reviewed, tested, and ranked the top 20 vehicle tracking systems available today. To access every element properly, the team broke down their research into six main categories. These are:

• Tracking: Routing features including custom locations, live tracking, refresh times, and geofencing
• Driver Management: Driver-focused features including behavior management, safety tools, crash reporting
• Vehicle Management: Vehicle-focused features including theft prevention, fuel management, and vehicle safety
• Product Features: Extra features, from third-party integrations to ELD compliance and mobile apps
• Price: All fleet management cost factors, including plans, contracts, cancellation policies, installation fee, and trials
• Help & Support: Elements related to installation setup and support, including hours and type (phone, email, or live chat)

Once every software was rated across each category, our team condensed these ratings down into a single 5-point overall score for each service. This allows us to track every single feature while still offering a helpful overview of how all those factors come together.

Armed with this research, we can write detailed reviews as well as a big overall guide to the best fleet management software comparison.