Best Mileage Tracking Apps for Gig Workers (2026)

By Alex Marcel · Updated April 10, 2026

The Short Answer

The IRS standard mileage rate for 2026 is 72.5 cents per mile. A driver doing 10,000 business miles in a year has a $7,250 deduction. Without a proper log, that deduction is gone. For the full picture on what qualifies as deductible and how to claim it, see our DoorDash mileage deduction guide.

Most gig workers who miss out on part or all of their mileage deduction aren’t doing it intentionally. They just didn’t have tracking set up, tried to reconstruct trips from memory at tax time, or assumed the platform was keeping their records for them. None of those approaches hold up to scrutiny, and none capture the full picture.

Setting up automatic tracking takes about five minutes.

What to Look For

The apps worth using detect when your car starts moving and log trips in the background without you having to tap anything. Manual logging is better than nothing, but most drivers won’t do it consistently for 200-plus deliveries a year. Automatic detection removes that failure point.

Beyond that: the report it produces at tax time needs to include date, start and end location, miles, and business purpose for every trip. That’s what the IRS requires and what your CPA wants to see. All three apps below meet that standard.

If you drive for more than one platform, all three also track across all of them simultaneously. They log driving, not app activity.

Stride

Cost: Free, no trip limits, no paid tier for mileage.

Stride is the right starting point for most gig workers, specifically because there’s no reason not to use it. No trial, no cap on free trips, no credit card required. You download it, give it location permissions, and it starts detecting drives.

Trips are automatically logged and you classify them as business or personal with a swipe. The interface is functional without being polished. Reporting is simpler than paid alternatives but produces what you need: a CSV export with dates, locations, and miles.

Stride also includes an expense tracker and an income tracker, which makes it a reasonable all-in-one tool for gig workers who want basic financial tracking alongside mileage.

The limitations are real. Automatic detection occasionally misses short trips or has a slight delay in starting. The reports are less detailed than MileIQ’s. There’s no web dashboard, so everything is phone-based.

For a driver who just wants IRS-defensible mileage records at no cost, Stride is the call.

Everlance

Cost: Free tier (30 automatic trips per month), then $60 to $100 per year for unlimited.

Everlance is the most widely used mileage app among gig workers, and the automatic detection is noticeably more reliable than Stride’s. Trips start logging quickly after the vehicle begins moving, and the swipe-to-classify interface is faster to use.

The 30-trip monthly cap on the free tier is the main limitation. A driver doing 30 to 40 deliveries per week will hit that limit in a few days. At that volume, the paid tier is necessary.

At $60 to $100 per year, the paid tier pays for itself in the first 85 miles of deductions at the 2026 rate. For any driver with meaningful mileage, the math is obvious.

The paid tier also adds a web dashboard for reviewing trips on a larger screen, more detailed reports, and better integration with tax software exports. The reports are clean and formatted specifically for IRS documentation.

Everlance also supports expense tracking and links to financial accounts, though most gig workers use it for mileage and not much else.

Good fit for high-volume drivers. If you’re logging 150 or more trips a month, the free tier won’t cover you and the paid tier is worth it.

MileIQ

Cost: Free tier (40 trips per month), then approximately $60 per year for unlimited.

MileIQ is what accountants recommend. The interface is cleaner than either Stride or Everlance, the reports are the most polished of the three, and the trip detection is accurate. For drivers who want the most professional-looking documentation and the simplest classification experience, MileIQ is the best product.

The driving classification UI is particularly good: trips appear as cards and you swipe left for personal, right for business. It takes about 30 seconds to clear a day’s worth of trips.

The free tier allows 40 trips per month, slightly more than Everlance’s 30. For full-time drivers, the paid tier is still required.

MileIQ’s reports export as Excel or PDF with all IRS-required fields, formatted cleanly. If you work with a CPA, handing them a MileIQ report tends to go over well.

One practical note: MileIQ is owned by Microsoft and has gone through ownership and pricing changes over the years. Check current pricing before subscribing, as rates and features have shifted.

Choosing Between Them

	Stride	Everlance	MileIQ
Free tier	Unlimited trips	30 trips/month	40 trips/month
Paid tier	N/A	$60–$100/year	~$60/year
Auto-detection	Good	Very good	Very good
Report quality	Basic	Good	Excellent
Expense tracking	Yes	Yes	No
Web dashboard	No	Yes (paid)	Yes

For most full-time gig workers, the choice comes down to this: if you want free and it works well enough, Stride. If you want the most reliable tracking and clean reports, Everlance or MileIQ at similar price points.

Setting It Up Correctly

Whichever app you choose, a few settings matter.

Enable background location access. The app needs it to detect trips automatically. Without it, you have to open the app before every drive, which most people won’t do consistently.

After the first week, open the app and verify your recent drives are showing up. If trips are missing, the most common cause is your phone’s battery optimization killing background processes. Go into your phone’s battery settings and whitelist the app so it can run uninterrupted.

Classify trips weekly rather than letting them pile up. Clearing a week’s worth takes about two minutes. Clearing a year’s worth at tax time takes significantly longer and you’ll end up estimating things you should know for certain.

And keep it running regardless of which platform you’re on. DoorDash’s delivery records are not an IRS-compliant mileage log. For the full tax picture — quarterly payments, other deductions, and software — see quarterly estimated taxes for gig workers and tax deductions beyond mileage.

For more on what counts as deductible mileage and how to claim it, see DoorDash mileage deduction: how to track and claim it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I really need a mileage tracking app, or can I just use DoorDash's records?

DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart log your delivery routes, but that data doesn't give you a complete mileage record. It typically only captures miles from restaurant to customer, not miles driven while the app is on waiting for an order or miles driven between deliveries. A dedicated mileage app running in the background captures your full driving time and produces the IRS-compliant log you need for a deduction.

What does the IRS require in a mileage log?

The IRS requires contemporaneous records with four data points for each trip: the date, the starting and ending location, the total miles driven, and the business purpose. 'DoorDash delivery' is an adequate business purpose description. A mileage tracking app captures all of this automatically and can export IRS-ready reports.

Can I use the same app if I drive for multiple gig platforms?

Yes. All major mileage tracking apps work across platforms simultaneously. They track driving, not app activity, so whether you're on DoorDash, Uber Eats, Instacart, or Lyft, the same app logs your miles. You classify trips as business or personal regardless of which platform you were on.

What if I forgot to track mileage and tax time is coming up?

You can reconstruct an estimate from your delivery history. Pull your completed orders from each platform, map the typical route for each, and build an approximate log. It's more work, far less accurate, and much weaker documentation if you're audited than a real-time log. Going forward, set up automatic tracking before your next shift.

Is Stride actually free, or is there a catch?

Stride is free with no trip limits and no paid tier for mileage tracking. They make money through their insurance marketplace, not through the app itself. The trade-off is a less polished interface and fewer reporting features compared to paid options. For mileage tracking alone, it does the job.

Does a mileage app drain my phone battery?

Background GPS tracking does use battery, but the impact depends on your phone and settings. Most tracking apps are optimized to minimize battery draw while still detecting trips accurately. Running a phone mount with a charger while driving, which most gig workers do anyway, means battery isn't a real concern in practice.

Alex Marcel

Alex Marcel has driven for DoorDash, Grubhub, and other gig platforms. He covers car insurance, health coverage, and taxes for independent contractors at GigWorkerHQ.