Operations · Fleet
VanVed vs Samsara
for Fleet
Why businesses choose VanVed over Samsara
VanVed needs no hardware, no installation and no three-year contract, and it puts the commercial side of a trip — the freight amount, the fuel cost, the customer invoice — in one place with the rest of the business. For an operator who mainly needs to know what each run cost and earned, and when the insurance lapses, that is the whole job.
Capability by capability
Every row below is what our 2026 research found — including the rows we lose.
| Capability | VanVed | Samsara |
|---|---|---|
| Live vehicle location | No bundled hardware or provider, but a webhook ingest endpoint now accepts a position from any GPS device/provider you connect, showing a last-known-position card once one is wired up — honestly reports 'no GPS device has reported' otherwise | Real-time GPS on an installed gateway, refreshed continuously |
| Hardware required | None — works from day one with no device to fit | Gateway per vehicle plus optional AI dash cam, typically on a 36-month contract |
| Driver behaviour and safety | Not built | AI dash cams detecting distraction, tailgating and harsh driving, with in-cab alerts and coaching |
| Vehicle diagnostics and engine faults | Not built — odometer is only whatever someone typed on a fuel log | Live DTC fault codes, engine hours and automatic odometer |
| Compliance documents (insurance, fitness, licence) | Tracked with an expiring-documents view | ELD/HOS compliance built for the US market; Indian RTO documents are not its focus |
| Trip profitability | Freight amount per trip, alongside fuel and maintenance cost in the same system | Strong operational telemetry; revenue per trip lives in the customer's own back office |
| Runs alongside CRM, billing, HR and payroll | Same tenant, same users, one subscription | A connected-operations platform, not a business back office |
| Cost | Included in the platform subscription | Roughly $27–$33 per vehicle per month, $40–60 with cameras, plus hardware |
Where Samsara is ahead of us today
Samsara's entire product is still the thing VanVed does not bundle: a device in the vehicle. Live continuous location, automatic odometer, engine fault codes, harsh-driving detection and AI dash-cam video are all telemetry from Samsara's own hardware. VanVed now has an honest webhook contract that will show a last-known position and feed the odometer if a tenant connects a GPS provider to it, but ships no provider or hardware of its own — most tenants will see nothing until they wire one up. If a buyer's question is "where is my truck right now, with no setup", VanVed is not the answer and should not be sold as one.
We publish this because a comparison that only flatters us is worth nothing to you. If one of these gaps is the thing you actually need, Samsara may well be the better buy.
What VanVed's Fleet module does
- Vehicle registry
Track every vehicle — registration, type and status — in one place.
- Drivers
Keep driver records and see who is assigned to what.
- Trips
Log trips against a vehicle and a driver.
- Fuel logs
Record fuel fill-ups and track fuel cost over time.
- Maintenance logs
Track service and maintenance history per vehicle.