SimpleGPS vs Samsara
Samsara is the bigger product and for a large regulated fleet it is probably the right one. For a handful of vehicles, its pricing page asks you a question and ours answers one.
Checked on 3 September 2026: samsara.com/pricing does not show a price. It shows a form - "How many vehicles or assets do you have?" with brackets from 1-5 up to 5,000+ - and takes you onward from there.
That is what an enterprise platform looks like, and Samsara is genuinely one: AI dash cams, driver coaching, ELD compliance, equipment monitoring, a large integration catalogue. If you are running hundreds of vehicles under DOT rules, this page is not trying to talk you out of them.
It is trying to help the other buyer - the one with four vans, who wants to know the number today. SimpleGPS is $9.99 per vehicle per month for Premium, $14.99 for Fleet, tracker $129.99 or $52 on the annual plan, sign-up online.
Side by side
| SimpleGPS | Samsara | |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent public pricing | Yes | No |
| Self-serve online signup | Yes | No |
| Fits private individuals | Yes | fleets only |
| You own the device outright | Yes | Yes |
| Fits more than a car with an OBD port | Yes | Yes |
SimpleGPS keeps full route playback for 31 days, and routes, stops and statistics for 365. We state both numbers because we have them.
The differences in detail
A pricing page that asks rather than answers
On 3 September 2026 samsara.com/pricing opened with "How many vehicles or assets do you have?" and brackets from 1-5 to 5,000+. No figure appears on the page. Ours is $9.99 per vehicle per month and $52 for the tracker on the annual plan, printed on the pricing page.
Four vans and four hundred are different purchases
A scoped quote is a sensible way to buy a platform that will run a hundred trucks under DOT rules. It is a poor way to buy tracking for four vans, because a scoped sales process is built for a hundred trucks, not four vans.
What Samsara has that we do not
AI dash cams, driver coaching, ELD and hours-of-service compliance, and an integration catalogue. If any of those is on your list, this comparison is already over.
If you need ELD and hours-of-service compliance, AI dash cams with driver coaching, or an integration catalogue to hang your operations on, buy Samsara. We do none of those things and are not going to pretend the gap is small. Their product is aimed at fleets where a dedicated implementation is worth paying for.
Bottom line
Samsara is built for fleets that need compliance and coaching at scale. SimpleGPS is built for the ones that need to know where the van is, at a price on the website