The best trucking software for small fleets

The quick picks

How to choose

Start from your biggest weekly headache, not the longest feature list. Every one of these handles loads and invoices. They differ on three things:

• How the price grows. Most charge by fleet size. That's cheap for one truck and expensive by ten. Work out what you'll pay at next year's size, not today's.
• What they do for you, versus what they store. Some calculate your IFTA tax or pull miles from your ELD; others hold the numbers for you to file. Know which you need.
• How long you get to try it. A week isn't long enough to invoice a load and get paid on it. Thirty days is.

1. RIZE TMS

Best for: small fleets that want one flat price, and anyone whose cash flow depends on getting invoices out.

RIZE is $39 a month for the company, with unlimited trucks, drivers and logins. Invoices are built from the loads, with the rate con and signed POD merged into the same PDF and emailed to the broker. Driver settlements are built from each driver's loads, drivers get an optional phone view for BOL and POD photos, and the whole app is in English and Spanish.

Watch out for: it's new, it has no ELD or GPS tracking, IFTA is miles and gallons by state rather than a finished return, and a load has one pickup and one delivery.

RIZE pricing · invoicing · settlements

2. TruckingOffice

Best for: a single truck on the tightest budget, or anyone who wants their ELD and TMS from the same company.

Around since at least 2010. Dispatch, invoicing, expenses, driver settlements, IFTA and IRP support, and its own ELD that syncs with the TMS. The Basic plan for one or two trucks is $25 a month; Pro, which adds LTL, is $35. It's month to month with a 30-day trial and no card.

Watch out for: the price steps up with fleet size, to $55–$75 for 3–7 trucks and $90–$130 for 8 or more. Full comparison.

3. TruckLogics

Best for: owner-operators whose biggest pain is IFTA.

Dispatch for FTL and LTL, invoicing, document management and a mobile app, plus IFTA reporting that keeps state tax rates up to date and can import miles from a Motive ELD. $39.95 a month for one or two trucks, about 10% less billed yearly.

Watch out for: $79.95 for 3–7 trucks and $199.96 for 8–14, and a 7-day trial. Full comparison.

4. Rigbooks

Best for: an owner-operator who mostly wants their books and IFTA straight.

Rigbooks is accounting-first, built around one truck: expenses, cost per mile, IFTA tracking and calculation on every plan. Plans run $19 to $49 a month for one truck, with customer invoicing on the $49 Independent plan; Small Fleet is $149 for five trucks. 30-day trial, no card.

Watch out for: invoicing isn't on the cheapest plans, and each extra truck adds $19–$29 a month.

5. AscendTMS

Best for: starting at no cost.

AscendTMS has a free plan, which is rare, and is used by brokers as well as carriers. Paid plans are priced per user and add more features.

Watch out for: per-user pricing adds up as the office grows, and a tool built for brokers too can feel like more than a small carrier needs. Check their site for current plans.

6. Truckbase

Best for: fleets of roughly 5 to 50 trucks that want integrations.

Truckbase connects to more than 30 ELDs for live tracking, imports loads automatically, and integrates with QuickBooks, EDI and factoring companies. It covers heavy haul, long haul, regional and LTL.

Watch out for: no published price or self-serve trial; you book a demo to find out.

Is a spreadsheet enough?

For one truck and a handful of loads a month, honestly, it can be. A spreadsheet starts to cost you when you have loads waiting to be invoiced that you've forgotten about, brokers paying late without you noticing, or drivers asking why their check is short. When any of those happen more than once, it's time. Until then, our free invoice template and settlement template will do the job.