MileShield vs Stride.
Stride is free. MileShield tracks for free and charges $39.99 a year for its Schedule C export. The honest case for both, and how to decide.
Stride is one of the best-known free mileage trackers for gig drivers. It tracks mileage with GPS, logs expenses and income, estimates your taxes, and exports IRS-ready reports. It works, and it costs nothing.
Stride is free because it is made by Stride Health, a company that helps independent workers find health insurance and other benefits. That is a legitimate business model, and many drivers appreciate the no-subscription approach. It also shapes how the app is built: a cloud account, bank connections, and offers for insurance and deals alongside the tracker.
Stride features as listed on its App Store page on October 2, 2026. Features change, so check current details before you choose.
When Stride is the right call.
If you drive part-time, want a tracker that never costs anything, like having bank transactions pulled in to find write-offs, use an Android phone, or are shopping for health insurance as an independent worker, Stride is genuinely good. It will track your miles and produce a report your tax preparer can use. For many drivers, free is the right answer.
When MileShield is the better fit.
The biggest practical difference is how tracking fits a long shift. MileShield records each working session as one continuous log, so repositioning, returns from far deliveries and driving between apps are part of the shift automatically. With any tracker, the miles most likely to be lost are the ones between orders. In our deadhead miles guide, 6,000 uncounted miles in 2026 are worth about $4,450 in deductions and roughly $1,000 to $1,350 in tax.
The export is also different. Stride's reports cover your mileage, expenses and income. MileShield Pro adds a PDF top sheet mapped directly to the lines of IRS Form 1040 Schedule C, plus a CSV audit trail, so you or your CPA can move straight to the form. See our Schedule C walkthrough for what each line needs.
Pro pays for itself if it captures a few hundred miles you would otherwise have missed: at 2026 rates, roughly 180 to 235 business miles save enough tax in the 12% to 22% brackets to cover the $39.99.
The privacy difference.
Stride's App Store privacy label lists data linked to your identity, including precise location, email address and usage data, used for purposes that include analytics, personalization and marketing. That is disclosed and common for a free app with accounts and offers. MileShield takes the other approach: we charge for Pro instead, run no analytics SDKs, and keep your trip records on your iPhone, so there is no account database of your driving. How on-device tracking works →