Samsara Pricing: What a Vehicle Costs on Public Order Forms

How much does Samsara cost per vehicle?

Four public order forms put the vehicle license at $217.15 to $303.60 per vehicle a year. The license covers the vehicle gateway, the unit in the vehicle that reports its position. Bend and Lee County list the gateways at $0.00, and the Teton County form lists them as included. The Hardin County form orders licenses only.

A September 2026 review on tech.co puts the software at $27 to $33 per vehicle per month. It puts the hardware at $99 to $148 per vehicle, with lower prices for longer contracts. The review says prices vary by fleet size, contract length and features chosen.

The forms sit in public council and county records. They come from Bend, Oregon, Lee County, Florida, Hardin County, Kentucky and Teton County, Wyoming.

The same public-sector license was $303.60 per vehicle in Hardin County and $217.15 in Teton County. Neither form says why. Fleet size, term and timing all differ, so only a written quote for your own fleet gives your price.

Other lines add to the Samsara cost. A dual-facing camera license is $495 a year on the Lee form and $504 on the Teton form. Shipping ran from $0.00 in Hardin County to $1,260 in Lee County.

Why Samsara pricing is hard to find

Samsara asks each buyer to keep the prices private. Every form here has a notice that the pricing and payment terms be held "in strict confidence". The duty ends once those terms become public through no fault of the buyer.

Public bodies publish them anyway. Their contracts go before a council or county board, and the papers go online. Three of the four forms write in an exception for the state's public records law. The Hardin form names "Kentucky Open Records Law KRS 61.870".

Public buyers can also order through a purchasing contract. Bend and Lee County ordered under Sourcewell contract 020221-SAM. Tulsa County, Oklahoma used Sourcewell contract 102924-SAM, whose listing page shows no price per vehicle. Its pricing sheet says "additional discounts may be offered" for purchase volume, payment terms and strategic importance.

Federal buyers can order from Samsara's GSA schedule contract GS-35F-327GA.

Reading a Samsara order form line by line

The license is what you pay for. All four forms say "Samsara Hardware requires a valid license to function". So a gateway listed at no charge stops working without the license.

On the Bend, Lee and Teton forms, each vehicle gets a gateway and a cable for the vehicle's port. The terms make the customer responsible for installing the hardware. The tech.co review reports install fees of $50 to $150.

On the Lee, Hardin and Teton forms, the gateway license provides "all ongoing elements of the service". Those forms list real-time location and vehicle telematics, the dashboard and a driver app. They also list over-the-air upgrades, API access, maintenance and phone support. The Bend form words its list differently, naming real-time sensor data, the gateway's data connection and training.

The license name sets the features. "Public Sector Only, No WiFi, No ELD" leaves out two of them. The public-sector forms say the Wi-Fi hotspot and ELD need an upgraded license. The Enterprise license on the Bend form includes up to 500 MB a month of Wi-Fi data.

ELD means electronic logging device. Drivers who must record their hours of service under 49 CFR 395.8 need one. A few exceptions apply, such as vehicles built before model year 2000.

Samsara contract terms that change the total cost

The yearly license is only part of the Samsara cost. The term, the renewal rules and the exit rules decide how many years you pay it. These points come from the forms and the terms of service attached to the Bend, Lee and Teton forms.

• Three-year terms. The tech.co review says contracts run for at least three years. Three of the four forms ran 36 months. Teton County chose 21 months to line up with an existing contract.
• Auto-renewal. Samsara may renew the license unless you cancel in writing at least 30 days before it expires. A renewal lasts up to the length of the previous term, or one year if that is longer.
• Renewal price caps differ. The January 2022 terms on the Bend form cap a renewed price at the previous price plus 5 percent a year. The October 2025 terms on the Teton form name no cap.
• No early exit. An order form cannot be ended before its license expiration date. You also cannot move to a lower license plan during the term.
• A budget exit for public bodies. A public body can end an order when its budget does not fund the next year. Under the Teton terms, it must first try to find the money or reduce the order. It then pays a fee equal to 60 days of license fees.
• Later shipments are pro-rated. Hardware shipped after the first shipment is licensed to the same end date. Its cost is pro-rated to the months left, rounded up to the nearest month.
• Fees on payments. The Teton and Hardin forms add up to 3 percent on card payments. Late payments carry 1.5 percent a month, and service may be suspended after 30 days. Payments are non-refundable.
• Export your data before the end. You can export your data at any time from the dashboard or the API. If a license expires and is not renewed, its data "may be immediately deleted".

Beyond Samsara pricing: the gear on the trucks

The license keeps a gateway in each vehicle working. The Bend form lists the gateway's data connection as part of that license. That is a data plan per unit, paid every year of the term.

Each vehicle gateway license covers one vehicle. Ladders, tool boxes and hand tools have no engine to read and nothing to wire into. A data plan for every item would multiply the license lines on the form.

A crowdsourced tag needs no wiring and no data plan per unit. It broadcasts a Bluetooth signal, and any phone that passes reports where it heard the tag. Apple counts over a billion iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, and Google over a billion Android devices. A tag's battery lasts up to six years, depending on its size.

A tag goes on each item that rides in the truck. The fleet asset tracking guide shows how to check each truck's kit against the truck. AirTag vs Samsara sets out what each unit needs to report.

What to expect from tags on fleet gear

Tags report through the phones that pass them, whoever those phones belong to. That shapes how they update.

• Updates come from passing phones. Gear on a truck in traffic or at a busy site updates often. Gear left in a quiet yard overnight updates less often, and picks up again when people come by.
• Building-level position. The position comes from the phone that heard the tag. It gets you to the right site, yard or stretch of road.
• Location, not engine data. A tag reports where an item is and when it came and went. Engine hours, fuel and driver logs come from the vehicle's own systems.
• Where, not who. A tag shows where the kit is, not who took it. The equipment sign out sheet records who has each item.