Stride app is a mileage-tracking app that allows self-employed individuals, Lyft and Uber drivers, freelancers, and field workers to track their car mileage and calculate their business expenses to make tax filing easier.
We decided to test the Stride app to see how it performs among the best mileage-tracking apps in the industry. We graded the Stride app based on four things: mileage tracking, expense tracking, income tracking, and tax features.
In our comprehensive Stride app review, we outline how the app works, the strengths and weaknesses of the app, notable features, pricing, and how it stacks up against other popular GPS mileage and expense tracking apps.
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The Stride app runs in the background to track your mileage for you. Simply press the start button on the app when you leave your location and let the app track mileage as you work.
The Stride app uses built-in GPS to track and log every mile while driving, automatically maximizes your mileage deductions, and captures them in an IRS-ready standard mileage format. If you forget to track miles, you can manually add a trip into the app. You can also set reminders on the app to ensure you don’t miss out on miles.
In addition to tracking miles, the Stride app can track your expenses and income to help you maximize your mileage deductions and find areas to save money to make tax filing hassle-free.
Stride App: Features Walkthrough
Like other mileage-tracking apps, the Stride app has several features. But the best way to know whether the Stride app is designed for your business needs is to test all its key features.
We tested the app to see how it performs, and here are the results.
Mileage Tracking
One thing that many drivers might like about the Stride app is that its mileage tracker is free and easy to use. No subscription is needed.
We found that Stride kept accurate records of how far we went, with readings matching the results on most trips.
Stride mileage tracker shows miles driven, deductions, and estimated savings.
To get started, simply tap the little green “plus” symbol at the bottom of the screen. The app will prompt you to either track miles, manage driver reminders, or add income or expenses.
The menu on the Stride app to track miles, manage driver reminders, add income, and expenses
When you select the “track miles” option, the app will start tracking mileage until you press the “I’m Done Driving” button to complete your trip. The app will allow you to zoom in to see your route and miles driven. Unfortunately, the app doesn’t provide data to show the exact time you were at a given location on your trip.
Just tap on "I'm done driving" to stop recording mileage
If, for some reason, something happens and your phone shuts down or loses signals, Stride may not track your mileage accurately. You will lose those miles. The same applies if something blocks your phone from a GPS signal; Stride will not track miles. When this happens, Stride will only calculate the distance between the last two locations before the interruption.
At first glance, the app allows you to track business mileage while using the business car. Still, it isn’t robust enough to use as a professional trucking mileage tracker. You might want to use an advanced mileage tracker like Timeero to get experience.
IRS-Proof Mileage Logs
On the Stride app, you can request a mileage report. Tap on the profile icon at the top of the app on most screens, then ask for the tax report.
Tax report on the Stride app
Stride will confirm your email address and email the report to you as a CSV file, which can be opened as a spreadsheet.
It’s a good idea to check the mileage report regularly to ensure the app captures and records all your drives.
To get IRS-ready mileage logs, you will need the following:
The actual date of the trip
Number of miles covered
Purpose of the trip (Business, delivery, rideshare, sales, creative professional, and more)
Locations visited
With this information, the Stride Tax tracker will provide IRS-ready reports meeting the standard mileage log requirement.
IRS-ready tax report for tax filing on Stride
The app provides details of the starting and ending locations of the trip in the description.
Unfortunately, we did not find a way to access reports for a given period, such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. You only get reports for the whole tax year.
That said, you can sort your file based on date and see the trips that meet the date range. One downside about the mileage logs on the Stride app is that you can’t access the details on the web. You can only pull the information on your trips on the mobile app. Other advanced tracker apps like Timeero give you more than that.
Income and Expense Tracking
Stride Tax expense tracking feature allows you to track expenses the same way you keep track of your miles.
Once you hit the “plus” button, you will access the “Add an expense” tab. Here you’re presented with a list of categories that you can choose from to log your expenses.
For instance, rideshare drivers can list expenses such as passenger goodies, food and drinks, music and paid apps (Android and iOS), and dashcam. Delivery drivers can add items such as Stride health insurance, parking, tolls, inspection, phone accessories, personal protective equipment, and more.
List of expense categories on the Stride app
The only challenge we had with expense tracking was customizing the expense categories.
There seems to be no way to create new categories that the app doesn’t include. Regarding expense reports, Stride offers the reports the same way they do their mileage logs. You can request a tax report, and they will send you a CSV file.
When it comes to income tracking, Stride has a simple way of entering income. After clicking the plus sign, select the “Add Income” tab. You will be presented with an interface where you can feed your weekly gross income and specify which week the income was generated.
Gross income summary, including deductions and estimated taxes
Unfortunately, you cannot choose a specific date when you received payment, only the week.
Also, Stride doesn’t allow you to create a note to add more details of the income, and you can neither select the type of job you received payment for. This can make it hard for the user to accurately track specific sources of their income and track expenses effectively.
Offline Mode and Battery Consumption
Stride offers an offline mode. In our test, we switched the internet connection midway through our trip. The app continued to track mileage, but you might not get all the trips as it has to connect to the internet to sync the data to Stride app so it doesn’t get lost.
Stride offline mode tracks miles satisfactorily
Reports and Integrations
Stride allows you to request mileage and tax reports from the app only and not on the web. Once you request the reports, you will receive them in your email in CSV spreadsheets.
In terms of integrations, the Stride Tax app offers fewer integrations than Timeero’s. The Stride app integrates with H&R Block’s tax program.
Tax deductions to make tax filing easy on Stride.
When tax time comes, you can effortlessly link Stride to H&R Block and import expenses with a single click. This makes tax filing easy and saves a lot of time if you have simple expenses and incomes that fit within the categories on Stride. But, if you have a lot of costs and income, filing taxes using Stride may take longer than expected.
The stride app can also connect with your bank account to find write-offs for you, help you reconcile your accounts, and ensure you track everything as it is. Stride Plaid API uses Plaid to connect to your financial accounts securely.
Bank integration on Stride to automatically find write-offs
Stride App Review: Pricing
The Stride app is available for Android, iPad, and iPhone users. The exciting part is that the app is free to use, no charges needed. Simply download it on your phone and start tracking mileage. In addition, you can create several accounts with separate bank accounts without any charges.
Stride App Review: Is It Worth It?
Since the Stride app doesn’t cost to download and use, the main question remains: is it worth the investment?
Stride offers basic features to help you track your trips for business purposes and prepare decent mileage logs to help you maximize tax deductions. It also does better than some apps, such as Hubstaff, Zoho, and TimeSheet Mobile, in providing tax estimates and integrating with tax software. But this only works with simple operations or small businesses with little income.
But if you want to track time, GPS location, mileage, route taken, and expenses and get as many details as possible, you need a robust time and mileage tracking app like Timeero.
Timeero: The Best Alternative To Stride Tax App
Stride Tax App has shown some potential for tracking mileage effectively for business purposes. Sadly, it lacks advanced capabilities such as route replay, breadcrumbing technology, and more to make mileage tracking as accurate as possible.
That, coupled with immense battery drain, drags the Stride Tax app down the list of the best mileage-tracking app in the industry.
One app that ticks all the boxes when it comes to mileage tracking is Timeero. Read our Timeero Review to learn why it qualifies as the best alternative to the Stride app.
But if you’re short on time, here is a summary of the key features that make Timeero stand out from the pack.
Real-time GPS Location Tracking
The Stride app is more of a tax app than a GPS location tracking app. That said, you might see the user’s location at the beginning of the trip, but you won’t track their every move in real time.
Timeero GPS tracking makes real-time location tracking a bliss. The app will track the precise location of the driver or field employee and provide real-time information on their movement.
When you click “Who’s Working,” to see the location the user clocked in, their current location, and if they clocked in outside the designated job area.
Timeero’s Who’s Is Working to see the user’s current location in real-time
Timeero app tracks the users’ location only when they’re clocked in. The app stops tracking their location once you clock out after your shift, thus upholding your privacy.
Accurate Mileage Tracking
While Stride does a good job tracking mileage, it doesn’t monitor the driver’s behavior. For instance, the app fails to show the route taken by the driver. Instead, it only shows the start and stop locations of the trip.
On the other hand, Timeero’s motion detection technology allows the app to track mileage automatically once the vehicle attains the required speed limit. The app captures all the trips with a detailed report to provide as much detail as possible. The route replay feature on the app provides a clear route taken by the driver from the time they clocked in. You can even replay the route to see the nitty-gritty of what happened during the journey, including all the stops made.
Route replay feature shows all the places employees visited during their shift
The route replay feature works hand in hand with breadcrumbing technology to provide speeds and detailed timestamps of the trip.
Timeero’s breadcrumbing technology and replay feature shows detailed timestamps and speed
This feature comes in handy, especially if you have sales reps, real estate agents, or independent workers/contractors who spend quality time with customers. You can calculate the user’s time at a specific client’s location by calculating the difference in time between the two most proximate breadcrumbs.
Accurate IRS-Proof Mileage Logs
Timeero’s motion detection technology enables the app to accurately track and record mileage logs if the vehicle exceeds a predefined speed of about 4 miles per hour. But users can change the speed threshold depending on their business needs.
The app will not track business miles when the vehicle is idle, ensuring that the recorded miles are as accurate as possible and there are no reimbursements for miles not driven. You will not encounter missed trips on the app, ensuring drivers are reimbursed fairly.
Timeero’s motion detection capability allows accurate mileage tracking and ensures clients get IRS-compliant mileage logs.
Drivers or employees who live in California or other states with strict laws on mileage reimbursement can rest assured that Timeero will track mileage accurately and provide IRS-compliant logs that safeguard their business from potential lawsuits that attract hefty fines.
Read our detailed guide on Employee Mileage Reimbursement to understand more about the rules, regulations, and rates on mileage reimbursement.
Other Key Features
Face recognition
Scheduling tool
Time off
Files and photo attachments
Offline mode
Reliable customer support
But don’t take our word for it. Take Timeero on a test drive by subscribing to the 14-day free trial and enjoy a first-hand experience of its unique features.
Stride Tax App Review: FAQs
Is Stride IRS Compliant?
Yes, it’s compliant. The Stride app automatically tracks mileage and expenses to help you collect all the information you need during tax computation. At the end of the trip, the app provides IRS-compliant tax and mileage reports that you can use or submit to your accountant to make tax filing easy.
How Does Stride App Work?
The Stride Tax app is free and runs in the background to track your mileage while working as a rideshare driver, Doordash delivery guy, Uber Eats driver, or Lyft driver. Press the “plus” button on your app once you start your trip and let Stride track mileage throughout the journey.
The built-in GPS on Stride automatically tracks and logs every mile while driving to help you maximize mileage deductions and ensure you get IRS-compliant mileage logs. Also, the app allows you to add miles manually if you forget to track miles.
Is There a Free Trial for The App?
The Stride app is a free expense and mileage tracker for business purposes. It doesn’t have paid plans. Simply install the mobile app and automatically track mileage to save on your tax bill.
Discover why Timeero is the best GPS location and mileage tracking alternative to the Stride app!
David is a content writer passionate about all things SaaS and technology! With over seven years of experience, David knows how to craft content that captivates his readers and effectively communicates their value and offerings. When he is not writing, he is at home reading, out playing soccer, or exploring new places.
