Mileage Tracking Apps vs a Spreadsheet in 2026: Stride, Everlance, and MileIQ Compared

Every mile you drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, or Amazon Flex is worth real money at tax time. For 2026, the IRS business standard mileage rate is 72.5 cents per mile, up 2.5 cents from 2025. Drive 20,000 business miles in a year and that is a $14,500 deduction. Miss tracking those miles and you hand that money straight to the IRS.

So the question is not whether you should track mileage. It is how. A mileage tracking app that detects your drives automatically by GPS, or a spreadsheet you own outright. This guide compares the three apps drivers reach for most (Stride, Everlance, and MileIQ) against a one-time $29 spreadsheet, with current 2026 pricing and the tax facts that actually matter.

Why mileage is the biggest deduction you have

As a self-employed driver, you file a Schedule C and pay self-employment tax of 15.3% on your net earnings (12.4% for Social Security on income up to $184,500 in 2026, plus 2.9% for Medicare with no cap), calculated on 92.35% of your net profit. On top of that you pay regular federal income tax. Anything you can legitimately deduct lowers both.

Mileage is usually the single largest write-off for a driver. You have two methods: the standard mileage rate (72.5 cents per mile in 2026) or actual vehicle expenses (gas, insurance, repairs, depreciation). Most rideshare and delivery drivers come out ahead with the standard mileage rate, and it is far simpler. But either way the IRS expects a contemporaneous log: date, miles, and business purpose for each trip. No log, no deduction if you get audited. That is what a mileage tracking app or a spreadsheet is really for.

The three apps drivers actually use

Stride (free)

Stride is genuinely free with no paid tier, no trip limits, and no feature gates. It makes money from health insurance referrals, not from you. It does automatic GPS drive detection, lets you categorize drives as business or personal, tracks expenses, and exports a tax summary. For a driver who just wants a free, no-strings auto tracker, it is the obvious starting point.

The tradeoff: it is a lightweight phone app. Your data lives inside Stride, the reporting is basic, and it does not connect your mileage to your actual per-platform income, tips, and quarterly tax math in one place.

Everlance

Everlance offers a free plan that auto-detects up to 30 trips per month. If you drive part-time and rarely cross 30 trips a month, free can work. Cross that limit (most full-time drivers do in a few days) and you need a paid plan. As of 2026, Everlance Starter runs about $8.99 per month, or roughly $69.99 billed annually, to unlock unlimited automatic mileage tracking plus income and expense tools.

MileIQ

MileIQ is a polished, drive-focused tracker. Its free plan covers up to 40 drives per month. The unlimited individual plan is $8.99 per month in 2026 (the price rose from $5.99), or $59.99 billed annually. MileIQ is strong at the one job of logging drives and letting you swipe each one business or personal. It does less on the income and tax side than the others.

Apps vs spreadsheet: the honest comparison

Let us be fair. Here is where each side genuinely wins.

What you care about	Mileage tracking app	1099 Sheets spreadsheet
Automatic GPS drive detection	Yes (the app's main advantage)	No, you log miles yourself
Cost	Free (Stride), or about $8.99/mo for unlimited (Everlance, MileIQ)	One-time $29, yours forever
Free-tier limits	Stride unlimited; Everlance 30 trips/mo; MileIQ 40 drives/mo	No limits, no tiers
You own the data	Lives in the app's account	Yes, your own file in Excel or Google Sheets
Ties mileage to income, tips, expenses, tax	Limited or separate	All in one place
Subscription risk	Price can rise (MileIQ did in 2026)	None, no subscription

The app wins on one thing, and it is a real thing: it detects your drives in the background so you never forget to log a trip. That is the strongest reason to use a mileage tracking app.

The spreadsheet wins on everything around the mileage number. Cost (one $29 payment versus paying every month indefinitely), ownership (a file you keep forever, not an account you rent), and the part most apps skip: connecting your miles to the rest of your tax picture. A driver's return is not just miles. It is income across multiple platforms, tips, phone and supplies, hot bags, tolls, and the quarterly estimated tax you owe. A good spreadsheet pulls all of that into one view so you can see your real net profit and what you should set aside, not just a mileage total you still have to plug into something else later.

The 2026 tax facts you need to get right

Whatever tool you pick, these numbers drive your return. Get them wrong and the tool will not save you.

• 2026 mileage rate: 72.5 cents per mile for business use. Log every business mile, including the miles between deliveries and back, not just the trip with a passenger or order in the car.
• 1099-K threshold for 2026: over $20,000 and more than 200 transactions. Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the old $600 reporting rule was repealed and the $20,000-plus-200-transactions threshold was restored. Important: even if a platform does not send you a 1099-K, you still owe tax on every dollar you earned. The form is just paperwork; the income is reportable either way.
• Self-employment tax: 15.3% on 92.35% of your net earnings, and you must file Schedule SE once you have $400 or more in net self-employment income. You can deduct half of your SE tax as an adjustment to income.

The No Tax on Tips deduction (read the fine print)

Starting with 2025 returns (the ones filed in 2026) and running through 2028, there is a new No Tax on Tips deduction worth up to $25,000 in qualified tips. Rideshare and delivery drivers are on the IRS list of qualifying tipped occupations, so for many drivers this is real money.

But here is the part the headlines skip, and you need to understand it: the deduction lowers your federal income tax only. It does NOT eliminate the 15.3% self-employment tax on your tips. You still pay SE tax on your tip income. A few more limits to know:

• It covers qualified tips (voluntary cash or charged tips), not your base fares, delivery pay, or automatic gratuities and surcharges.
• The deduction cannot exceed your net income from the driving business, so your mileage and other write-offs reduce the cap you can actually use.
• It phases out for higher earners (above $150,000 single, $300,000 married filing jointly).
• You still have to report the tip income; the deduction is then claimed against it.

To claim it correctly you need to know how much of your earnings were actually tips, separated from base pay. That is exactly the kind of breakdown a real income tracker gives you and a bare mileage app does not.

So which should you pick?

Pick the app if

• You will forget to log drives manually and want hands-off GPS tracking. (Be honest with yourself here.)
• You only need a mileage number and you are fine handling income, tips, and tax math somewhere else.
• You drive light enough to stay free: Stride for unlimited free, or Everlance/MileIQ free tiers if you stay under 30 to 40 trips a month.

Pick the spreadsheet if

• You want one place that ties mileage to your income across Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon Flex, plus tips, expenses, and what you owe each quarter.
• You would rather pay $29 once than $8.99 a month forever (that is over $100 a year, every year, that a subscription quietly pulls from you).
• You want to own your records in a file you control in Excel or Google Sheets, not in an app account that can change its price (MileIQ already raised its monthly price in 2026) or its terms.
• You want to claim the No Tax on Tips deduction correctly, which means knowing your tips versus base pay.

The smartest setup for a lot of drivers is both: a free app like Stride running in the background to catch every drive automatically, and the spreadsheet as the home base where your miles, income, tips, and expenses come together into the numbers you actually file. The app feeds the total; the spreadsheet turns it into a tax return you understand.

Get the spreadsheet built for drivers

The 1099 Sheets rideshare and delivery driver spreadsheet is one complete, ready-to-use file for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Amazon Flex drivers. It tracks your mileage at the 2026 rate, your income per platform, your tips, your expenses, and your estimated quarterly taxes, all in one place that works in Excel or Google Sheets. It is a one-time $29, yours forever, no subscription and no app to rent. Grab it once and own your tax records for good.