Best Apps to Track 1099 Income, Mileage & Expenses for Gig Workers (2026)
This article is for informational purposes only and is not tax advice — consult a licensed CPA or enrolled agent for your specific situation. Some links below are affiliate links; we may earn a commission at no cost to you, which never affects our picks.
The best tracking apps for gig workers turn scattered income, miles, and expenses into bigger deductions and a painless tax season. Here’s how the seven top picks stack up for 2026.
Why a tracking app is the best money move a gig worker can make
When you drive for Uber, deliver for DoorDash, or freelance on the side, nobody withholds your taxes and nobody hands you a tidy year-end summary of what you spent. Every mile you forget to log and every receipt you lose is money you hand the IRS for no reason. A good tracking app fixes that in the background: it records your miles automatically, sorts your expenses into write-off categories, estimates what you’ll owe, and hands you clean numbers at tax time.
The payoff is real. At the 2026 IRS rates of 72.5 cents a mile (January–June) and 76 cents (July–December), a driver who logs 15,000 business miles turns roughly $11,000 of deductions into real tax savings — often enough to cover the app many times over. Below are the seven apps worth your time in 2026, what each does best, and how to pick the one that fits how you work. Once your miles are logged, the Standard Mileage vs Actual Expenses calculator shows which deduction method gives you more.
What to look for in a tracking app
Before you compare names, know the five features that actually move the needle for 1099 workers:
- Automatic mileage tracking. The app detects when you’re driving and logs the trip with no button to press. Miles are usually a gig worker’s single biggest deduction, so this feature alone can pay for the app.
- Income and expense tracking in one place. It pulls in what you earn across platforms and sorts your spending into categories the IRS recognizes, so nothing slips through.
- Real-time tax estimates. It tells you roughly what to set aside for quarterly taxes as you earn, so April isn’t a shock.
- Expense categorization that finds write-offs. The smartest apps scan your bank and card activity and flag deductions you’d never think to claim.
- Clean export at tax time. Whether you file with QuickBooks/TurboTax, a cheaper service, or a human accountant, you want a one-click report, not a shoebox of receipts.
The 7 best tracking apps for gig workers at a glance
| App | Best for | Starts at | Auto mileage | Tax estimate | QuickBooks / TurboTax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuickBooks Solopreneur | Full bookkeeping + seamless filing | Free tier; $20/mo | Yes | Yes | Native (same maker as TurboTax) |
| Hurdlr | All-in-one income, expense & mileage | Free; $9.99/mo Premium | Yes (Premium) | Yes | CSV / report export |
| Everlance | Drivers who want mileage + expenses | Free; ~$70–120/yr | Yes (paid) | Via built-in 1099 filing | CSV / PDF export |
| Keeper | Auto-finding hidden write-offs | $20/mo (trial, no free) | No (scans cards) | Yes | Files for you / export |
| Found | Banking, bookkeeping & tax in one | Free; $19.99/mo Plus | Auto tax set-aside | Yes | Column Tax filing / export |
| Gridwise | Drivers juggling multiple gig apps | Free; optional paid | Yes (paid) | Earnings insights | CSV export |
| Stride | Free budget pick for drivers | 100% free | Semi-auto | Basic | CSV export |
The 7 apps, reviewed
QuickBooks Solopreneur — best if you want bookkeeping and filing to connect. This is the only app here built by the same company as TurboTax, so your tracked income and expenses flow straight into your tax return with no re-entry. It tracks mileage, sorts expenses, estimates quarterly taxes, and generates the reports an accountant actually wants. There’s a limited free tier, and the full Solopreneur plan runs $20/month. It’s the pick for freelancers who want one system from first receipt to filed return.
Hurdlr — best all-in-one for the price. Hurdlr tracks income, expenses, and mileage and shows your estimated taxes in real time, all in one clean app. The free plan is genuinely useful (semi-automatic mileage, manual income and expenses, live tax estimates); Premium at $9.99/month adds fully automatic mileage and bank syncing. For most gig workers who want everything in one place without QuickBooks’ price, this is the sweet spot.
Everlance — best for drivers focused on mileage. Everlance is a driver favorite for automatic, IRS-compliant mileage logs, with expense tracking and even 1099 filing on its paid plans. The free Basic plan covers 30 auto-detected trips a month; paid plans (roughly $70–120/year, currently being price-tested) unlock unlimited automatic tracking. If miles are your biggest deduction, Everlance is purpose-built for you.
Keeper — best at finding write-offs you’d miss. Keeper links to your bank and cards and automatically scans every purchase for deductions, then texts you to confirm the ones it’s unsure about. At about $20/month it isn’t the cheapest, but the forgotten write-offs it surfaces often save far more than it costs, and you can file right from the app. Best for freelancers with lots of small, scattered business expenses.
Found — best banking-and-tax combo. Found is a free business bank account built for the self-employed: it auto-sets money aside for taxes as you get paid, sorts expenses, sends invoices, and even auto-generates your Schedule C. The free tier covers the essentials; Found Plus ($19.99/month or $149.99/year) adds in-app federal tax payments and free filing through Column Tax. Ideal if you want your banking and bookkeeping to be the same thing.
Gridwise — best for multi-app drivers. Gridwise is made for people driving across several platforms at once — it pulls your earnings from multiple gig apps into one dashboard, tracks mileage, and shows you when and where demand is highest. The core app is free, with an optional paid tier for deeper mileage and analytics. A smart companion if you rideshare and deliver on more than one app.
Stride — best free option. Stride is a completely free mileage and expense tracker aimed squarely at gig workers. You won’t get the automation of the paid apps, but for a driver who wants to start capturing deductions today without spending a dime, it’s the easiest on-ramp.
Which one is right for you?
- Rideshare or delivery driver? Start with Everlance or Stride for mileage. If you drive on several apps at once, add Gridwise to see all your earnings in one place.
- Freelancer or creator with lots of expenses? Go with Keeper to catch every write-off, or Hurdlr if you also want income tracking and tax estimates in one app.
- Want one system for everything? QuickBooks Solopreneur if you value the direct line into TurboTax; Found if you’d rather your bank account, bookkeeping, and tax set-aside all live in one free app.
- On a tight budget? Stride is free forever, and Hurdlr and Found both have free tiers worth real money before you ever pay.
Still unsure? Most of these are free to start, so install one, drive or work for a week, and see whether the automatic tracking feels worth it. The cost of any paid plan is itself a deductible business expense.
How tracking apps actually save you money at tax time
The savings come from two places: deductions you’d otherwise lose, and penalties you avoid. Untracked miles and forgotten expenses are pure lost deductions, and because you’re self-employed, every dollar of deduction cuts both your income tax and your 15.3% self-employment tax. Missing your quarterly estimated payments can also trigger IRS penalties, which a real-time tax estimate helps you dodge.
Want to see the numbers for your own situation before you pick an app? Use these free tools:
- Mileage Deduction Calculator — see what your miles are worth as a deduction.
- Quarterly Tax Calculator — figure out what to set aside each quarter.
- Take-Home Pay Calculator — see what you really keep after taxes and expenses.
And if you want to go deeper, our guide to what self-employment tax is explains the bill these apps are helping you shrink, while our roundup of the best tax software for gig workers covers the filing step once your year is tracked.
Once your year is tracked, FreeTaxUSA handles self-employed federal returns for one low flat fee — a simple way to file everything these apps have organized.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best apps to calculate tax deductions for gig drivers? For drivers specifically, Everlance and Stride lead on automatic mileage (usually a driver’s biggest deduction), while Keeper is best at surfacing non-mileage write-offs by scanning your bank and cards. Hurdlr is the strongest all-in-one if you want deductions and a running tax estimate together.
Which gig worker tax tools integrate with QuickBooks or TurboTax? QuickBooks Solopreneur is the only app here that feeds TurboTax directly — both are made by Intuit, so your data carries straight into your return. The others export clean CSV or PDF reports you can hand to TurboTax, another filing service, or your accountant.
What’s the best free app to track 1099 income? Stride is free forever. Hurdlr and Found both have genuinely useful free tiers, and QuickBooks offers a limited free plan. Start free, and only upgrade once automatic tracking is clearly saving you more than it costs.
Can these apps automatically categorize my income and expenses for taxes? Yes — Hurdlr, Keeper, QuickBooks, and Found all connect to your bank and cards and sort transactions into tax categories automatically, learning your recurring expenses over time so less is left to do by hand at tax time.
Do I really need an app, or is a spreadsheet enough? A spreadsheet works if you’re disciplined, but the whole value of an app is that it captures miles and expenses you’d otherwise forget — and forgotten deductions are the most expensive kind. For most gig workers, the automation pays for itself.
