MileShield vs Hurdlr.
Hurdlr is a full financial app for the self-employed. MileShield is a focused tax tool for gig drivers. The right pick depends on how much of your finances you want in one place.
Hurdlr is a Washington, D.C. financial-technology app built for freelancers and the broader 1099 economy. It tracks mileage, but it also connects to your bank accounts and payment processors to import income and expenses, estimate taxes in real time, and, on higher tiers, help you file. It is closer to a lightweight bookkeeping platform than a mileage tracker.
That scope is the whole decision. If you want a financial dashboard for an entire freelance business, Hurdlr's breadth is the selling point. If you are a gig driver who mainly needs every deductible mile captured and a clean Schedule C at tax time, that breadth is overhead you may not want, especially the bank-account access it asks for.
Competitor pricing and tiers change. Figures reflect Hurdlr's publicly listed Premium plan at the time of writing; check their current pricing before deciding.
The catch most drivers hit: automatic tracking is paid.
Hurdlr's free tier tracks mileage manually. You tap to start and stop each trip. The automatic tracking that actually matters for a busy driver, the kind that runs in the background so you never forget to hit start, sits behind the Premium tier. For a gig driver doing dozens of trips a shift, manual start-stop is exactly the friction that leads to missed miles.
MileShield tracks automatically without a paywall on the core feature. Shift tracking, GPS, trip detection, the tax dashboard, and quarterly estimates are all free. Pro unlocks the Schedule C export and a few conveniences, not the tracking itself.
The shift model vs per-trip classification.
Hurdlr, like most trackers, logs discrete trips you then categorize. MileShield logs one continuous shift from when you start working to when you stop, so the miles between orders, the repositioning to a busy zone, and the drive back from a far delivery are captured as part of the shift rather than dropped in the gaps.
For a full write-up of why those between-trip miles matter, see our guide to deadhead miles.
When Hurdlr is the better fit.
Hurdlr genuinely does more. If you run a freelance business alongside driving, want bank-synced expense categorization, want your income streams pulled in automatically, or want to file your return inside one app, Hurdlr covers ground MileShield deliberately does not. For a driver who wants full bookkeeping, it is a reasonable choice.
When MileShield is the better fit.
MileShield is the better fit if you are primarily a gig driver, you want automatic capture without paying for it, you would rather not connect your bank accounts to a tracking app, and you want a Schedule C export that maps directly to IRS Form 1040 lines. The deciding question is usually the bank sync: Hurdlr's model depends on it; MileShield is built so your driving and financial data never leave your phone. More on that architecture here →