MileShield vs MileIQ.
Both apps track miles. They are built for different drivers. Here is an honest comparison so you can pick what fits your work.
MileIQ is one of the largest and longest-running mileage trackers on the App Store. Microsoft acquired it in 2015, spun it back out as an independent company in 2021, and it was acquired by Bending Spoons in 2025. Its core audience has always been sales reps, real estate agents, and professionals who use a personal vehicle for client meetings. MileIQ is good at what it does for that audience.
MileShield is built specifically for gig drivers. The difference shows up in three places: how miles are tracked, what gets exported at tax time, and where your data lives.
Competitor pricing and ownership can change. Details reflect publicly available information at the time of writing; check MileIQ's current pricing before deciding.
The core difference: shifts vs trips.
MileIQ logs every drive as a discrete trip and asks you to swipe left for personal or right for business. This works for someone with three client meetings a day. It is exhausting for a gig driver running 30 deliveries a shift.
MileShield logs one continuous shift from when you leave your driveway to when you return. Every business mile in between, including the deadhead between fares, repositioning to a hot zone, and fuel stops while dashing, is automatically captured as part of the shift. No swiping.
For a high-volume gig driver, that is the difference between capturing nearly all your business miles and quietly losing the ones between trips. Over a year of full-time driving, that gap is often worth $1,500 to $4,000 in deductions, depending on how much you deadhead. We break down why those miles matter in the deadhead miles guide.
The Schedule C question.
MileIQ exports a CSV of your trips. That CSV is useful, but it is not formatted for IRS Schedule C. You or your CPA still have to compile the totals, separate them into the right Schedule C lines, and produce a filing-ready document.
MileShield's export is a two-part package: a PDF top-sheet mapped directly to IRS Form 1040 Schedule C lines, plus the CSV audit trail. Hand it to a CPA and they file from it. Upload it to TurboTax and the numbers flow into the right fields automatically.
Where your data lives.
MileIQ syncs your trip history to the cloud. This is not unusual, since most mileage trackers do, but it does mean your driving routes, work patterns, and frequently-visited locations live in a company database rather than only on your phone.
MileShield stores everything on your phone. Your trip history is in your iPhone's local storage. If you choose cloud backup, it syncs through your own iCloud account (governed by Apple's privacy policy, not ours). We never see your data because we do not have a database to put it in. Read more about our architecture →
When MileIQ might be right for you.
If you are not a gig driver, if you are a real estate agent showing properties, a sales rep with three meetings a day, or a freelance consultant who needs to classify trips against multiple clients, MileIQ is genuinely good at that workflow. The per-trip swipe model fits how that work actually happens.
MileShield is not the right tool for that work. It is built for the long-shift, multi-platform, deduction-maximizing reality of gig driving. Pick the tool that matches your work.