Samsara review

Samsara is a cloud-based fleet management solution that helps businesses organize and manage their vehicles and assets. Headquartered in San Francisco, the company has offices in San Jose, Atlanta, and London. Samsara has over 2,200 employees and serves tens of thousands of customers globally, processing over 6 trillion data points annually.

Founded in 2015, Samsara is one of the market leaders when it comes to offering complete fleet tracking solutions. The company offers a combination of IoT devices and AI to provide real-time visibility and accurate analytics to a wide range of customers, including transportation and logistics companies, field services, food production, energy, construction, local governments, and manufacturing.

Samsara offers a free trial before you commit to a purchase and even has a dedicated team to help you build a custom solution that meets your specific needs. Additionally, Samsara is compliant with ELD regulations and is FMCSA approved. 

Samsara: Pricing

Samsara’s pricing model consists of two parts: an upfront hardware cost and a monthly subscription fee. The subscription fee includes the software license. 

While the website does not list specific pricing, it does mention charges, such as a basic initial hardware investment and an annual license fee. There is only a contact portal that asks a few basic questions on the anticipated fleet size and anticipated needs, and the “Get a quote” button ends with the need to provide a business email, rather than any pricing being provided. While Samsara is not the only company in this field to do this, they really could just provide a direct email to contact them, rather than have us go through this portal.

The upfront hardware was previously known to start at $129 per device and can go up to $399 per device depending on the product you choose, but there is no direct pricing information on the site that we could find for the hardware. The recurring software licenses range between $13 and $30 per month as reported by a few customers on various online forums, but again, this is unconfirmed. 

The exact price charged by the company will vary depending on your fleet size, business type, the levels of service you choose, and any other specific requirements. While many competitors do not charge an upfront fee, Samsara's upfront fee allows you to own the hardware over time. 

There are demos available on Samsara’s site to show the potential savings benefits you can get by boosting your fleet’s efficiency, such as reducing idling time.

Samsara: Features

Samsara stands out from the competition with its industry-leading features. It provides real-time traffic updates and displays the best available route to drivers, helping them reach their destination on time. 

The software allows administrators to not only track vehicle movements but also monitor unnecessary stops made by the driver, the vehicle's overall performance, any breakdowns, and even fuel waste reports.

It surpasses the capabilities of a regular fleet management app by providing a wide range of hardware integrations, such as dashcams, wireless sensors, and paper digitization, which are not available from most competitors. The integrations with third-party software are also very comprehensive.

Samsara software can be integrated with a variety of other software, such as payroll, CRM, TMS, route planning, inventory management software, and fuel cards, to ensure compatibility with your existing software licenses and to help you get the most out of the solution.

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Among the key features of Samsara are:

Safety for drivers and vehicles: Samsara provides a vast amount of vehicle data, and its vehicle diagnostics help businesses quickly determine the condition of their vehicles. It also keeps drivers and administrators informed of upcoming preventive maintenance, vehicle fitness inspections, and services.

The sensors are able to identify reckless driving and keep track of situations, including abrupt acceleration, hard braking, speeding, sharp corners, accidents, and crashes. Business owners may quickly determine whether drivers need a coaching session to enhance their driving skills with the aid of this data. Having a dashcam in your fleet’s vehicles makes life easier because it is connected to all of the sensors that are already there.

These cameras can automatically record video footage of both the exterior and inside of the vehicle after receiving a signal from the sensors, upload it to the servers, and provide details to the support staff in the event of an incident. Depending on the situation, the driver can be contacted in real time or briefed later.

Route optimization: Samsara provides a real-time aerial image of the vehicle's precise location—a unique feature that is quite helpful. The business owners may schedule deliveries more efficiently with the aid of its software, which can automatically generate an optimum route map for the driver that includes a customizable stop time for each delivery location, which then leads to higher overall performance, with the additional benefit of an increase in fuel efficiency.

Reporting and analytics: The sheer volume of reports you can obtain with Samsara, made possible by the numerous sensors mounted on the car, is one of its primary selling features. This comprises numerous driving-related reports, vehicle performance reports, maintenance records, and, most significantly, fuel reports, which are seriously thorough and detailed.

Over time, administrators learn specific information about each vehicle and its operator, such as the driver's name and vehicle ID, as well as accurate data about the amount of fuel still in the tank, fuel consumption over a period of time, engine run time, idle time, average fuel consumption for the vehicle, and so forth. This is again valuable in rewarding the better operators and coaching those that fall short.

Samsara: Support

Samsara offers multiple channels for customer support. This includes a 24/7 support center that can be reached through a contact portal via a login. It is unfortunate that this is the only option, as it previously had phone support as an option. There are also no direct support options like fax or chat. There is also no indication of the turnaround time for a response. 

While direct support could be improved, on the self-help side, it is well done. There are FAQs and videos that can help users solve their basic queries, along with webinars as well. On the social media side, the Facebook channel appears to have regular updates, and its YouTube channel publishes new content on a regular basis.

Samsara: Final verdict

Samsara is a leader in the field of advanced fleet management services. It offers a wide range of features, and there is a free demo available to see if it meets your needs. Samsara is a reliable and trusted service provider that meets all major compliance requirements, with an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and has been accredited since 2019. 

More on fleet management and tracking:

• The best fleet management software and services
• How to choose the best fleet management software for your business
• Everything you need to know about fleet management