Choosing load tracking software as a broker: seven questions to ask before you sign up

Published 2026-11-10 · facts checked 2026-11-10

Judge a tracking tool by how it behaves on the carriers you actually book, not by its feature list. Ask seven things: can it track a driver whose company you do not control, what the driver has to do, how you are billed, what the shipper can see, what happens when the signal drops, what alerts you get, and what it does not claim to verify. Then test it on one real load before you commit to anything.

Who needs this and when

A broker or small brokerage that moves freight with many different carriers, is tired of repeating check calls, and is comparing two or three tools. It also fits a dispatcher asked by the owner to "find us a tracking tool".

What to do

Does it work on carriers you don't control? Some tools need the carrier to share an ELD or telematics feed; others track the driver's phone. Ask what happens when a one-truck carrier has no integration.
What does the driver have to do? Count the steps: app install, account, permissions, anything the carrier must set up. Every extra step is a load that stays untracked.
How are you billed? Per load, per month, per seat, or by contract? Find out what a cancelled load costs, whether there is a minimum, and whether the price is published or sold by demo.
What does the shipper or receiver see? Ask for a link you can send to a customer, and whether they need an account to open it.
What happens with no signal? Ask whether positions are stored on the phone and uploaded later, and how the tool shows a gap.
Which alerts exist, and who gets them? Look for no-position, late and long-stop alerts, and whether you can turn them off.
What does it not verify? Tracking shows where a phone is. Check whether the vendor is clear that it does not vet the carrier or confirm who the driver is.
Run one real load. Create it, send the invite, and watch whether the driver connects and the map updates. A tool that needs a long setup before the first load is worth knowing about early.

Example

Demo: Demo Freight LLC books load DEMO-1001 with a small carrier. The broker writes the seven questions on a sheet and runs the same load through each candidate: driver phone 555-0100, one pickup, one delivery. Afterwards the sheet shows which tool the driver connected to without help, what the customer link looked like, and what each cost for that one load.

Where PingPoint helps

Against this list, PingPoint works like this: the broker adds the driver's phone number (or fills the load from a rate confirmation PDF), and the driver gets an SMS with a personal link and installs the free Driver app, with no driver account, ELD or carrier setup. The tracking page can be shared with a shipper or receiver and shows position, status, stops and last update time. Stops are recorded by geofence. Alerts come by email and on the Exceptions page for no position in 20+ minutes, a missed delivery window and 60+ minutes at a stop. The price is $0.65 per load created, with SMS, load page and tracking page included, and no subscription or contract; new broker accounts get a $10 credit after email verification.

Requirements and limits

PingPoint tracks the phone whose number you entered, not the trailer.
The driver must install the app, agree to location sharing and allow location; tracking stops after delivery, on cancel, or when the driver pauses sharing.
It does not verify MC/DOT authority, insurance or identity, does not detect re-brokering, and does not call drivers.
The $0.65 is charged when the load is created and is not refunded on cancel.
This checklist is a way to compare tools, not a ranking of them.

Next step

Sign up, create your first load with the driver's phone number and the driver gets the tracking invite by SMS. How it works · Pricing

$0.65 per load · SMS invite, map and customer tracking link included · ETA $0.02 per click · no subscription · pricing

Start tracking a load

Facts checked 2026-11-10.