Why is this harder than it looks?
A first prototype of live tracking takes an afternoon: read the phone’s location, send it to a server, draw it on a map. The work is in everything that prototype ignores. Phones lose signal in tunnels and tower blocks. Browsers stop sending positions when the page is in the background. GPS fixes jump hundreds of metres. Customers share links. A dispute arrives three months later and you need to show exactly where the driver was. None of that is visible in a demo, and all of it is visible to your customers in production.
We cannot tell you what building will cost you: that depends on your team, your stack and what you already have. What we can do is list the parts honestly, so you can estimate them yourself.
What are the parts of a delivery tracking system?
| Part | What you would build and run | In Track That Ride | Your estimate (developer-days) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Driver location collection | A driver app that sends positions reliably, filters bad GPS fixes, copes with lost signal and does not drain the battery. Browsers only give positions while the page is open; native background location needs extra permissions and app-store review. | Driver web app with high-accuracy positions and accuracy filtering. | ________ |
| Real-time delivery to viewers | A streaming service that sends each position only to the right customer and dispatcher, survives restarts, replays missed events and caps abusive connections. | Server-Sent Events with replay, per-link and per-IP caps. | ________ |
| ETAs | Routing calls to a maps provider (billed per request), caching, a daily budget, and a fallback when the provider is unavailable. | Server-side ETAs with a fallback estimate. | ________ |
| Customer tracking page | A mobile web page, unguessable links that expire, and a strict list of what personal data the page may show. | Signed, expiring links with a fixed allow-list of public fields. | ________ |
| Proof of delivery | Camera capture and compression, signatures, uploads that survive retries without duplicates, private storage with expiring links, and rules drivers cannot bypass. | Photos, signature, recipient, one-time code, GPS check, PDF. | ________ |
| Audit trail | A single place that records every status change with actor, time and position, plus exports for disputes and a log of who viewed them. | Status history, route, customer view, access log, PDF and JSON export. | ________ |
| Operations | Hosting, monitoring, security updates, data retention and on-call when tracking breaks on a busy afternoon. | Run by us. | ________ |
How do I estimate the cost of building?
- Estimate each part above in developer-days, including testing on real phones and real roads, not just the happy path.
- Add running costs: hosting, map and routing API usage (providers such as Google Maps Platform bill per request), storage for photos, and monitoring.
- Add maintenance: operating-system updates change location behaviour; maps providers change pricing and APIs; security fixes never stop. Budget a share of a developer every year.
- Add the cost of being late: the months your customers wait for tracking while it is being built.
- Compare with buying: an API’s per-delivery price multiplied by your monthly volume, plus the integration work, which is usually days rather than months.
When does building make sense?
- Tracking is the product you sell, and you need control over every detail.
- You already run a native driver app with a team that maintains it.
- Your volume is so high that per-delivery fees outweigh a permanent engineering team.
- You have requirements no vendor meets, such as running entirely on your own infrastructure.
When does buying make sense?
- Tracking supports your business but is not what makes it different.
- You need it working this month, not next year.
- You do not have engineers who want to own GPS edge cases at weekends.
- You need proof of delivery and an audit trail you can stand behind in a dispute.
What you give up by buying Track That Ride
Control. Drivers use our driver web app, not yours, and the tracking page is ours, without your logo today. If those limits are deal-breakers, they are good reasons to build, or to choose a vendor that fits better.
If they are not, the delivery tracking API and the five-minute quickstart show how much of the table above you can skip.