Industry-aware expense and mileage tracking for solopreneurs, freelancers, and local businesses. iOS, Android, and desktop.
1. The positioning
Every competitor in this space hardcodes one structure: one business, one driver, one fixed set of categories. That works for a rideshare driver and fails everyone else.
The wedge here is configurable structure plus industry vocabulary. The same underlying engine, relabeled so a contractor sees "Job Site," a realtor sees "Listing," and a notary sees "Signing Appointment." Simple by default, deep when the business needs it.
The one-line pitch: Expense and mileage tracking that already speaks your trade's language — and handles more than one business, more than one truck, and more than one job.
Beachhead order
Ship for construction and trades first. Highest pain, most vehicles, best willingness to pay, and real audit exposure. The other four are lighter versions of the same build.
Construction & trades
Home services (HVAC, plumbing, electrical)
Real estate agents
Mobile services (notary, beauty)
Delivery & courier fleets
2. Pricing tiers
Free
$0
50 auto-tracked drives/mo
30 receipt scans/mo
1 business, 1 vehicle
Standard categories
CSV export
Pro
$9.99/mo
Unlimited drives & scans
Up to 3 businesses, 5 vehicles
Custom categories
Industry template + add-ons
QuickBooks / Xero sync
IRS-ready audit reports
Business
$29/mo
Unlimited everything
Multiple drivers, admin console
Custom dimensions (jobs, crews, routes)
AI assistant & anomaly flagging
Per-state mileage rates
Priority support
Pricing rationale: Everlance sits at ~$8/mo ($12 Premium Plus). MileIQ just raised to $13.99 — a 56% jump that is actively creating unhappy customers. $9.99 undercuts that hike while offering materially more. Raise to $14.99 once you have testimonials, and grandfather every early user permanently — that is what buys word of mouth.
3. Industry templates
A template is a label map plus a starting category set. One codebase, seven products. Onboarding asks the industry, pre-loads the right terms, and the user can still rename anything.
Layered on top of a base template. A notary who also does apostille and live scan toggles those on and gets the extra fields and categories without cluttering anyone else's app.
Trades: Prevailing wage jobs · Equipment fleet · Multi-state work
4. Data model
The whole product rests on making dimensions user-defined rather than hardcoded. Three tables carry it.
Organization
id, name, industry_template, subscription_tier, home_state
Entity (a "business" — user may have several)
id, org_id, name, ein, default_template, active
Dimension // user-defined, template-seeded
id, entity_id, label // "Job Site", "Listing", "Route"
type // text | select | location
required // enforce on entry?
DimensionValue
id, dimension_id, value, active, archived_at
Vehicle
id, entity_id, nickname, make_model, plate,
ownership // owned | leased | personal
deduction_method // standard_mileage | actual_expense
Trip
id, entity_id, vehicle_id, driver_id,
start_ts, end_ts, start_addr, end_addr,
miles, purpose, classification, // business | personal | commute
rate_applied, state_code, auto_detected,
dimension_tags[] // -> DimensionValue ids
Receipt
id, entity_id, capture_ts, image_url, pdf_url,
merchant, total, tax, payment_method,
category_id, confidence_score, reviewed_by_user,
dimension_tags[], notes
Category
id, entity_id, name, schedule_c_line, parent_id, is_custom
Why this matters:Dimension and DimensionValue are what let one app serve seven industries. Everything else in the product is standard — this is the part worth getting right on day one, because retrofitting it later means a full data migration.
5. AI capabilities
Receipt OCR + extraction: merchant, date, total, tax, line items from a photo or PDF. Confidence score attached; anything below threshold routes to a quick review queue rather than silently guessing.
Learned categorization: the model learns this user's patterns — not a global average. If they always book Home Depot to "Materials" on the Riverside job, it stops asking.
Trip purpose inference: recurring destinations get remembered and auto-tagged to the right job site or client.
Anomaly flagging: missing logs, duplicate receipts, a drive with no matching job, a gap in the mileage record before an audit.
Natural-language queries: "How much did I spend on fuel for the Miller job?" Business tier.
Year-end packet: assembles a Schedule C-mapped summary with attached documentation.
6. Integrations
Build in this order. Everyone else gets clean CSV, which covers the long tail.
QuickBooks Online — dominant in small business, non-negotiable
Xero — solid second share, strong outside the US
Wave — free, so it clusters with exactly your price-sensitive early users
FreshBooks — freelancers and service businesses
CSV / Excel export — ship in the free tier from day one
On the IRS question: The IRS does not care whether data reaches the books by API or by spreadsheet. What it wants is a contemporaneous log showing date, miles, destination, and business purpose, with receipts to match. So CSV export is the compliance baseline and integration is a convenience upsell — sell it as time saved, not as audit protection.
7. Platforms
iOS + Android native — GPS auto-detection and camera capture need native background permissions. React Native or Flutter keeps one codebase.
Web app — the admin and reporting surface. Desktop users mostly review, categorize, and export; they do not need GPS.
Windows/macOS desktop — wrap the web app (Electron or Tauri) rather than building separately.
Mobile captures, desktop reconciles. Don't build full feature parity in both.
8. Build order
Phase 1 — Core: auth, single entity, auto mileage tracking, receipt capture + OCR, standard categories, CSV export. Ship free tier only.
Phase 2 — The wedge: dimension engine, industry templates, multi-entity, multi-vehicle. Launch Pro.