Pricing reference · 2026
What DOT compliance actually costs
How much does a DOT compliance service cost?
For one truck and one driver, the 14 compliance companies that publish a price come to $1,244 to $7,364 for a comparable year (read September 7, 2026). TenFour is $99 a month on the annual plan, $1,188 a year. The government’s own fees are small: the MCS-150 is free and UCR is $55 for one or two trucks.
DOT compliance costs at a glance (September 2026)
| Cost | Type | Amount | Paid to |
|---|---|---|---|
| MCS-150 biennial update | Government | $0 | Filed free in your own Motus account |
| UCR, 0 to 2 vehicles, registration year 2027 | Government | $55 a year | ucr.gov |
| Clearinghouse query | Government | $1.25 each | FMCSA |
| IFTA quarterly return | Government | $0 to file | Fuel tax owed or credited, to your base jurisdiction |
| BOC-3 blanket process agent | Vendor | $25 to $50, once | The process agent |
| Drug and alcohol consortium, one driver | Vendor | $160 a year (market median); tests extra | The consortium |
| A compliance service, one truck, comparable year | Service | $1,244 to $7,364 | The provider (14 that publish a price) |
| TenFour, first truck, annual plan | Service | $1,188 a year | TenFour ($99 a month) |
Government fees as published by the agencies; vendor and service figures from the providers’ own pricing pages, read September 7, 2026, with the method and every source in the best DOT compliance companies compared.
What the government charges
These are the fees nobody can discount, mark down, or get you out of. They are also, for a one-truck operation, surprisingly modest, which is why the “compliance is expensive” framing you hear from vendors is mostly about their fee, not the government’s. What each one attaches to is covered on our service pages.
MCS-150 biennial update
$0
Free through FMCSA. Every 24 months, on a schedule set by your USDOT number.
UCR: 0 to 2 vehicles
$46/yr → $55 for 2027
Due before January 1. Fees rise for registration year 2027 ($167 for 3 to 5 vehicles, $333 for 6 to 20); filing opens October 1, 2026.
IFTA quarterly return
$0 to file
Filing is free; you owe or are credited fuel tax. Late returns draw a penalty the base jurisdiction may assess of $50 or 10 percent of the delinquent tax, whichever is greater (IFTA Articles of Agreement, R1220.100).
Clearinghouse query
$1.25
A flat FMCSA rate per limited or full query, bought as a query plan. A pre-employment full query and an annual query are required for every CDL driver (49 CFR 382.701).
Heavy vehicle use tax (Form 2290)
See IRS table
Varies by taxable gross weight. We link the current IRS table rather than quote a figure: see the note below.
IRP apportioned plates
Varies by state
Based on jurisdictions traveled and vehicle weight. Your base state sets it.
One number we are deliberately not quoting
The heavy vehicle use tax depends on taxable gross weight and on when the vehicle was first used, so a single figure on a marketing page would be wrong for most readers. We link the IRS table instead. If that seems fussy. It is the same standard we apply to the regulatory claims on the rest of this site, and it is the reason those are worth reading.
What the market charges to handle it
Of the 14 providers that publish a price, 11 cost more than TenFour once you add what their price leaves out, and 3 land about the same.
TenFour comes to $1,287 a year for one truck with every driver included, counting the $99 a year consortium fee you pay directly, one company to deal with, and one thing no other row can offer: former over-the-road driver and law enforcement professional specializing in traffic enforcement, combining firsthand trucking experience with real-world insight into roadside enforcement and regulatory compliance.
TenFourOne company, one bill
Comparable annual cost$1,287
$1,188 to TenFour + $99 bought elsewhere = $1,287
Advertised: $99/month, billed annually ($119 month to month)
Included: Driver files, drug & alcohol program (consortium enrollment and every form done for you), Clearinghouse, tracking, UCR, MCS-150, BOC-3, IFTA (annual plan), vault, safety-score watch, human review, scorecard.
Still needed elsewhere: the consortium's membership fee, $99 a year for the whole account, paid to the consortium directly. We refer you, enroll you and do every form, so it is still 1 vendor to manage.
FoleyQuote only
Comparable annual costQuote required
Advertised: Quote required: the Essential, Professional and Power tiers show no prices
Included: Driver files, Clearinghouse, MVR monitoring and audit support are sold only inside the quote-only packages
Still needed elsewhere: Cannot be priced without a quote
No published price
J. J. KellerManaged service
Comparable annual cost$1,732
$594 to J. J. Keller + $1,138 bought elsewhere = $1,732
Advertised: Managed services are quote-only. DOT Authority Monitoring is published at $49.50 per month per DOT number
Included: Authority monitoring with UCR and MCS-150 filed automatically
Still needed elsewhere: Driver file $199 · Consortium $160 · Clearinghouse $199 · Expiration tracking $60 · +3 more$1,138 in all, from other companies
5 vendors to manage
$445 a year more
OOIDA Business ServicesAssociation
Comparable annual cost$1,393
$380 to OOIDA Business Services + $1,013 bought elsewhere = $1,393
Advertised: $45 a year membership, required before buying any service
Included: CMCI drug & alcohol consortium $170 a year when you are your own DER, plus a one-time enrollment fee; Clearinghouse work billed separately ($115 bundle, or $75 + $40 portal + $10 a query)
Still needed elsewhere: Driver file $199 · UCR filing $99 · MCS-150 $75 · IFTA returns $400 · +4 more$1,013 in all, from other companies
5 vendors to manage
$106 a year more
DOT Compliance GroupConsortium
Comparable annual cost$1,410
$571 to DOT Compliance Group + $839 bought elsewhere = $1,410
Advertised: $299 a year, drug & alcohol testing program
Included: Consortium enrollment and random testing management; Clearinghouse billed separately at $99 to $299 a year
Still needed elsewhere: Driver file $199 · Expiration tracking $60 · Vehicle records $60 · Audit-ready files $60 · +2 more$839 in all, from other companies
4 vendors to manage
$123 a year more
FleetDrive 360À la carte filings
Comparable annual cost$1,351
$891 to FleetDrive 360 + $460 bought elsewhere = $1,351
Advertised: $5 per driver per month for the platform
Included: Compliance software: document storage, expiration tracking, alerts
Still needed elsewhere: IFTA returns $400 · Audit-ready files $60$460 in all, from other companies
3 vendors to manage
$64 a year more
Trucksafe Compliance+Training
Comparable annual cost$2,380
$1,068 to Trucksafe Compliance+ + $1,312 bought elsewhere = $2,380
Advertised: $99 per month with a 12-month minimum, or $89 a month billed annually ($1,068)
Included: Attorney-built training courses, CSA score reports, monthly regulatory alerts, a webinar library, downloadable policy and DQ-file templates
Still needed elsewhere: Driver file $199 · Consortium $160 · Clearinghouse $199 · Expiration tracking $60 · +5 more$1,312 in all, from other companies
6 vendors to manage
$1,093 a year more
Simplex GroupQuote only
Comparable annual costQuote required
Advertised: Quote required, no compliance price is published
Included: Compliance programs, consortium, Clearinghouse, driver files, audit prep, IFTA, UCR and MCS-150 are all quoted
Still needed elsewhere: Cannot be priced without a quote
No published price
DotFleet ComplianceManaged service
Comparable annual cost$1,428
$435 to DotFleet Compliance + $993 bought elsewhere = $1,428
Advertised: $30 per driver per month, plus $75 per driver to build the file
Included: Driver qualification files built and maintained, annual MVR pull and review, medical-card tracking, audit-ready recordkeeping
Still needed elsewhere: Consortium $160 · Clearinghouse $199 · UCR filing $99 · MCS-150 $75 · +2 more$993 in all, from other companies
5 vendors to manage
$141 a year more
Prices read from each provider's own published pricing on September 7, 2026, for a one-truck, one-driver carrier over twelve months, setup included. “Still needed elsewhere” is priced at the median of what the providers in this table charge for that item. Government fees, drug tests and physicals are excluded everywhere, because every provider passes them through. A person to answer your questions is not priced at all, no provider in the table sells one below $199 a month. TenFour is a private compliance-support service, not a government agency and not a law firm; nothing about the founder's background changes how anyone is treated at a roadside stop. See all 16 providers, the method and every source →
The real cost of compliance is not the monthly line
Carriers underestimate what compliance costs because they price it the way it is advertised: one monthly number, on one invoice, from one vendor. That number is the smallest part of the bill. The rest is administrative burden, work that has to happen on a schedule whether or not anyone is tracking it, spread across more places than most owners realize until they try to list them.
Here is the list. Not a scare list, an inventory of what a one-truck carrier is actually carrying:
- Multiple vendors, each with its own login, invoice, and support queue
- Multiple renewal dates that do not line up with each other or with your quarter
- Driver records: applications, road tests, previous-employer checks, annual reviews
- The drug and alcohol program: pool enrollment, random selections, collection sites, results
- Medical documentation chased before it expires rather than after
- MVR pulls on every driver, every year, from the state of licensure
- Clearinghouse registration, consents, pre-employment and annual queries
- IFTA: mileage and fuel pulled, reconciled, and prepared for you to file four times a year
- State registrations, permits, and the base-state renewals attached to them
- Audit preparation: the four files an auditor asks for, current on the day they ask
- Recordkeeping that survives a records request, not just a folder that exists
- Corrective action when something is found, written and tracked to closure
- DataQs challenges on violations that should not be on your record
- The internal tracking that keeps all of the above from depending on memory
Every one of those has a cost even when it is free to file: a login, a renewal date, a document to chase, a record to keep, and a moment where it becomes your problem at the worst possible time. Priced separately (a consortium here, a driver-file service there, an IFTA preparer, a software seat, an audit-prep kit) they add up faster than any single line suggests, and the coordination between them is unpaid work you do yourself. You could save a little with a narrower plan and still be buying three other services on the side.
TenFour’s goal is narrow and specific: consolidate as much of that as is practical into one organized system and one service, with one renewal calendar, one place the records live, and one person who knows the account. Not everything belongs in one place (your ELD, your insurance, and your medical examiner do not), and we say which parts those are on the pricing page. The measure of whether it is worth paying for is not the monthly figure. It is how many of the lines above stop being yours to remember.
The comparison that actually matters
Comparing a document-storage subscription to a fleet platform is comparing a filing cabinet to a department. The useful question is narrower: what happens on the day something is due?
- Software tells you a date is coming. You still log in, fill the form, chase the driver, and file it.
- A per-driver service scales with headcount: cheap at one driver, expensive at four.
- A fleet platform assumes a safety department exists to operate it, which is why its floor sits far above a small fleet.
- A per-truck service does the filing and absorbs the chasing, and only makes sense if the price does not climb driver by driver.
What a price column does not tell you
A monthly figure tells you what leaves your account. It does not tell you who does the work, what happens when a document is missing, or who is accountable when a date passes, and those decide whether the money was well spent. Compliance is not a category where cheapest automatically wins, because the failure mode is not a worse product. It is a fine, a deactivated USDOT number, or a failed audit that ends your authority. Any one of the automatic failures listed in 49 CFR 385.321 costs more than a year of any plan on this page.
So compare these instead of the number:
- Does a person do the filing, or does software remind you to do it yourself?
- Is the published price the whole price, or do per-filing, per-report and setup fees land later?
- Is there a contract, or can you leave the month it stops being worth it?
- Will they tell you when a filing is free and you do not need them at all?
- Can you check their regulatory claims against the actual regulation?
We answer those the same way every time: a person reviews every filing, the published price is the whole price, there is no contract and no setup fee on the annual plan, we say plainly when something is free (the MCS-150 costs nothing, and we tell you so on the page where we are also selling you compliance) and every regulation we cite links to its primary source so you can check us. Those are verifiable on this site right now, which is the only kind of claim worth making.
When you should not pay anybody
If you run one truck, you are organized, and you already keep a calendar you actually look at, do it yourself. Every date is on our deadline calendar, free and ungated. The MCS-150 is free, check your due date with our calculator and file it. UCR takes a few minutes at ucr.gov. IFTA is arithmetic when your ELD export and fuel receipts are in order. The regulations are public and we have written most of them out in plain English on this site, ungated, whether or not you ever pay us.
The honest case for paying someone is not that compliance is impossible alone. It is that the failure mode is a date passing while you are driving, and that a single missed one, a deactivated USDOT number, a lapsed medical card, a failed audit , usually costs more than a year of membership. If that risk does not worry you, keep your money. Not sure where you stand? Run the free audit readiness check. And if you would rather hand it over, our own DOT compliance services pricing is published in full, every add-on and third-party fee included.
Free
Our tools and guides. No signup, no email wall.
See the tools →
$99/mo
One truck on the annual plan, every driver included. $59 for each additional truck, up to 6. No contract.
See pricing →
$549 once
New Entrant Audit prep on its own, the auditor’s four files built and checked. Included in onboarding for members.
Common questions
How much does a DOT compliance service cost?
For one truck and one driver, the 14 providers that publish a price come to $1,244 to $7,364 for a comparable year, once you add what each price leaves out (read September 7, 2026). TenFour is $1,188 a year for the first truck on the annual plan. Government fees, tests and physicals are extra with every provider.
How much do compliance consultants charge?
Those that publish prices charge in three ways: per filing (an MCS-150 update runs about $60 to $300), per driver or per truck each month, or a setup package plus a monthly plan. Several of the largest, Foley and J. J. Keller's managed services among them, quote only. Put on the same footing, one truck and one driver for a year, the published prices come to $1,244 to $7,364.
What does the government charge for DOT compliance?
Less than most carriers expect: the MCS-150 is free, UCR is $55 a year for 0 to 2 vehicles for registration year 2027, a Clearinghouse query is $1.25, and filing an IFTA return is free (you owe or are credited the fuel tax itself). Heavy vehicle use tax and IRP plates vary by weight and by state.
How much does DOT compliance cost for one truck?
The unavoidable government fees are small, UCR is $55 a year for 0 to 2 vehicles from the 2027 registration year (up from $46) and the MCS-150 biennial update is free. The real costs are the recurring ones: a drug and alcohol consortium, DOT physicals, annual inspections, MVR pulls, and the heavy vehicle use tax. Doing everything yourself, most one-truck operations spend a few hundred dollars a year in hard costs plus the hours. Paying someone to run it costs a wide range, and the range is mostly the difference between software that reminds you and a service that does the work.
Is the MCS-150 really free?
Yes. FMCSA charges nothing to file a biennial update. Any company charging you a fee is charging for convenience, not access. There is no expedited channel they can reach that you cannot. This is worth knowing before you pay one, and it is why we say so on a page where we are also selling you something.
Why do most compliance companies hide their pricing?
Because a quote form lets them price by what they think you will pay, and because the number is often higher than a small carrier expects. We publish ours for the same reason we publish everyone else's: if a price only works when it is a surprise, it is not a good price.
What is the cheapest way to stay compliant?
Doing it yourself. The regulations are public, the MCS-150 is free, UCR takes minutes at ucr.gov, and IFTA returns are arithmetic if your records are in order. The cost is your time and the risk that a date passes while you are driving. That trade is genuinely reasonable for some operators, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
When does paying for a service actually make sense?
Three situations, in our experience. When you have added a second or third driver and the number of recurring dates has outgrown memory. When you are inside the new entrant window and a safety audit is coming. And when you have already missed something once, because the cost of a single deactivated USDOT number or a lapsed medical card usually exceeds a year of membership.
What does a compliance service not cover?
Government fees themselves (UCR, IRP, heavy vehicle use tax, state registrations) are yours to pay regardless, and an honest service never marks them up. With TenFour you pay them directly. Drug tests and DOT physicals are paid to the provider. And nobody can renew a medical certificate for you; that requires you, in person, in front of a certified examiner.
Is compliance software the same as a compliance service?
No, and the price gap is telling you which one you are looking at. Software gives you somewhere to store documents and reminders about dates: you still pull the record, chase the driver, and file the form. A service does the filing, builds the files, and chases the missing documents. Both are legitimate. The mistake is comparing the two on the monthly line alone, when one of them leaves the work on your desk and the other does not.
Sources
- UCR Plan, official fee brackets
- FMCSA: Updating your registration (MCS-150 is free)
- IRS: Form 2290 instructions and current tax table
- FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse, query plans and the $1.25 rate
- 49 CFR 382.701, required Clearinghouse queries
- 49 CFR 385.321, new entrant automatic failure violations
- IFTA Articles of Agreement (effective January 2026)
Last reviewed September 26, 2026. Provider prices in the comparison above were read from each company’s own published pricing on the date shown with that table; the method and sources are on the comparison page. Prices are reproduced for comparison, they change without notice, and we are not affiliated with any of the companies named. TenFour provides administrative compliance support. It is not a law firm and is not affiliated with FMCSA or any government agency.
Every price we charge is on one page.
For carriers with 1 to 6 trucks: no quote form, no discovery call, no contract, and one place for the whole calendar. If it is not the right fit, we will tell you that too.
$99/month is the annual plan for one truck, billed $1,188 up front, about two months free against $119 month to month. Each additional truck is $59/month ($69 month to month), every driver included, up to six trucks. Cancel any month; remaining full months refunded.