Keel vs Hurdlr: Automatic Tracking or No Bank Link?
Short answer: Hurdlr and Keel attack the same problem from opposite ends. Hurdlr links your bank and your driving to produce automatic mileage, imported income, and a running tax estimate — choose it if you want the software doing the work. Keel keeps everything on your iPhone with no account, no bank connection, and no cloud — choose it if you would rather type an entry than hand over a bank login. Automation or privacy. You do not get both.
If you have narrowed your shortlist to these two, you have already worked out that the market splits along a line that has nothing to do with features. Most bookkeeping apps for the self-employed, including nearly every option on a list of the best apps for 1099 workers, buy their convenience with a bank connection. Hurdlr is one of the better executions of that model. Keel refuses the model outright and asks you to do the data entry instead. Everything below follows from that one decision, so it is worth settling the bank-link question before you compare feature lists.
What does Hurdlr do?
Hurdlr is a mobile app for freelancers, gig drivers, and 1099 contractors that combines mileage tracking, income and expense tracking, and tax estimation in one place. It runs on iOS and Android.
Its defining trick is that most of the data arrives on its own. Hurdlr connects to bank accounts, cards, and gig platforms so that income and expenses flow in without being typed. It detects drives and logs them. It then does the arithmetic continuously, producing real-time year-end and quarterly tax estimates broken down by federal, state, and self-employment tax, which move as new deductions land.
One nuance worth knowing before you download it: the automatic mileage detection sits on the paid tier. The free plan covers manual mileage logging along with income and expense tracking and a tax summary. If background GPS tracking is the reason you are looking at Hurdlr, you are looking at the subscription, not the free tier.
Where is Hurdlr genuinely better?
At the thing it was built for, comfortably.
Automatic GPS mileage tracking is the clearest win. It runs in the background, which means forgetting to log a trip stops being a category of mistake that exists. For a rideshare driver, a courier, or a mobile technician who makes fifteen stops a day, that is not a small convenience — hand-logging fifteen trips daily is a habit almost nobody sustains past March, and every trip you fail to log is money you fail to deduct. Keel has no answer to this. Keel asks you to record the trip, and if you do not record it, it is not there.
The bank and platform connections are a real advantage too. Income lands in the ledger whether or not you remembered the deposit, which matters when you are paid by four different apps on four different schedules. And because the tax estimate is fed by that live data, the number updates itself. Keel’s Freeboard shows a tax set-aside figure as well, but it computes from what you entered — so it is exactly as complete as your data entry was.
Be honest with yourself about your own discipline here. An automated record that is 95 percent accurate beats a manual record that is 60 percent complete, and the second outcome is more common than people admit when they choose a manual tool.
Where is Keel better?
On everything that follows from not connecting to a bank.
Keel is an iPhone app that runs entirely on your device. There is no account, no login, no cloud, and no bank connection. Its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected.” There is no data-sharing agreement to read, no aggregator holding a token to your checking account, and no vendor server that can be breached, sold, or shut down with your books inside it. If your ledger never leaves the phone, the questions people ask about on-device versus cloud bookkeeping mostly stop applying to you.
Keel is also wider than a tracker. It writes real PDF invoices with your own numbering sequence, logo, and brand color, and it can carry a payment link as a QR code so a client can pay from the page. It reads receipts you photograph using on-device Apple Intelligence, so the image is never uploaded to be processed. It logs mileage, produces reports, and exports the whole year as an Accountant Pack — a CSV plus a one-page summary PDF. The ledger underneath is append-only and hash-chained, so entries are added rather than quietly rewritten later.
Then there is the money. Keel’s free plan includes unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage. Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription. Hurdlr is a free tier plus a recurring subscription for the automation. Over five or ten years those two shapes diverge sharply — but a one-time price only pays off if you stay, so weigh it against how settled you are.
How do Keel and Hurdlr compare side by side?
| Hurdlr | Keel | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Bank-connected tracking and tax estimates | On-device ledger, invoicing, receipts, mileage |
| Where data lives | Vendor cloud | Your iPhone only |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Bank / platform connection | Central to the product | None |
| Mileage | Automatic detection on paid tiers; manual on free | Logged by you |
| Income capture | Imported from linked accounts | Entered, or from invoices you issue |
| Receipts | Yes | Yes, read on-device |
| Invoicing | Present but not the focus | PDF, custom numbering, logo, QR payment link |
| Tax estimate | Real time, from imported data | Freeboard set-aside, from what you entered |
| Platform | iOS and Android | iPhone only |
| Pricing model | Free tier plus subscription | Free; Pro one-time $249.99 Lifetime |
| Best for | Hands-off automation | Privacy and a fixed cost |
Check both vendors’ current pricing pages before you decide. Subscription tiers move.
What can Keel not do?
Worth reading before you switch, because none of these are coming next week.
Keel does not create estimates or quotes. That feature is in development, but today Keel bills for work rather than quoting for it. It does not import from a bank feed, which is the whole point but is still a limitation. It does not file your taxes — it produces the figures and the export, and you or your preparer file. It does not manage a team or dispatch jobs. And there is no web interface: it is an iPhone app, so no desktop, no Android, no browser login.
If two of those five matter to you, this comparison is already over and Hurdlr, or something else entirely, is your answer.
Who is Hurdlr right for?
The high-mileage, multi-platform earner. If you drive for a living — rideshare, delivery, courier work, mobile service calls — and your income arrives from several apps and accounts on different schedules, Hurdlr’s automation is not a luxury. Manual entry at that volume fails, and a failed log costs more in lost mileage deductions than any subscription costs in fees.
It is also the right pick if you want a live tax number you did not have to maintain, if you are already comfortable with bank aggregation, or if you use Android — Keel simply does not run there. If you want automatic mileage but nothing else, a dedicated tracker like MileIQ or Everlance is worth a look alongside it.
Who is Keel right for?
The one-person business that bills clients rather than driving all day. A designer, a consultant, a photographer, a tradesperson with a handful of jobs a week — someone whose mileage is real but modest, and whose bigger daily need is getting an invoice out and a receipt filed.
It is right for you if the bank connection is the sticking point rather than a shrug. Some people will not link an account on principle; others cannot, because a client contract or a professional obligation makes uploading financial records awkward. Keel is built for that reader, and the trade-off is stated plainly: nothing imports itself, so an expense you do not capture is not in the books. It also suits anyone who has decided that a one-time purchase beats another monthly line item, or who has been burned by an app that took the data with it when the subscription lapsed. If the recurring cost is your main complaint rather than the privacy, alternatives to QuickBooks Solopreneur cover that angle more directly.
If you want the shape of Keel’s approach without the driving, download Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts on the App Store: apps.apple.com/us/app/keel-invoice-maker-receipts
Frequently asked questions
Does Keel track mileage automatically like Hurdlr? No. Hurdlr detects drives in the background on its paid tiers; Keel asks you to record each trip and then applies the IRS standard rate. That is a genuine loss of convenience, and the honest advice is to log the trip the day you drive it, because reconstructed routes are where deductions quietly disappear. What you get back is a phone that is not watching where you go.
Can I use Hurdlr and Keel together? You can, and some people do — Hurdlr for the driving, Keel for invoices, receipts, and the year-end export. It works, but you are then paying a subscription and keeping two records, which is exactly the overhead both apps were meant to remove. It is a sensible stopgap during a switch and a poor permanent arrangement.
Does Keel estimate my quarterly taxes? Keel’s Freeboard shows a tax set-aside figure calculated on your device from the income and expenses you have entered. The difference from Hurdlr is the input, not the math: Hurdlr’s estimate is fed by imported transactions, Keel’s by your own entries. Neither is a filing, and neither replaces a preparer. Keel does not file returns at all.
Which one is cheaper? It depends entirely on your timeline. Hurdlr has a free tier plus a subscription for automation; Keel is free with a one-time $249.99 Lifetime upgrade. A subscription wins if you use the tool for a season and move on; a one-time purchase wins over years. Prices change, so check both vendors’ pages rather than trusting any comparison article, including this one.
Is my Keel data safer than my Hurdlr data? It is exposed differently. Keel stores your records encrypted on your iPhone with no server copy, so there is no vendor breach that can reach them — but there is also no cloud backup, which makes your own device backup your responsibility. Hurdlr holds your data in its cloud with the protections and the risks that implies. Neither arrangement is risk-free; they just fail in different directions.
Does Keel work on Android or in a browser? No. Keel is iPhone-only, with no web interface and no desktop app. Hurdlr runs on both iOS and Android. If you are on Android, or you need to work from a laptop, this decision is made for you regardless of how you feel about bank connections.
This article is general information. Feature sets and pricing change — check both vendors’ current pages before deciding.
Where Keel actually fits
Private and on-device, with a real tradeoff.
Against cloud, bank-connected tools: no account and nothing readable leaving the phone — but no automatic bank import, and Keel does not file for you. Pro is a one-time purchase, not a subscription.
On-device · No account · Data Not Collected