What a small operator actually needs from dispatch
Fleets under 20 vehicles rarely have a full-time dispatcher. The software has to do the dispatching: accept a booking from the website, WhatsApp or a phone call, price it against your fare rules, offer it to the nearest suitable driver, and chase the payment automatically. Everything else — heat maps, zone bidding, multi-depot routing — is enterprise noise you pay for and never use. Our small-operator package strips dispatch back to the jobs that make money: quote, assign, complete, get paid, get rebooked.
The real cost comparison for a 5-vehicle fleet
A typical 5-car limo or taxi operator running 400–800 trips a month spends roughly $759 in year one with Taxi Web Design ($399 setup plus $10/month), dropping to $120 a year after that. The same fleet on a legacy per-vehicle SaaS platform pays $129–$299 a month plus setup plus per-trip fees plus app add-ons — $3,800 to $6,500 in year one and again every year afterwards. Ride-hailing style marketplaces cost nothing up front but take 15–25% of every fare, which on $250,000 of annual revenue is $37,500–$62,500 gone.
Limo and chauffeur specifics we ship as standard
Chauffeur work is not taxi work. The platform handles hourly and as-directed charters, multi-stop itineraries, meet-and-greet with flight number tracking and live arrival delays, gratuity handling, pre-authorisation on the card at booking with capture after the run, and per-account rate cards so your corporate clients see the price they negotiated. Vehicle classes — sedan, SUV, stretch, Sprinter, executive minibus — carry their own fares, images and capacities on the booking site.
Corporate and account work without an accountant
Most of the profitable growth for a small operator comes from account clients: hotels, law firms, hospitals, production crews. The system gives each account a login, a cost-centre field, an approved passenger list and a monthly consolidated PDF invoice with a CSV of trips attached. Statements go out automatically on the day you choose, and overdue accounts get chased by email without you writing one.
Going live in 5–10 business days
Day 1–2: brand assets, domain, vehicle classes and fare rules. Day 3–5: booking site and dispatch console configured, payments connected to your own Stripe or Wise account. Day 6–8: driver onboarding, test bookings on a live shift. Day 9–10: cutover, with your existing customer list and open reservations imported from your current vendor or spreadsheet. Training is two short calls, and support is included, not a tier.
When to move up to the enterprise package
Stay on the $399 web booker while you are under roughly 20 vehicles and a single depot. Move to the $8,500 one-time enterprise package when you need source-code ownership, multi-depot or franchise structures, affiliate farm-in/farm-out, deeper API integrations, or a white-label platform you resell to other operators. Upgrades credit what you have already paid, and your data, bookings and drivers move across untouched.