Alternatives
Curb alternatives for regulated taxi fleets
Curb fleets are regulated US taxi operations — medallion and yellow-cab businesses running in-car hardware, city-mandated equipment and a consumer hailing app that brings riders to the door. The model works until the transaction cut starts costing more than a software licence would, or until the operator realises the rider who booked the trip is Curb's customer rather than theirs. That is usually when the shopping starts.
The trigger
Why operators start looking past Curb
The price is a percentage of your revenue
Curb monetises the transaction, not a licence — card processing commonly quoted around 3.75%–3.95% plus roughly $0.15–$0.20 per trip. Treat those as indicative and check your own settlement statements. A flat fee stops growing once set; a percentage never does. And because the cut is netted out of settlement rather than invoiced, the annual figure rarely appears anywhere you would actually read it.
The contract is attached to the hardware
Curb's economics are tied to in-car equipment — meters, terminals, driver screens — and to the network they talk to. That is not a software subscription you cancel at month end; it is kit installed in vehicles, often under terms keyed to the equipment and the network rather than to a per-seat licence. If your agreement is keyed to the equipment, leaving is likely a decommissioning project rather than a month-end cancellation — read your exit terms before you shop at all.
The rider belongs to Curb, not to you
A trip that arrives through the Curb app arrives with Curb's brand on it, Curb's account behind it and passenger service or reservation fees — commonly quoted up to $2–$3, indicative only — sitting between you and the fare. You supply the car and the driver. The repeat-booking relationship, the notification channel and the price the rider actually sees are all one layer above you.
It is demand infrastructure, not a back office
Curb's centre of gravity is the metered hail and the payment in the car. Fleets whose growth is in invoiced work — corporate accounts, school runs, medical contracts, fixed-price airport jobs — will find themselves reaching for spreadsheets or a second system for quoting, account billing, shift management and settlements. That is a scope mismatch rather than a defect, but it is a real reason people shop.
The other side
When staying on Curb is the right call
If most of your card volume arrives because a rider opened the Curb app, switching software does not move that demand — and no per-driver platform, ours included, replaces a consumer network. Add city-approved in-car equipment and no fixed monthly bill on a slow week, and staying is the rational call.
The options
What operators actually move to
TaxiDex
That’s usFleets whose demand is already their own — phone, web, accounts and contract work
Flat per active driver — £11/$14 up to 20 drivers, £9/$11 to 100, from £7/$9 above, with a £79/$100 monthly minimum. Your own Stripe or Square account, so the processing margin stays with you, and no in-car hardware. The passenger app and web booker carry your brand; the driver app is TaxiDex-branded. It replaces the back office, not the hail.
Creative Mobile Technologies (Arro)
Regulated fleets that need approved in-car equipment and a rival consumer hailing network
The other incumbent in the same shape: in-car payment and dispatch hardware for regulated taxis, plus its own rider app. If your city requires approved equipment and your riders hail from an app, this is the like-for-like move. Be clear what you are buying — a different supplier on similar transaction-and-hardware economics, not a different model. We hold no price sheet for it.
TaxiCaller
Multi-shift cab fleets where several drivers share one vehicle — per-vehicle billing wins
Cloud dispatch billed per active vehicle, commonly quoted around $28–$29 a month with a separate one-time fee for a white-labelled app — indicative, get your own quote. If you run two or three drivers per medallion, per-vehicle pricing is genuinely cheaper than our per-driver model. That is a case where we are the wrong shape and worth saying so.
Keep Curb, run your own booking channel alongside
Fleets that need the hail network but want to grow bookings they originate themselves
Nothing forces an either/or. Leave the Curb hardware and app in place for street and app hails, and put your own booking channel — phone, web booker, accounts — on separate software with your own processor. The percentage then applies only to the trips Curb actually brought you. Two systems is real overhead; it can still be the honest middle.
Competitor pricing and terms quoted anywhere on this site are indicative market figures, not quotations we hold. Confirm the current number, and the line items around it, directly with the vendor.
Practicalities
What moving off Curb involves
Moving off Curb is a hardware project, not just a data one. Equipment comes out of vehicles, the merchant relationship moves to your own Stripe or Square with fresh underwriting, and city equipment approvals need re-checking before you unplug. Expect trip and settlement history keyed to vehicles rather than a rider database — rider accounts commonly sit with the network, not the fleet. Confirm exactly what your agreement entitles you to. Run both systems live and cut over shift by shift.
If the trigger was the renewal quote rather than the software, the anatomy of that bill is broken down separately in what Curb actually costs — the billing unit, and the charges that sit outside the headline rate.
The mechanics are the same whichever platform you land on: export and establish what you actually own while you are still a paying customer, then run both systems in parallel and cut over shift by shift with the old one still licensed behind you. That method is published in full as the 14-day migration protocol.
Free guide
Score them all on the same scale
The buyer's guide is the requirements worksheet and weighted scorecard we use — vendor-neutral, so it works just as well for shortlisting someone other than us.
How much does Curb actually cost a fleet?
Curb charges the transaction, not a licence. Card processing is commonly quoted at 3.75%–3.95% plus roughly $0.15–$0.20 per transaction, and riders pay service or reservation fees commonly quoted up to $2–$3. Those are indicative figures — we hold no Curb price sheet, and your terms depend on your city, your hardware agreement and your volume. Work it out against your own settlement statements: annual card volume times the percentage is the number to compare with a flat per-driver fee.
Will I lose rider demand if I leave Curb?
If a meaningful share of your trips arrive through the Curb app, yes — that demand belongs to the network, and swapping dispatch software does not carry it with you. Before you decide, split your last three months into trips Curb originated and trips you originated yourself. If most of your volume is your own phone, web and account work, the network is not what you are paying for. If it isn't, either stay or run both.
Do I need to keep the in-car hardware?
That depends on your city, not on your software. Several US jurisdictions require regulated cabs to run approved in-car payment and tracking equipment, so removing Curb's kit can be a regulatory decision as well as a commercial one — check with your licensing authority before you plan a date. TaxiDex itself needs no in-car hardware: drivers work from the phone app and payments run through your own processor. If your city mandates equipment, you keep it and we sit behind it.
What does TaxiDex cost compared with a percentage?
TaxiDex is a flat monthly fee per active driver: £11/$14 for one to twenty drivers, £9/$11 from twenty-one to a hundred, and from £7/$9 above that, with a £79/$100 monthly minimum. There is a 14-day free trial, and setup is a one-time fee scoped and quoted on the demo call rather than published. The comparison that matters is that fee against your card volume times Curb's percentage — at low volume the percentage can win.
Can I keep my own branding if I move?
Partly, and it is worth being exact. The passenger app and web booker are white-labelled — your name, your colours, your listing — so the rider books you rather than a marketplace. The driver app is always TaxiDex-branded; we do not white-label it. Payments run through your own Stripe or Square account, so the receipt carries your business name and the settlement lands with you rather than being passed through.
Comparing Curb with TaxiDex?
Bring your driver count, your current rate and your contract end date. We will tell you on the call whether switching is worth it for your fleet — including when it is not.