Every app store search for "trucking" returns a hundred things that want your card number before they'll tell you the weather. This is the other list: the tools that are actually free, actually useful, and worth a spot on your phone before your next load.
Full disclosure up front: four of these are mine. I built them because the free versions of these jobs didn't exist, and they're staying free — no login, no trial, no catch. The rest are government data and third parties I don't get a dime from. Judge them all by the same standard: does it save you money this week?
Check who you're working with
FMCSA SAFER & QCMobile — the federal registry itself. Every broker and carrier in America is in here: authority, insurance, safety record. It's the source of truth, and it's free, and it looks like it was built in 2004 because it was. Bookmark it anyway.
TruckMD Broker Check — the same federal data, but answered like a dispatcher instead of a database: type the MC off the rate con, get authority, the $75k bond, and revocations with a straight verdict in 30 seconds. You can also have it watch a broker and email you if their record ever changes — that part I built the week I learned a broker's authority can die between the phone call and the delivery.
FMCSA's National Consumer Complaint Database — where you report the ones that burn you: unpaid loads, double-brokered freight, coercion. Complaints build the paper trail that gets authorities revoked. Use it; it's how the record you check above gets honest.
Know your numbers
TruckMD Load Check — rate, loaded miles, deadhead, this week's diesel: take it, push back, or walk away. The deadhead math alone flips loads that look good on the rate con.
TruckMD Cost Calculator — your real cost per mile from your real bills, in about two minutes. Everything else on this list works better once you know your floor.
Fuel
EIA weekly diesel data — the government publishes the national and regional on-highway diesel average every Monday evening. It's the number rate negotiations should reference, and it's free. I pipe it live into truckmd.app/diesel-prices with the 12-month chart and the regional spread so you don't have to read a government spreadsheet at a fuel island.
The IFTA tax rate matrix — the official table of every state's fuel tax, updated quarterly at iftach.org. Remember the rule: you pay tax on where you run, not where you fill — so the smart comparison between two truck stops is the pump price minus that state's tax. Boring table, real money.
Parking and the road itself
Trucker Path — the free tier does the job that matters: which truck stops have parking left tonight, reported by drivers who are already there. Not mine, no connection — it's just the one crowd-sourced app whose crowd is actually big enough to trust.
When you just want to ask somebody
Areva — the AI co-driver I'm building lives on our home page and answers trucking questions free: loads, lanes, breakdowns, broker games. She runs the math with this week's diesel and tells you straight. Ask her the question you'd ask a sharp dispatcher who works only for you — because that's the whole idea.
The test for any tool
Free is the price of entry, not the finish line. The real test: does it make you money or save you money this week, without making YOU the product? Everything above passes. The hundred apps that want your card first — make them prove it before you type a single number in.