One Place for the Real Cost of Owning a Vehicle
Vehicle records tend to end up everywhere: fuel receipts, workshop invoices, phone notes, calendar reminders, and numbers we promise ourselves we will remember.
RoadTally turns those fragments into one practical record.
After a fill-up or service visit, you can save what happened in seconds. RoadTally keeps the cost, odometer, timing, and next maintenance step easy to find—without requiring an account, a spreadsheet, or a complicated vehicle-management system.
My Role
I independently shaped, designed and engineered RoadTally from concept through its Google Play release. The work covered product scope, mobile UX, offline data architecture, reminders, analytics, monetization and production delivery with React Native and Expo.
The Problem
Vehicle ownership creates records. Most people do not have a reliable place to keep them.
Fuel trackers often stop at mileage. Larger vehicle apps add fleet tools, routes, drivers, tax features, and dashboards that individual owners do not need.
I wanted RoadTally to answer three simpler questions:
- What is my vehicle costing me?
- What service is due next?
- What does its recent history look like?
The challenge was not adding more features. It was making each record fast enough to save at the petrol station or workshop—and trustworthy enough to keep for years.
The Product
Log once. Understand the cost. Remember what comes next.
RoadTally supports four kinds of records:
- Fuel — amount paid, quantity, price, odometer, station, and full or partial fill.
- Service — maintenance or repair type, cost, odometer, workshop, and notes.
- Expense — parking, tolls, washing, insurance, registration, accessories, fines, and other ownership costs.
- Odometer — standalone readings that keep mileage-based reminders accurate.
Every record appears in one chronological vehicle history. Monthly totals, fuel economy, and reminder states are calculated from the original values without hiding the source data behind charts.
Product Direction
A quiet road instrument, not a simulated dashboard
The interface takes cues from an odometer and a well-kept service book, but avoids fake gauges, racing graphics, metallic textures, and dense statistic cards.
Numbers carry the visual hierarchy. A restrained vertical tally line connects odometer readings, history entries, and reminder states. Petrol green identifies action and selection, amber means something is due soon, and oxide red is reserved for overdue or destructive states.
The main action stays obvious: log what just happened, then get back on the road.
Trust and Privacy
The vehicle history stays on the vehicle owner’s device
RoadTally does not require an account and does not upload vehicle records to a RoadTally database.
Vehicle names, registration details, odometer readings, costs, stations, workshops, notes, and reminders are stored locally. Backups and CSV files are created only when the user chooses a destination on their device.
Anonymous product analytics can be disabled inside the app and are deliberately restricted from receiving vehicle details, record values, dates, identifiers, or free text.
The free Android version may display advertising. An optional purchase removes ads; it does not unlock or restrict access to vehicle records.
Engineering
Built for reliable local data
RoadTally is built with Expo, React Native, Expo Router, and TypeScript.
The product uses a feature-based architecture with thin route definitions and independently owned product flows. MMKV provides fast device-local persistence, while schema validation and staged writes help detect damaged data before it replaces a valid record.
Other implementation details include:
- Decimal-safe serialization for money and fuel quantities.
- Validated, versioned JSON backups.
- Spreadsheet-friendly CSV export.
- Local service notifications.
- PostHog analytics with an allowlisted event schema.
- Google AdMob consent coordination.
- RevenueCat-backed ad-free purchases.
- Accessible controls, labels, status messaging, and reduced-motion support.
What I Focused On
My work covered the complete product journey:
- MVP and product scope.
- Competitive and category research.
- Information architecture.
- Interaction and visual design.
- Expo and React Native implementation.
- Local persistence and recovery behavior.
- Fuel and cost calculations.
- Reminder scheduling.
- Backup, restore, and export.
- Analytics privacy boundaries.
- Advertising and purchase integration.
- Accessibility and release preparation.
The biggest product decision was keeping RoadTally focused. It is not a GPS tracker, trip logger, fleet platform, receipt scanner, or cloud dashboard. It is a dependable record of what a personal vehicle costs and what it needs next.
Current Status
Available now on Google Play
RoadTally is now live on Google Play. The Android release focuses on reliable logging, service reminders, multiple vehicles, local data portability, and a polished everyday experience.
iOS can follow from the same Expo codebase after the Android release is stable.
Your Vehicle History Should Not Live in Your Memory
Log the fill-up. Save the service. Know what the road is costing you.
Read the RoadTally privacy policy.
what it does
- Log fuel amount, quantity, price, odometer, station, and full or partial fills.
- Record maintenance and repairs with cost, odometer, workshop, and notes.
- Track parking, tolls, washing, insurance, registration, accessories, fines, and other expenses.
- Save standalone odometer readings to keep mileage-based reminders accurate.
- Review every record in one chronological vehicle history with monthly totals and fuel-economy context.
- Use multiple vehicles, currencies, distance units, and fuel-volume units.
why it matters
- Fast enough to log at a petrol station or workshop, with optional detail available when it matters.
- Fuel economy distinguishes verified full-tank intervals from estimates instead of presenting uncertain results as exact.
- Date- and mileage-based service reminders make the next maintenance step easy to find.
- Backups and CSV exports keep the complete vehicle history portable by default.
privacy notes
- No account is required and vehicle records are not uploaded to a RoadTally database.
- Vehicle details, costs, odometer readings, stations, workshops, notes, and reminders stay on the device.
- Anonymous product analytics can be disabled and are restricted from receiving vehicle data, record values, dates, identifiers, or free text.
- Backups and CSV files are created only when the user chooses a destination.
