Works with the ELD you already have
Your trucks are being held for free. Get paid for it.
DwellWatch watches the ELD you already have. It catches every hold past free time, builds the evidence behind it, tells the broker while your truck is still at the dock, and hands you the invoice ready to send.
Nothing to install. Nothing for your drivers to remember.
- Read-only — we never write to your logs
- You choose which brokers get told
- Two minutes to connect
In the last 30 days · 30-truck fleet
You were owed $6,975.00 in detention
Across 37 stops where your truck sat past free time.
Still inside the filing window
$1,275.00
Already expired
$5,700.00
$5,700 of that is already gone. Nobody told the broker at the time, and the filing window closed. Live monitoring is what stops the next $5,700 going the same way.
The problem
The money disappears while nobody is watching.
Detention pay is yours the moment a shipper holds your truck past free time. Getting a broker to pay it is another matter — three things have to go right, and usually one of them doesn’t.
Nobody is watching at 2am
Detention only gets logged if a tired driver writes down the minute they arrived and the minute they pulled out. Six hours into a wait, in the middle of the night, that does not happen.
The broker never gets told
Most rate confirmations require you to notify the broker as soon as free time runs out. “You never told us” is one of the most common reasons a claim gets refused — no matter how good your proof is.
Then the window closes
Brokers stop accepting detention claims 24 to 48 hours after the load. By the time anyone spots it on a settlement, it is too late to bill.
94.5% of fleets bill for detention. Less than 50% of those invoices get paid (ATRI, 2024). If you have been writing detention off as uncollectable, you were reading the odds correctly.
How it works
Two minutes to connect. Then it does the looking.
Reading your last 30 days runs on its own — you can close the tab. The one part that needs you is telling us which of your regular stops are customer sites, which is what keeps your own yard off a broker’s invoice.
- 1
Connect your ELD
Two minutes, read-only. Motive, Samsara, Geotab and 32 more — the system you already run. Your logs are never written to.
- 2
See what detention costs you
We analyze your last 30 days automatically and find every stop that ran past free time. You get a dollar figure, broken down by truck and by facility. No spreadsheets, no data entry.
- 3
Switch on live monitoring
From then on we catch each hold as it happens, tell the broker while the truck is still there, and hand you an invoice that is already built.
What you actually get
The invoice is easy. The evidence is the hard part.
Anyone can send a broker a bill for detention. Getting them to pay it is the job. So every claim comes with a packet the broker can check line by line — and it is built before you open your laptop.
Arrival and departure times
Taken straight from your truck’s GPS trail. Each time says whether we recorded it directly or worked it out from the pings either side, so the packet never claims to be more exact than it is.
Proof the truck was there, and stopped
Movement plotted across the whole stop, from GPS readings taken inside the facility. Every one is listed underneath with its coordinates and timestamp — so it shows not just that your truck wasn’t moving, but where it wasn’t moving.
The math, shown
Free time, time held and the amount owed, line by line — worked out against your contract with that broker, not a generic default.
Detention Evidence
Unit 305 · Port of Long Beach
- Gate in
- Jul 19, 12:54
- Gate out
- Jul 19, 21:28
- Time on site
- 8h 34m
- Free time (your contract)
- 2h 00m
- Billable detention
- 6h 45m
103 GPS readings inside the facility, stationary for 8h 34m.
Why DwellWatch is different
Right now, catching detention is somebody’s job to remember.
A text from the driver. A note on the dispatch board. A line someone adds to a spreadsheet on Friday, if the week was quiet. Drivers are paid to drive, not to do data entry — so it doesn’t happen, and that is exactly where your detention pay disappears.
Putting a dispatcher on it doesn’t fix it either. The notice that saves the claim has to go out while the truck is still at the dock, and the worst holds happen overnight.
DwellWatch is watching the clock at 2am, on every truck, every night. Nobody has to remember. Nobody has to be told.
Pricing
The audit is free. So are the first 14 days.
After that, one flat rate — $30 per truck, per month. Never a cut of what you recover.
DwellWatch monitoring
$30 / truck / month
$99/month minimum · 14 days free · cancel anytime
- Every hold caught as it happens, day or night
- Automatic notice to the brokers you switch on, the moment free time runs out
- Evidence packets a broker can check, line by line
- Invoices drafted for you — approve and send in one click
- Unlimited logins — we bill trucks, not seats
No card needed for the audit.
What you’d pay, and what it’s worth
Every truck is the same $30 — no tiers, no price jumps, no surprises.
| Fleet | You pay | Billable detention |
|---|---|---|
| 5 trucks | $150 | $1,000 |
| 10 trucks | $300 | $2,000 |
| 25 trucks | $750 | $5,000 |
| 50 trucks | $1,500 | $10,000 |
| 100 trucks | $3,000 | $20,000 |
Estimated using one 6-hour hold per truck each month, at $50/hr after 2 hours free. Deliberately conservative on both: ATRI found detention on 39.3% of all stops (2024), and fleets that charge for it average $63.71/hr (2019). What you actually collect depends on your own lanes and contracts.
Enterprise
Add $249/mo — at any fleet size — for custom invoice templates, dedicated implementation and priority support. One-time $2,500 setup.
We charge a flat fee, never a percentage of what you recover — and the broker pays you directly. We never touch your money.
Built to be trusted
Your data, your customers and your money stay yours.
Read-only, always
We can see where your trucks have been, and nothing else — no driver names, no hours-of-service logs, no dashcam footage. We never write to your ELD, and your login details are encrypted.
Your customers stay your customers
Notices are off until you turn them on, one broker at a time — and a notice states a fact, never a demand. No invoice leaves without you approving it first.
We never touch your money
A flat monthly fee, never a share of what you recover. The broker pays you directly, on your own invoice — and that flat fee is the line that keeps us a software company instead of a collections agency.
FAQ
The questions fleet managers ask first
Does it work with my ELD?
Probably — even if the name on your fleet portal isn’t one you’d expect. Most portals run on one of three platforms underneath, and those are what DwellWatch connects to.
Telecoms, dealers, truck manufacturers and fleet management companies all resell tracking under their own brand. So a portal badged AT&T Fleet Management, Fleet Complete or Ford Pro is usually one of the three already.
Search for yours by name at dwellwatch.app/supported-elds. If it isn’t listed, connecting still takes about two minutes and answers it for certain — free, and without a card.
Do my drivers have to do anything?
No, and that’s the whole idea. There’s no app to install and nothing for anyone to remember.
DwellWatch reads the location data your ELD already collects. Your drivers never know it’s there.
Is the audit really free?
Yes, and it takes no credit card. Connect your ELD, and you’ll see what the last 30 days of detention cost you.
Live monitoring is the part you pay for, and its first 14 days are free as well. That one does need a card on file, and you can cancel in one click before it ever charges you.
What can I actually collect from the audit?
Some of it — and we’d rather tell you that now than after you’ve connected.
Two things work against a back-claim. Most brokers stop accepting detention claims 24 to 48 hours after the load, so the bulk of any 30-day look-back is already too old. And nobody told the broker at the time, which is one of the most common reasons a claim gets refused no matter how good the proof is.
So treat the audit as a measurement, not a cheque. It tells you what detention is quietly costing you every month. Switching on live monitoring is what makes the next one collectable.
How does the money actually reach me?
You invoice the broker, exactly as you do for the load itself. DwellWatch works out the amount and attaches the evidence behind it.
The broker pays you directly, into your own account. We’re never in the middle, and we never take a cut.
What does it cost after the trial?
$30 per truck, per month, with a $99 monthly minimum.
Every truck is the same $30. There are no tiers to cross, so adding your sixth truck costs the same as adding your sixtieth. Enterprise features are another $249 a month at any fleet size.
It’s a flat fee either way — never a percentage of what you recover.
How much of my time will this take?
Connecting your ELD is about two minutes. Reading your last 30 days then runs on its own — you can close the tab and come back to it.
The part that takes real attention is telling us which of the places your trucks stop are customer sites and which are your own yard. It’s a few taps each, and how long it takes depends on how many places you run. It’s also the step that keeps your own depot off a broker’s invoice, so it’s worth doing properly.
After that it’s seconds per claim. The evidence packet builds itself, so there’s no reconstructing a timeline from driver texts and no digging through GPS history when a broker pushes back. You look at what we found, and you either approve it or you don’t.
Will you email my brokers without asking me?
No. Automatic notices are switched off for every broker until you turn them on, one broker at a time.
Here’s exactly what happens when one is on. Your truck passes its free time, and we email that broker a short note: “Unit 305 arrived at 09:14. Free time ran out at 11:14.” That’s all it says — no amount, no invoice, no demand for payment.
You get a copy the moment it’s queued, and five minutes to stop it before it goes.
Invoices are a separate thing entirely, and one never leaves without you approving it first.
Is my data safe?
Your ELD connection is read-only — we can see where your trucks have been, and nothing else. We never write to your logs.
Your credentials are encrypted, and we never sell your data to anyone.
Find out what detention is costing you.
Connect your ELD and we’ll read your last 30 days — every stop that ran past free time, broken down by truck and by facility. No credit card, and nothing for your drivers to do.