BetterSuitevs.Autocab

Software You Rent, or Software You Own.

Autocab has built dispatch software since 1989 and sells it to operators in 33 countries, with a genuine white-label passenger app and a referral network that puts real work into your cars. It publishes no price, no billing basis, and no way to run the software anywhere but their cloud. BetterTaxi lists every tier and will sell you the source code.

Every tier vs None published

What the pricing page shows

Yes vs No

Source licence available

Nobody vs Uber

Who owns the vendor

2018 vs 1989

In production since

Quick Verdict

One of These You Can Keep.

Autocab builds a deeper taxi product than we do. The question this page asks is what you are left with the day you stop paying for it.

Recommended
BetterTaxi

BetterTaxi

A white-label ride-hailing platform with its prices on a public page, sold hosted, self-hosted, or as source code you own outright.

  • Best for: operators who want an exit that is priced in advance
  • Best for: reading the price before you book a call
  • Best for: adding delivery, parking or bookings without a second vendor

Consider: the hosted plan takes 1.9% of each completed fare on top of its monthly fee, and we have nothing like iGo — no referral network feeding jobs to your drivers. Autocab has also been building this since 1989 and we since 2018. If inbound work and a long record are what decide it, those are theirs.

Autocab

Autocab

A Manchester dispatch vendor building taxi software since 1989, with a referral network and a phone-automation product few rivals match.

  • Best for: fleets that want inbound work from a demand network
  • Best for: busy phone rooms — their call automation is a product
  • Best for: operators who want a long-established British vendor

Consider: nothing about the commercial terms is public — no price, no billing basis, no tiers — and the software runs only on their cloud, with no self-hosted build and no source licence. Autocab is also owned by Uber; the UK competition regulator reviewed that deal and cleared it on 29 March 2021.

Feature by Feature

What You Can Find Out, and What You Keep.

Rows marked "Not published" are not marks against Autocab — they are things the company has chosen not to state, and we will not guess them.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Feature

BetterTaxi
Autocab

Autocab

What it costs

Published price

Whether you can see the cost without booking a call

Supported$49 a month, listed
Not supportedDemo booking only

Published billing basis

Per driver, per booking, flat fee — stated anywhere

SupportedFlat fee plus 1.9%
Not supportedNot published

Share of each fare

What the platform takes out of a completed ride

Not supported1.9% of completed fares
Partly supportedNo model stated

Ownership and exit

Run it on your own servers

Whether self-hosting is offered at any price

SupportedIncluded with a licence
Not supportedNo self-host offered

Source code available

Whether the code can be bought outright

SupportedFrom $49,999 once
Not supportedNo source option

Keeps running if you stop paying

What you still have after the last invoice

SupportedWith a licence, yes
Not supportedAccess ends with the plan

Owned by a company you compete with

Who the vendor's parent company is

SupportedNo parent company
Not supportedUber, cleared by the regulator

Apps and demand

Branded passenger app

Native apps carrying your name, not the vendor's

SupportediOS and Android, your brand
SupportediOS and Android, your brand

Branded driver app

The same, for the people driving

SupportediOS and Android, your brand
Partly supportedNot published for drivers

Job network from the vendor

Whether the vendor feeds extra trips to your drivers

Not supportedWe have nothing like it
SupportediGo, with Uber among the partners

Automated phone bookings

Turning inbound calls into jobs without a dispatcher

Not supportedNo phone product
SupportedPhantom, a product of their own

API you can build on

Whether an existing site or app can drive it

SupportedDocumented GraphQL API
Partly supportedThrough their partner programme

Beyond taxi

Food or parcel delivery

Whether it runs on the same platform or a second one

SupportedSame platform, same drivers
Partly supportedLaunched once, no longer listed

Shops and marketplaces

Selling from local businesses, not just moving people

SupportedBetterShop, one account
Not supportedNo shop product

Parking and bookings

Other business types from the same vendor

SupportedBetterParking and BetterService
Not supportedNo parking product

Deep Dive

Four Differences Worth the Detail.

There Is No Version You Keep

Autocab's own history marks 2019 as the year its transition to a SaaS company was complete, and nothing since offers a self-hosted build or a source licence. The platform is rented for as long as you run on it, and the day you stop paying is the day dispatch stops. BetterTaxi sells the same platform three ways: hosted from $49 a month, a licence on your own servers from $4,999 once, or the full source from $49,999 once. The licence is the version nobody can reprice, discontinue, or decide to stop selling.

BetterTaxi

Hosted, self-hosted or source. The exit is priced and published before you ever need it.

Autocab

Hosted only. Leaving means moving fleet, drivers and history onto something else.

A Price You Have to Ask For

Quoting per deal is normal enough in dispatch, and a fleet of four hundred cars does not buy the same thing as a fleet of six. Autocab goes further than most: there is no pricing page, and no statement of what the fee is charged against — not per driver, not per booking, not a flat fee. A first conversation therefore cannot start from "is that competitive?" It starts from "how does this work?", which is a weaker place to negotiate from than most operators expect.

BetterTaxi

Every tier and its limits are on the pricing page, in your currency, before you speak to anyone.

Autocab

A demo booking, then a number. Nothing published to check it against.

Uber Owns Them, and a Regulator Looked

Autocab's own history records its acquisition by Uber in 2020, and the UK Competition and Markets Authority put the deal through a full Phase 1 investigation. It asked precisely the question an operator would: whether the two could put Autocab's taxi-company customers who compete with Uber at a disadvantage by reducing the quality of the software sold to them, or by forcing them to pass data to Uber. On 29 March 2021 it cleared the deal and found no competition concerns, because — in its own words — there are other credible suppliers those companies could switch to. We are naming this because it is worth knowing, not because anything was found: the regulator's answer is on the record and it went in Autocab's favour. What is also on the record is that its reasoning rests on operators having somewhere else to go.

BetterTaxi

No parent company, and no ride-hailing service of our own. We sell software and nothing else.

Autocab

An Uber company since 2020, reviewed and cleared by the UK competition regulator.

Their Network Is Real, and It Is Theirs

iGo sends work to Autocab operators from travel companies, corporate accounts and aggregators, Uber among them, and an operator can choose which partners to accept. For a fleet with quiet hours that is real money, and this platform has no equivalent — if inbound work is what you are shopping for, that row goes to them and it is not close. The trade-off is that the demand arrives through the vendor, so the same company supplies your software, your overflow work and, now, a competing ride-hailing service. That is a question to weigh, not a reason on its own to choose differently.

BetterTaxi

No referral network. Every job on the platform is one your own brand won.

Autocab

A genuine source of extra trips, supplied by the company that also sells you the software.

Pricing

One of These You Can Read Off a Page.

We publish every tier and what it is charged on. Autocab publishes neither.

PublishedBetterSuite

BetterSuite

Monthly subscription

$49/ mo

Plus 1.9% of each completed fare

See Pricing
  • Every tier and limit published before you sign up
  • Or $4,999 once to host it yourself, or $49,999 for the source
  • No charge per driver, however many you sign
  • Add delivery, parking or bookings to the same account

$588First year in fees, before the 1.9%

Autocab

Autocab

Quoted per fleet

Quoted on requestbilling basis not stated

No pricing page, no tiers, no published rate

  • The iGo referral network, included with the system
  • White-label passenger app, configured in a browser
  • Call automation, analytics and account portals included
  • Cloud only; no self-hosted build and no source licence

Autocab publishes no price and no billing basis: their pricing URL returns a 404, the site's only call to action is to book a demo, and the contact page routes pricing questions to their team — so this page quotes no figure for them. The founding year, the 33-country claim and the 2019 move to software-as-a-service are from Autocab's own About page. The ownership and the clearance are from the UK Competition and Markets Authority, which cleared Uber's acquisition of GPC Computer Software Limited and its subsidiaries on 29 March 2021 and found no competition concerns. Read 17 September 2026. Sources: Autocab product siteAutocab company historyAutocab on iGoCMA clearance decisionCMA merger case page

Who It's For

Choose the Right Tool for Your Situation.

Choose BetterTaxi if...

Choose BetterTaxi if...

You want the platform to still be yours the day you stop paying for it.

  • You want the option to host it or buy the source
  • You would rather read the price than be quoted one
  • You expect to add delivery or bookings later
Choose Autocab if...

Choose Autocab if...

Inbound work and a busy phone room matter more to you than owning the software.

  • Extra trips from a referral network would fill your quiet hours
  • Automating your phone lines is the problem you are solving
  • A long-established vendor with UK depth suits you

Ready?

Ask What You Own at the End

Autocab will send you more work than we can, and their phone automation is better than ours. What they will not sell you is a copy of the software that keeps running without them. If that is the trade you would rather not make, that is BetterTaxi.

See PricingSee BetterTaxi