The idea
IFTA Buddy turns the records an owner-operator already has into a filing-ready quarterly IFTA return. You share the distance you drove in each state or province and your fuel purchases, and it works out the fuel tax for every jurisdiction. You get the return, plus an audit report that keeps the supporting records together. You review it, and you file.
Who it’s for
Small owner-operators and fleets, from one truck to six, driving across US states and Canadian provinces. Accountants are covered too: a return can be shared with them as a read-only copy.
Why I picked it
I picked IFTA Buddy because it looked like a boring problem that other people were already solving. That was the appeal. Solutions exist because customers exist, so why couldn’t I build one too?
Then I saw a gap. The options I looked at were either outdated in design, very complicated, or very pricey. I wanted something made for small truck owners: modern, simple and priced for them. And because I am a solo founder, I could keep control of the cost. So I decided to give it a chance.
The journey
I started on 21 July 2026 with a design system and a landing page, and spent the first days rewriting the story that page told until the customer, not the software, was the hero. By the end of July the core loop was taking shape: a quarterly summary, a review screen (the part meant to earn trust) and a filing-ready PDF. Payments and plans arrived in August, and September was quiet.
October was the big push, with more changes than every other month put together: a new look, a mobile-first way to add data, and a lot of attention on accessibility and search.
What was hard
Almost everything was new to me.
- I had never lived my customer’s world. I have never owned a truck or worked as an operator, and I had never seen how a real owner-operator files their IFTA return. I was building for people whose day I hadn’t seen.
- I had never built a SaaS, and this one is about tax. Finance and tax are all about exact numbers, so I had to get it right. The calculation code carries a full test requirement, there is a review step so you can check the numbers before you file, and anything about tax authorities comes from a current official source, not from my memory.
- Data in, answer out. I had to get people’s data files into the app and run the whole thing end to end, from upload to a finished return.
- My first app built with AI, on a very small budget. I had to find ways to make it work on a tight budget, and in the end I re-architected the backend to bring the running costs down.
How it went live
Going live was more than a deploy. Sign-in, payments and reminder emails each needed their own set-up, so I keep a written go-live checklist. On a tight budget, cost shaped the decisions from the start, which is why the backend was re-architected along the way.
Today your first return is free for one truck, and no card is needed to start, so you can see a whole quarter before deciding. To help people find it, there are free tools (a tax estimator, a rate lookup, due dates and a filing reminder) and plain-English guides, and I ran search reviews through October.
What I learned
- A boring problem with existing solutions isn’t a closed door. If solutions exist, customers do too. The gap can be design, complexity or price, and I found all three.
- Being a solo founder can be an advantage. I could control the cost, and so the price.
- Not knowing the world raises the bar. Without lived experience of trucking, I had to be rigorous about the numbers.
- A tight budget shapes the architecture. For me, cost was not something to fix later. It changed the design of the backend.
What’s next
Right now the work is about being easier to find and easier to trust: clearer titles and trust copy, and a daily routine for researching and writing guides.