Tractive or Fi??? An honest and unsponsored perspective.
I’ve used both Tractive and Fi for years across multiple pets, and I’ve never done a full side by side comparison until now.
Everything I’m sharing here comes directly from my own experience using both Tractive and Fi over time.
When I first decided to get a tracker for my dog Teddy MANY years ago, I chose Fi. From everything I saw, it looked like a great option. And honestly, I didn’t really know of many other trackers at the time besides AirTags but I wanted something that could actually track in real time, not just give a vague location; so an AirTag wasn’t going to cut it.
Later on, I needed trackers for my cats. At the time, Fi didn’t make trackers for cats, so I started looking again and found Tractive GPS Tracker. They had options for both dogs and cats, which I loved. I bought two, one for each indoor cat and I loved them right away. I didn’t buy one for my barn cat yet because he wasn’t quite ready for a collar yet, I was still working on getting him ok with “wearing things”.
Then I started paying attention to the differences in the trackers…
Right away, price was a big one. The Tractive subscription starts around $5 a month. Fi is $19 a month. That’s a big gap, especially when you have multiple animals. The device itself is also much cheaper with Tractive.
Both are waterproof, so that part is a mute point. Coverage overall though, is also very different. Fi works in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the U.K. Tractive works in over 175 countries with their premium plan, which runs about $7 to $10 a month. That is very important if you travel or just want broader reliability. It mattered to me very much because I was planning on traveling nationally AND internationally with one of my cats and one of my dogs.
The biggest turning point for me was what happened with my dog Kevin’s tracker…
I couldn’t find her collar (which obviously had her tracker on it) and it was low on battery, somewhere around 30 to 40 percent. I opened the app to locate it and it kept saying the device was offline. This wasn’t a one-time thing. It happened often with both of my dogs trackers, even when the trackers were fully charged. I tried everything to locate it and nothing worked, eventually it died.
I waited about a month to see if it would happen to show up somewhere. It didn’t. So I reached out to Fi. They didn’t replace it, they didn’t even offer to refund the month I lost. They didn’t offer anything. That was it for me.
I had two trackers that worked maybe half the time, and now one of them was gone. I canceled Kevin’s membership to start to switch them over to Tractive. Side note, they cancelled Teddy’s membership too, even though I made no mention of canceling his yet. I wanted to switch Kevin first because her tracker was missing and next I wanted to switch Teddy.
Anyway, Tractive has a care plan where if your tracker is lost, stolen, or damaged, they replace it for free! That alone matters more than people realize. These are small devices on animals and things happen. Like what happens with Kevin’s tracker.
Battery life is another big difference. I felt like I was constantly charging the Fi trackers, usually every 4 to 7 days. With Tractive, I can go up to about 4 weeks on my dogs’ XL tracker, over 2 weeks on the smaller dog ones, and around 4 to 5 days on my cats. That’s a huge difference in real life.
Functionality and convenience is another factor that really makes Tractive stand out to me. The Tractive trackers can be attached onto almost any collar or harness in seconds and you can switch them easily. Fi requires specific collars that are compatible with their system, and it’s not easy to move them around. I’ve also never found a harness that works with them. It may not sound like a big deal to some people but it is to me and probably also to some of you.
Both companies offer referral perks. Fi gives you and your friend one free month. Tractive gives you two free months and your friend gets 30% off the tracker. Nice, but not the reason I switched. That being said, if you want 30% off of your device, you can use my Tractive friends and family link —> https://tractive.com/r/25wK1t
I really wanted to like Fi. I went into it expecting it to be my long-term option. But the inconsistency, the offline issues, losing a tracker with no support, difficulty and inconvenience of switching collars and the higher cost made the decision pretty simple.
Tractive works. It’s more flexible, more affordable, and it fits all of my animals.
For me, there’s no comparison anymore.
