Tractive GPS for Dogs and Cats reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
A subscription GPS tracker for cats and dogs that gives genuine peace of mind to owners of runaway pets, yet breaks down over its power-saving zone, weak battery, and forced annual billing at the exact moment the pet goes missing.
What users love
Recovers runaway pets — the core reason for the 5-star reviews
Time and again the tracker leads the owner straight to a bolted pet — to a dog that ran off in a thunderstorm, to a cat two miles away in an unfamiliar neighborhood. This is exactly why people call it priceless and life-saving.
The tracker did exactly what it's designed to do, led me right to him. I'm thankful we have it because I didn't have to drive around aimlessly looking for him during the storm.
Helped me find my cat multiple times, took me to his exact location over two miles away in a neighborhood I would have never found him in
lt has saved my dogs life several times.
Pet health as a fitness tracker — a welcome bonus on top of GPS
Beyond location the app gives activity stats, routes, heat maps, and health metrics — resting heart rate, breathing. For one owner this helped catch a decline in a dog with a heart condition; many value the "fitbit for dogs".
It helps me track my dog's resting heart rate for his stage 3/6 enlarged heart & murmur. noticed when he has less rest too to let me know how he was maybe in pain or sick....and he was.
excellent experience. love that it is a real time tracker and also fitbit for dogs
not just a track also monitors your pets health, a must have for pet parents
Works in the wild and woods where other trackers gave up
Owners in mountains, on farms, in woods, and on islands with weak signal praise that the tracker still finds the pet under trees and through undergrowth. For many it's the best of the ones they tried, working where competitors and AirTags failed.
These trackers are really good. We live in the wilds of Herefordshire, with terrible mobile coverage, yet they still do a really good job of tracking our girls. Impressive.
works great at my cabin with little to no cellular service im impressed with how accurate it is, wasn't sure about it working well in rural area but so far so good
Very effective even in shaded and wooded areas . Our dog chases rabbits and squirrels but we have peace of mind that we will always know where she is.
What users hate
The power-saving zone blocks live mode exactly when the pet loses the tracker at home
While the pet is logged as inside the Wi-Fi power-saving zone, you can't turn on live tracking, radar, or sound — which is precisely what's needed when the cat has dropped its collar in the yard. To find the tracker people are forced to physically unplug the router, and the zone can take up to 26 hours to switch off.
Why can't you turn the live tracking on while the cat is in its home zone? I can't find him anywhere but your app says he's here. Why can't I turn on the sound finder when that's the whole reason I bought this thing?
Power saving zone needs to be turned off once the Internet/wifi goes out. It can take up to 26 hours for the power saving zone to turn off. I'm currently trying to find my cat again.
if in power saving zone,you must unplug wifi to find your pet. IF pet got it off, no live! New high power routers make a zone a mile across, unusable.
Weak battery: instead of the promised days, it lasts a day and needs constant charging
The advertised multi-day battery life turns into a day or a day and a half in practice, sometimes under 9 hours for a cat. The tracker has to be charged daily and ends up dead at the critical moment. For many it also degrades within months.
Five day battery life is false advertisement, I bought this on Amazon on October 2025, l had to charge it EVERYDAY to 100% and in about 3-4 hours it was already at 50%.
Battery life poor on cat tracker. Currently lasting less than 9 hours until flat.
battery doesn't charge properly and doesn't last more than 2 days before needing to recharge
The virtual fence has a huge minimum size — the pet leaves with no alert
The minimum safe zone is so large that without an acre of land the pet calmly walks out of it with no alert at all. The dog was out of the zone twice for 10 minutes — and those alerts were the whole reason for buying the tracker.
The virtual fence minimum area is so large that unless you have an acre backyard your dog can easily leave the safe zone without an alert
twice my dog has been out of the safe zone for almost 10 minutes where there is no notification or indication through the app. the reason I got this was specifically to keep an eye on my dog
virtual fences have to be so large they are useless you live on a farm
GPS accuracy drifts: shows the pet at home while it's actually outside
The location is often inaccurate or delayed even with full internet: the app shows the dog inside the house while it's nearly getting hit by a car outside. Resolution is poor in the city, and indoors the GPS goes haywire entirely.
my dog has gotten out twice and almost got hit by a car while the app was showing her still in my house. doesn't work worth a damn
the gps updates are always delayed and location is not accurate despite having full internet connection.
The resolution of the tracker is not good for city neighborhoods.
The find-sound and light are too weak — useless in the field
The radar find-feature exists, but the sound is barely audible even in a quiet room held to your ear, and on a farm the rustling of trees drowns it out. The light is so dim it's pointless too — exactly when the tracker has fallen off and needs finding.
the audio in radar mode is so quiet the rustling of the trees drowns it out.
speaker is barely able to be heard in a quiet room pressed against your ear
Playing a sound on the device is whisper quiet and almost undetectable, light on it is also very dim so it's also pointless to use
Subscription is mandatory, annual-only, and billed per collar
Without a subscription the device you bought is an expensive doorstop — there's no free tier. In the US only an annual plan running into hundreds of dollars is offered, monthly billing isn't allowed, and each extra collar is charged separately.
the fact that you have to have a subscription without any form of free tier after buying the device is a bit annoying. No subscription? The device is essentially an expensive door stopper.
Also, you have to pay by YEAR. Trash, disgusting subscription service.
Having to pay for each collar to add to the app is bogus.
Billing ambushes users: charges with no warning and hard-to-cancel
The annual renewal is charged with no email or notification — people suddenly lose almost two hundred dollars, sometimes months early. Cancelling is hard, a requested pause is ignored and they bill anyway, and refusals to refund come up repeatedly.
I wake up this morning to them.Billing me for almost two hundred dollars for a yearly subscription. there absolutely should have been an email or a notification.Coming out saying that this was up for renewal.
Horrible experience! First it did not work so well most of the time it sid not give very precise information on our pet location so I wanted to cancel, and was offered to pause the subscription, which I did and was charged anyway
they billed my renewal 4 months early and wouldn't refund!!
Support replies with templates and vanishes — no phone line
There's no phone support, and email sends the same generic answer about saving battery without addressing the actual problem. People suspect an AI is replying and complain the thread drags on for days with no resolution.
Customer service is probably run by AI and never addresses the problems in question (non-functioning GPS and quickly drained battery).
Their support just sent me a general answer on how to reduce battery consumption and is now ignoring me.
No phone number to call customer service. Help notes, are not correcting the beeping red and green lights.
Wi-Fi and network connectivity drops; updates and routers break it
Trackers suddenly go offline and can't find a network in the middle of town, and newer models fail to see Wi-Fi the old ones caught. A router firmware update can kill the device entirely, and a forced app update strikes far from Wi-Fi on an expensive data plan.
The latest edition has been very frustrating. It usually can't find a network while standing in the middle of town.
the navy blue tracker stopped being able to detect my Wi-Fi entirely. Tractive sent me another one, only for it too to fail. They determined the problem is a firmware update to my router
In the middle of using the app (and it worked!) it told me I have to update it. Out was far from the Wifi only on low data plan.
Flimsy mounts: rubber straps and clips break, the tracker falls off
The rubber holders and break-away clips snap within weeks or months and the tracker falls off the collar. Ironically, per a recent update, if the tracker drops you can't turn on live or sound to find it — and a replacement is expensive.
Why would you make an update that if the tracker falls off, because of your cheaply made clips, that you are then unable to use the live tracking feature as well as the noise and sound to find the tracker?
rubber strap broke after a few months (expensive (read: rip off) to replace).
The rubber holders have broken twice now and fell off. App is virtually worthless once the tracker is off pet.