How Motive achieves 99.99% reliability with Rootly

About Motive

Motive powers the physical economy by offering a full range of products to support fleets ranging from a couple of vans to tens of thousands of light and heavy vehicles.

Founded: 2013 in San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

‍Size: ~700 in engineering

In the high-stakes world of fleet management, reliability isn’t a nice-to-have—it’s a necessity. That’s why Motive has invested heavily in tools and processes to ensure its systems run smoothly for over 150,000 customers and more than a million vehicles. At the center of its ability to deliver 99.99% uptime at scale is Rootly.

From Manual to Automated Incident Response

Before Rootly, incident response at Motive was a manual and time-consuming process. Engineers were often bogged down by the logistics of managing incidents—setting up communication channels, notifying the right people, and figuring out what steps to take next. This could take anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour in more complex scenarios, significantly delaying time to resolution.

Now, with Rootly fully integrated into their workflow, Motive can spin up incidents in seconds—directly from Slack. Automated workflows instantly generate dedicated video conferencing links, load tailored playbooks, and assign responsibilities. Post-incident, Rootly streamlines follow-up by generating postmortem documentation and automatically filing Jira tickets. As a result, engineers spend less time on operational overhead and more time solving problems. “Our mean time to resolution has dropped significantly,” says Paul.

A Seamless On-Call Experience

Motive’s journey toward operational excellence also included a switch from Opsgenie to Rootly On-Call. Previously, syncing on-call schedules with Slack required a patchwork of custom bots and manual workarounds. With Rootly, that’s no longer the case.

One of the biggest wins for Motive has been Rootly’s tight Slack integration. What started with simple triggers and notifications has evolved into complex automation workflows that span the entire incident lifecycle—from alert to resolution to retrospective—all within Slack.

Now, on-call schedules, escalations, and even shift coverage requests can all be managed natively within Slack. Rootly’s native time zone support and granular notification controls have further simplified on-call operations, eliminating previous limitations and frustrations.

This has enabled Motive’s engineers to focus on what matters most: resolving incidents quickly and effectively.

Keeping Engineers Focused with Rootly AI

In high-pressure incident scenarios, distractions are costly. Paul emphasizes that during incidents, “An engineer’s sole purpose in life should be solving the incident right away.” With Rootly, Motive ensures engineers aren’t slowed down by admin work or status updates.

Rootly AI plays a crucial role in this. When executives or other stakeholders join a live incident and ask, “What’s going on?”, Rootly AI provides on-demand context—without pulling responders away from their work. “It means fewer interruptions, more focus, and keeping our train of thought in these intense scenarios,” Paul explains.

A Partner in Reliability

For Paul, what sets Rootly apart isn’t just the product—it’s the team behind it. “My favorite part of Rootly is how quickly it’s improving and adding more features that go above and beyond anything else we’ve ever used,” he says. “And I’ve used a lot of products in my last 15, 20 years running SaaS and dealing with incidents.”

Rootly’s commitment to continuous innovation and responsiveness has made it more than just a tool for Motive—it’s a true partner in their mission to deliver best-in-class reliability.

From seamless incident creation to intelligent automation and stakeholder communication, Rootly has become a core pillar of Motive’s reliability strategy. In a world where uptime is mission-critical, Rootly helps Motive deliver on its promise of near-perfect reliability—every single day.

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