DohShield vs. DTiQ — Which Loss Prevention Service Fits Your C-Store?

If you're a convenience store or gas station operator evaluating loss prevention solutions, DohShield and DTiQ likely both appeared in your research. While they're both in the "loss prevention" space, they solve the problem in fundamentally different ways — and the right choice depends on your operation size, hands-on involvement, and what you're actually trying to prevent.

This comparison is designed to help you make an informed decision. We'll cover features, pricing context, operational fit, and where each solution excels.

The Core Difference: Managed Service vs. Software Platform

DohShield is a managed daily audit service. Trained human reviewers watch your POS transactions correlated with video footage every day, looking for exceptions — voids, no-sales, low-dollar transactions, refunds, and behavioral anomalies. When they find something, they deliver an evidence package with video, receipt, and timestamp. You get a report; you take action.

DTiQ (formerly known as ICG) is a technology platform that combines video surveillance, audio, and data analytics into a cloud-based system. It provides tools for remote monitoring, smart video review, and operational audits. DTiQ gives you the platform; you (or their team for premium tiers) review the data.

The fundamental question: Do you want someone to do the auditing for you, or do you want tools to do it yourself?

Feature Comparison

Pricing Context

Neither DohShield nor DTiQ publishes all-inclusive pricing publicly, but here's the general context based on industry knowledge:

Where DohShield Excels

• Hands-off daily auditing. If you don't want to log into a platform every day and review video yourself, DohShield's managed audit service is the better fit. Trained reviewers do the work; you receive the findings.
• Investigation-ready evidence. When DohShield identifies a theft pattern, you receive a complete evidence package — synchronized video, POS receipt data, and a documented timeline. These are designed to be termination-ready and, when necessary, prosecution-ready.
• No long-term commitment. No contracts means you can evaluate the service risk-free. Most operators see measurable ROI within the first 30 days. See current pricing.
• Ecosystem integration. DohShield connects to DohAssist (back-office reconciliation) and DohOps (workforce management), creating a unified view of your operations that no standalone LP platform can match.

Where DTiQ Excels

• Full surveillance infrastructure. If you need a complete camera system with cloud storage, remote live viewing, and audio monitoring, DTiQ provides an all-in-one hardware + software solution.
• Self-service video review tools. Operators who want to review video themselves will find DTiQ's platform robust, with smart search, bookmarking, and sharing capabilities.
• Audio monitoring. For environments where audio capture is valuable (restaurants, bars, customer service interactions), DTiQ includes this capability.
• Established enterprise presence. DTiQ serves large multi-unit chains with hundreds of locations and has deep integrations with enterprise POS systems.

Who Should Choose What

Choose DohShield if:

• You have 1-50 locations and want daily monitoring without hiring LP staff
• You already have cameras and don't want to replace them
• You want evidence packages delivered to you, not a platform to search through
• You value month-to-month flexibility over long contracts
• You want loss prevention integrated with your back-office and workforce systems

Choose DTiQ if:

• You need a complete surveillance hardware installation
• You want to review video remotely yourself on a daily basis
• Audio monitoring is important to your operation
• You're comfortable with multi-year contracts and upfront hardware investment
• You have a dedicated LP team that needs tools rather than a managed service

Real-World Scenarios: DohShield vs DTiQ

Abstract feature comparisons only tell part of the story. Here's how each platform performs in the situations c-store and gas station operators actually face — the day-to-day problems that cost real money.

Scenario 1: Catching Post-Transaction Voids

A five-location c-store owner suspects an employee is voiding transactions after customers leave — ringing up purchases, collecting cash, then voiding the sale and pocketing the difference. This is one of the most common and costly forms of internal theft in convenience retail.

With DohShield: Human reviewers flag the void pattern during their daily audit. Because they're correlating POS data with video footage for every exception, they see the customer walk out with merchandise, then watch the cashier void the transaction 30 seconds later. You receive a complete evidence package — timestamped video of the customer at the register, the original transaction receipt, the void receipt, and a written timeline documenting the pattern across multiple shifts. This is termination-ready and, if needed, ready for law enforcement.

With DTiQ: The platform generates an automated alert when void frequency exceeds a threshold. You receive a notification and can log into the dashboard to review the relevant video clips yourself. The footage and POS data are available, but you'll need to compile the evidence package, correlate the sequences, and document the pattern on your own — or subscribe to DTiQ's premium managed services tier for assisted investigation.

Scenario 2: Verifying Safe Drops Across All Shifts

A gas station operator running three shifts needs to confirm that each shift's cash is being dropped into the safe per policy — and that the amount on the drop slip matches what the POS reports.

With DohShield: Safe drop verification is a standard part of the daily audit. Reviewers confirm video of each drop against the POS shift close-out, flag any missing drops or timing discrepancies, and include findings in the daily report. You don't have to request it; it happens automatically, every day, across every shift.

With DTiQ: If your cameras cover the safe area, the footage is available. You can set up bookmarks or alerts around shift change times and review the footage yourself through the platform. The data is there, but the verification step requires your time or your manager's time to complete.

Scenario 3: Managing 15 Locations Remotely

A franchise owner with 15 convenience stores across two states can't physically visit each location regularly. They need visibility into operations — not just loss prevention, but whether stores are clean, staffed, and following procedures.

With DohShield: The daily audit covers all 15 locations without the operator logging into anything. But the deeper advantage is the DohShield + DohAssist + DohOps ecosystem. Loss prevention data from DohShield feeds into back-office reconciliation in DohAssist, and workforce scheduling in DohOps gives context on who was working when an incident occurred. One vendor, three platforms, unified data. That's a level of operational intelligence that a standalone LP tool can't replicate.

With DTiQ: You get a robust dashboard with remote live viewing across all locations — a genuine strength for operators who want real-time visual oversight. However, DTiQ is a standalone surveillance platform. Back-office reconciliation, workforce management, and vendor accounting live in separate systems from separate vendors, with no built-in connection between them.

Scenario 4: Building an Evidence Package for Termination

An operator has identified a trusted, long-tenured employee who appears to be giving away merchandise to friends. The operator needs airtight documentation before proceeding with termination to avoid wrongful termination claims.

With DohShield: The audit team compiles a multi-incident evidence package: each sweethearting event documented with synchronized video and POS data, a pattern analysis showing frequency and estimated loss, and a summary timeline suitable for HR review or legal proceedings. Operators report that DohShield evidence packages have been accepted by law enforcement and have held up in unemployment hearings.

With DTiQ: The raw footage and POS data exist in the platform. You can clip, bookmark, and export individual events. However, assembling a comprehensive, multi-incident evidence package with pattern analysis is a manual process that requires significant platform familiarity and time investment.

These aren't hypothetical situations — they represent the kinds of problems c-store operators deal with every week. The question is whether you want a service that handles the investigation work for you or a platform that gives you the tools to do it yourself. Learn more about how DohShield works for convenience stores.

Total Cost of Ownership (3-Year Analysis)

Monthly subscription price doesn't tell the full story. When evaluating DohShield against DTiQ, you need to account for hardware costs, contract obligations, hidden fees, and the operational cost of your time. Here's a transparent 3-year total cost of ownership breakdown.

At first glance, DTiQ's low-end pricing appears cheaper. But that entry-level tier doesn't include managed auditing — the feature most operators actually need. When you compare DohShield's managed daily audit against DTiQ's premium tier with comparable services, and then add hardware costs and contract lock-in, DohShield's total cost is significantly more predictable and often lower.

There's also a cost that doesn't appear in any invoice: your time. With DohShield, you spend minutes per day reviewing delivered findings. With DTiQ's self-service tiers, you or your managers spend hours navigating the platform, reviewing video, and compiling evidence. For a multi-unit operator, that time cost compounds fast. See DohShield's straightforward pricing.

What DTiQ Customers Say When They Switch to DohShield

We regularly onboard operators who previously used DTiQ. Their reasons for switching follow consistent patterns — not because DTiQ is a bad platform, but because the self-service surveillance model doesn't match how most small-to-mid-size operators actually run their businesses.

"I was paying for a platform I didn't have time to use."

This is the most common reason operators leave DTiQ. The platform is feature-rich, but features only matter if someone is using them. Most c-store owners don't have a dedicated loss prevention team sitting in front of a dashboard all day. They're managing vendors, handling staffing, and running operations across multiple locations. A powerful surveillance platform that goes largely unused is an expensive line item with minimal return.

DohShield eliminates that problem. The auditing happens whether you log in or not. Findings arrive in your inbox. You act on them or you don't — but the monitoring never stops.

"The daily audit reports found things DTiQ's alerts missed."

Automated exception alerts are good at catching obvious, rule-based anomalies — voids over a certain dollar amount, refunds without manager approval, register opens without a transaction. What they miss are the subtle, nuanced patterns that experienced human reviewers catch: a cashier who consistently under-rings items by one or two, a pattern of "no-sale" register opens at the same time each shift, or a slow-building sweethearting pattern that stays below automated thresholds.

Human-reviewed daily audits catch the theft that algorithms miss, because experienced reviewers understand context, behavior, and intent in ways that rule-based alerts cannot.

"No more multi-year contracts."

Multi-year contracts made sense when hardware installation was a significant upfront investment that vendors needed to amortize. But for operators, those contracts create risk. Business conditions change. Locations close. New priorities emerge. Being locked into a 3-to-5-year obligation for a service you may outgrow — or discover doesn't fit — is a financial burden that month-to-month alternatives have made unnecessary.

"The DohAssist ecosystem gives me back-office and LP in one relationship."

Operators who switch to DohShield often discover that loss prevention doesn't exist in a vacuum. Shrinkage ties directly into cash reconciliation, inventory variance, and workforce accountability. With DohShield connected to DohAssist's back-office reconciliation and DohOps workforce management, operators get a unified view of their business that a standalone surveillance platform simply cannot provide. One vendor relationship, one integrated data picture, one support team that understands the entire operation.

Industry Context: The Shift Toward Managed Loss Prevention

The convenience store and fuel retail industry is in the middle of a structural shift in how loss prevention is delivered. For two decades, the dominant model was hardware-first: install cameras, deploy a platform, hire LP staff (or assign managers) to review footage. That model worked well for large chains with dedicated loss prevention departments, corporate budgets for technology, and analysts whose full-time job was watching video.

For the vast majority of operators — particularly those running 1 to 50 locations — that model never fit. Most independent and mid-size c-store operators don't have LP staff. They don't have time to review surveillance footage daily. They bought camera systems and platform subscriptions that became expensive, underused infrastructure.

The industry is now moving toward managed loss prevention services: outsourced, human-reviewed daily auditing where the operator receives findings instead of tools. This mirrors a broader trend across retail operations — from DIY software to managed services — driven by the reality that small-to-mid-size businesses need outcomes, not dashboards.

DohShield was built for this shift. Rather than selling operators a platform and hoping they use it, DohShield delivers the work product directly: daily audit reports, evidence packages, and pattern analysis. DTiQ remains a strong choice for enterprise operators with dedicated LP teams who need a robust surveillance technology stack. But for the independent operator, the franchisee, the family-owned chain — managed services are proving to be both more effective and more cost-efficient.

If you're evaluating loss prevention for the first time, or reconsidering a platform you've outgrown, a strategy call is the fastest way to understand which model fits your operation.

Frequently Asked Questions