The $10/month is what I pay to keep the phone activated, to use the data. AccuTracking does not charge for individual use of its service. Only business, (read: 10+ tracking at once). I store my phone behind a fairing, and like I said, doesn't matter if they strip it off, so long as they don't move the bike before I can track them down. Anywhere inconspicuous is fine.
I'm going to give Boost a call one of these days, to see if I can link this phone to another phones pool of minutes, so that I don't have to maintain separate phones, just top-up the one I use for talking and have it update the one on the bike too.