While the other guys lock features behind $400/month paywalls, Shop Commander gives you everything — every feature, every module, every user — for nothing. Built by a shop owner who got tired of writing checks to software companies. Read our story.
The single biggest ARO booster in any shop. Techs inspect on a tablet, customers approve on their phone. Shops using DVIs consistently see 20-30% higher average repair orders. Other platforms charge $200+/month for this. We charge nothing. See the comparison. Read our DVI best practices guide to get the most out of every inspection.
Every inspection item gets a color-coded status. Customers instantly understand what's urgent, what's coming soon, and what's fine. No jargon, no confusion — just clear visual communication that builds trust and sells work honestly.
Annotate photos with arrows, circles, and text. Attach video clips of the problem. Show don't tell — it builds trust and sells work without the hard sell. Customers see exactly what you see.
Tech writes "serp belt cracked bad needs replacement." AI rewrites it as "Your serpentine belt is cracked and should be replaced to prevent a breakdown." Professional customer-facing language, every single time.
The inspection app works without WiFi. Your tech completes the full inspection in the bay, and it syncs automatically when the tablet reconnects. No dead zones, no lost data, no excuses.
Customer receives the inspection via SMS, reviews findings with photos, and approves work with a single tap and digital signature. No phone tag. No waiting on callbacks. Authorization captured and timestamped.
See when the customer opened the inspection, how long they looked, and which items they clicked on. Know who's engaged before you follow up. Data-driven service advising, not guesswork.
From any inspection finding, one tap creates a line item on the estimate with the correct canned job, labor, and parts. Finding to revenue in seconds. No re-typing, no missed items.
Customizable templates by vehicle type — oil change inspection, full multi-point, pre-purchase, seasonal check. Create your own templates or use the built-in library. Consistent inspections across your entire team.
Real texting inside every repair order. Not a third-party add-on. Not a $300/month upgrade. Built directly into the platform from day one. Your customers already prefer texting — now your shop does too.
Customers text back and you see it instantly inside the RO. Full threaded conversation history. No personal phones, no missed messages, no "I thought you texted them" confusion.
Vehicle received, inspection ready, estimate sent, work approved, ready for pickup — each status change auto-texts the customer. Zero effort from your team. Fewer "is my car ready?" calls.
Send photos and video clips directly via text message. Show the customer the cracked belt from the bay without them needing to open a link. Visual proof at their fingertips.
Pre-written message templates for every scenario — appointment reminders, estimate follow-ups, pickup notices, seasonal promos. Customize them or create your own. Consistent messaging across your team.
SMS sends a link to the estimate. Customer reviews line items, taps approve, signs digitally. Authorization captured and timestamped in the RO. No paperwork, no phone tag.
Invoice goes out by text. Customer taps, pays with Apple Pay, Google Pay, or card. Money in your account. No terminal needed, no chasing checks. Powered by integrated payment processing.
See every vehicle, every job, every tech — at a glance. Drag-and-drop Kanban board that tracks the entire repair lifecycle from check-in to checkout. Real-time WebSocket updates mean everyone sees changes instantly.
Visual drag-and-drop board with customizable columns. Color-coded by status, filterable by tech, sortable by promise time. Your whole shop on one screen. Move jobs with a flick.
QR check-in, received, inspection, estimate, approval, in-progress, QC, ready, invoice, review request. Every step tracked and timed. Nothing falls through the cracks.
Assign jobs to techs, track clock-in/clock-out per RO, measure efficiency against book time. Know exactly who did what and how long it took. Data for coaching conversations.
Customer scans a QR code, fills in their info on their phone, and a new RO is started automatically. No clipboard, no data entry, no waiting in line. Fast and clean.
Set promised completion times. The system alerts your service writer when a job is at risk of missing its promise. No more angry "where's my car" calls. Stay ahead of the problem.
Visualize which bays are occupied, which are free, and which jobs are queued for which bay. Optimize your physical space alongside your digital workflow. Maximum throughput.
The average shop has $50,000+ in declined work sitting in their system. Most software ignores it. Shop Commander automatically chases it down and brings it back. This feature alone would justify a $200/month subscription. It's free. See our pricing. Learn how to increase your ARO with these proven strategies.
Every declined job gets automatic SMS follow-ups at 30, 60, and 90 days. AI writes personalized messages based on the original finding, vehicle, and season. Set it and forget it — the money comes back on its own.
Visual dashboard showing all declined work by customer, value, age, and status. See your total pipeline and recovery rate at a glance. Know exactly how much money is sitting on the table waiting to be picked up.
Customer clicks the follow-up link, reviews the original recommendation with photos, and books an appointment — all without calling the shop. Friction removed. Conversion increased.
Track recovery rate, recovered revenue, average time to recovery, and which follow-up interval converts best. Prove the ROI in real numbers. Know exactly what this feature puts back in your pocket.
Pre-built marketing campaigns that fire automatically based on season, vehicle data, and service history. Plus a Google review pipeline that actually works. Shopmonkey charges $315/month extra for this. We charge $0.
Rust proofing in fall, tire swap reminders in spring and fall, AC service in summer, battery checks in winter, coolant flush before the heat. All pre-built and ready to go. Just turn them on.
Campaigns target the right customers automatically. Tire swap reminders go to customers with stored tires. AC campaigns go to vehicles with 2+ year old AC service. No manual list building. AI handles the segmentation.
3 days after pickup, happy customers automatically get a text asking for a Google review. The system detects satisfaction signals and only asks customers likely to leave 5 stars. Build your reputation on autopilot.
See exactly how many appointments, how much revenue, and what ROI each campaign generated. Kill what doesn't work, double down on what does. Marketing with accountability.
Professional estimates in 60 seconds. Digital approvals. Clean invoices with tax handling. Payment processing and export to QuickBooks. The full financial workflow from quote to cash.
Pre-built service templates with labor times, parts lists, and descriptions. Oil change, brake job, timing belt — one click to add to any RO. Build your own library or use the defaults.
Based on vehicle make, model, mileage, and service history, AI suggests likely needed services. "2019 Civic at 90K — recommend spark plugs, transmission fluid, brake fluid flush." Proactive upselling that makes sense.
Customers sign estimates and invoices digitally via their phone. Timestamped, stored, and attached to the RO. No paper, no disputes, no "I never authorized that" conversations.
Professional branded PDFs for estimates, invoices, and inspection reports. Auto-emailed, auto-archived. Your logo, your colors, your shop's identity on every document.
Canadian tax handling built in from day one. HST on labor and parts, tax-exempt items, PST/GST for other provinces. Not an afterthought — it's the default. US sales tax supported too.
Export invoices in QuickBooks-compatible format. CSV, JSON, or direct integration. Keep your bookkeeper happy without double-entry. Clean data, every time.
Track what you have, know what you need, and order it fast. Parts management that keeps jobs moving instead of stalling out waiting on a delivery. Integrated with PartsTech for one-click ordering.
Part number, quantity on hand, quantity reserved, reorder point, cost, sell price, location, and category. Full stock management for shops that carry parts. Know what you have without counting shelves.
One screen showing all parts needed across all active ROs, grouped by vendor. Generate a single order list per supplier instead of calling for each job. Batch ordering saves time and catches bulk discounts.
Create POs, send to vendors, receive partial or full shipments, auto-update part status on repair orders. Full PO lifecycle tracking from request to receiving dock.
Dashboard card showing all items below reorder point. Never run out of oil filters or brake pads again. Set thresholds per item. Get notified before you're scrambling.
Free VIN decoding. Complete service history. Customer profiles with lifetime value tracking. Know every vehicle and every customer before they walk through the door.
130+ vehicle attributes decoded instantly from VIN. Year, make, model, engine, transmission, trim, drive type, and more. No per-lookup fees. Ever. Unlimited decodes for every user at every shop.
Every RO, every inspection, every declined job — all linked to the vehicle. Pull up any car and see its entire life story at your shop. Context at your fingertips for smarter service advising.
Based on mileage, service history, and manufacturer intervals, AI flags upcoming maintenance needs. Proactive service recommendations generated automatically. Sell the work before the breakdown happens.
Contact info, communication preferences, all vehicles, lifetime spend, visit frequency, average ticket, preferred tech. Know your customer before they walk in. Build relationships that drive retention.
Track stored tire sets with location, tread depth, DOT codes, and seasonal swap notifications. Automated reminders when swap season hits. A feature nobody else offers — we do, for free.
Track loaner vehicles with digital check-out agreements, mileage logging, fuel level, damage notes, and return tracking. No paper forms, no mystery miles. Full accountability.
Not everything in your shop is a repair order. Cleaning, maintenance, parts runs, training — manage it all with a built-in task system that lives alongside your Kanban board.
Sequential task numbers per shop (T-001, T-002). Create tasks for any non-RO work — cleaning bays, organizing parts, equipment maintenance, training sessions.
Low, normal, high, urgent with color-coded indicators. Categories for cleaning, maintenance, errands, training, admin, and more. Status workflow: Open, In Progress, Done, Blocked, Waiting.
Assign tasks to specific team members. Add checklist items with completion tracking and progress bars. Set due dates with overdue highlighting. Add comments and file attachments.
Define tasks that regenerate automatically on a schedule — daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Bay cleaning every Friday. Safety check every Monday. Set it once, never think about it again.
Tasks appear on your main Kanban board alongside repair orders (purple-bordered cards). Drag-and-drop between columns. Toggle visibility in board settings.
Clock in/out of specific RO line items or tasks with live timers. Track billed vs. clock hours per tech. View time entries by technician, date range, or job. Measure real efficiency.
Real-time dashboards and reports that tell you exactly how your shop is performing — and where the money is hiding. No guesswork. No gut feelings. Just numbers.
Daily, weekly, monthly revenue with trend lines. Compare periods. Spot patterns. Know if this Tuesday is better or worse than last Tuesday — and understand why.
Track ARO over time by service writer, by job type, by day of week. The single most important metric for shop profitability. If your ARO is flat, you know where to focus.
Billed hours vs. clock hours per tech. Efficiency percentage, jobs completed, comeback rate. Know who's producing and who needs coaching. Fair, data-driven management.
Inspection completion rate, customer view rate, approval rate, average findings per inspection. Measure the effectiveness of your inspection process and optimize it.
Track parts cost vs. sell price across all jobs. Identify margin leaks, compare markup by category, optimize your pricing matrix. Stop leaving money on the table.
Visit frequency, lapsed customers, new vs. returning ratio, lifetime value trends. Know who's coming back and who you're losing — and use campaigns to win them back.
Run multiple locations from one account. Complete data isolation between shops with centralized admin controls. No "enterprise tier" required — multi-shop is free, like everything else.
Each location's data is completely separate. No mixing of customer records, vehicles, or financial data between shops. Clean, organized, and compliant. Each shop is its own world.
Each location gets its own logo, colors, dedicated phone number, business hours, tax rates, and settings. White-labeled per tenant. Your customers see your brand, not ours.
Owner, manager, service writer, technician — each role sees only what they need. Granular permissions per user per shop. Your tech doesn't need to see revenue reports. Your advisor doesn't need admin access.
Owners with multiple locations can view consolidated reports across all shops or drill down into individual location performance. One login, total visibility.
The tools your shop already depends on, wired directly into the workflow. No extra tabs, no double entry, no "integration fees." Just connected systems that work.
Card-present terminals and text-to-pay links built into every invoice. Apple Pay, Google Pay, or card. Customers pay how they want. You get paid faster. Fully embedded — not a redirect to some third-party checkout page.
Invoices export in QuickBooks-compatible format. CSV or direct sync. Your bookkeeper never has to touch Shop Commander — they just see clean data in QBO like always. Zero double entry.
Search 30,000+ supplier locations for parts and tires from inside the repair order. Real-time pricing, availability, and one-click ordering. No switching tabs, no phone calls, no wasted time.
Pull vehicle history reports directly from the RO. Service history, accident records, and ownership data right where your service writer needs it. Better information means better recommendations.
Free unlimited VIN decoding with 130+ vehicle attributes. Active recall alerts flagged automatically during check-in. No per-lookup fees. Safety and compliance built into the workflow.
Customer can't swing the full repair today? Offer installment financing at checkout. They get the work done, you get paid in full upfront. Approval takes 30 seconds. More approvals, higher ARO.
Digital inspections. Two-way SMS. AI follow-ups. Kanban workflow. Payments. Inventory. Reporting. Multi-shop. Every integration. Every feature. Every user. Zero dollars.
Stop overpaying. Start commanding. Learn why we built this.