What does garage management software actually cost in the UK in 2026?

Almost nobody in this market publishes a price. You ring up, you sit through a demo, and a number arrives by email a few days later. That is fine if you enjoy demos. It is less fine when you are trying to work out whether software is worth it at all, because you cannot answer that question without a number.

This is what we can establish, where it came from, and what the headline figure usually leaves out. Where a vendor does not publish anything, I say so rather than guessing.

What we can source

Monthly, excluding VAT unless noted, as published at the time of writing in August 2026. Quotes vary by workshop size and negotiation, so treat these as the shape of the market rather than a quote you will be given.

Vendor	Published figure	What it covers
Autera	£0 / £29 / £79 / £149	Solo free forever, Starter, Workshop, Multi-Bay. Published on the pricing page
LaunchControl	£49 per location	One plan, unlimited users, 28-day trial, no free tier
Motasoft	£65	Flat, unlimited users, on a 12-month contract (£780 first-year commitment)
ServiceM8	£119	The Premium tier, where job volume becomes unlimited
AutoChain	around £162 inc VAT	Core £69.99 plus HaynesPro VHC £49.99 plus SMS £15, all plus VAT
TechMan	around £290	Illustrated at the from-£58-per-user figure on its Capterra UK listing, for 5 named users
Garage Hive	£350+	Based on published tiers and typical workshop configurations
MAM Autowork Online	not published	Quote on application
Dragon2000	not published	Quote on application
Garage Assistant (GA4)	not published	Quote on application

Three of the ten will not tell you anything without a call. That is worth knowing before you start ringing round.

What the from-price hides

A headline figure is rarely the invoice. Four things move it:

Per-user pricing. Some vendors charge per named user, which sounds cheap at one and stops being cheap at five. A £58-per-user product is £290 for a five-person shop. Ask what a user is, and whether your front-desk staff and your parts person count as users or come free.

Add-ons. Vehicle health checks, SMS, technical data and DVLA lookups are frequently separate lines. AutoChain's own published pricing is the clearest example: the core product is £69.99, and a realistic working configuration lands near £162 once VHC and SMS are added.

Contract length. A £65 monthly price on a twelve-month contract is a £780 commitment, not a £65 decision. If you are unsure about a product, the contract matters more than the rate.

Sites and bays. Multi-site pricing is usually per location. Two sites is often simply double, sometimes with a discount, occasionally with a different tier entirely.

The four questions that actually decide your cost

1. How many people need to log in? Not how many mechanics. How many humans touch the system. This is the single biggest driver.
2. Do you need MOT reminders, VHC and technical data, and are they included? These are the three most commonly unbundled features.
3. Are you tied in? A rolling monthly contract and a twelve-month contract at the same rate are not the same product.
4. What happens to your data if you leave? Ask before you join, not after.

Where Autera sits, including where it does not win

Autera publishes 0, 29, 79 and 149, and there is a genuinely free tier: Solo is free forever, capped at 20 jobs a month, with the full iOS and Android app included. That cap is real and you should plan around it, not be surprised by it. Twenty jobs is a sole trader's month, not a busy bay's.

Being straight about where it loses:

• Motasoft's flat £65 with unlimited users beats Autera above roughly seven technicians. Autera's Workshop plan covers six and charges £12 a month for each one after that, so at seven you are at £91 and Motasoft is cheaper. If you are a larger team and the twelve-month contract does not bother you, that is a fair comparison to make.
• LaunchControl at £49 per location is cheaper than Autera's Workshop tier if you want one plan, unlimited users, and do not need a free tier or a mobile app.
• If you need deep manufacturer technical data as a first-class part of the product, that is not where Autera's strength is.

We would rather you knew that now than found it out in month three.

How to compare without doing ten demos

Build one line per vendor with the same five columns: monthly price for your user count, contract length, whether MOT reminders are included, whether VHC is included, and whether there is a free or trial tier you can test with real jobs. Fill in what is published, and ask only the vendors who will not publish. You will usually find two or three are obviously wrong for you before you speak to anybody.

Then test with real work. A trial you fill with fake jobs tells you nothing. Put a genuine week through it, including the awkward parts: a customer who changes their mind, a job that waits on parts, an invoice that needs correcting after it was sent.

The bottom line

For a UK independent garage in 2026, the realistic range is roughly £50 to £150 a month for a single site with a handful of users, with per-user products climbing faster than flat ones as you grow, and a genuinely free option existing at the very small end. Anything materially above that range should come with a clear reason attached, and you are entitled to ask what it is.

Prices here were checked in August 2026 and are what each vendor published at the time. If you spot one that has moved, tell us and we will correct it.