Guide
How much does garage management software cost in the UK?
Updated
Some UK garage software suppliers print a monthly price. Others will not tell you until a salesperson has your number. Both facts are worth knowing before you shortlist.
The prices we could actually read
| Product | Published price | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| Workauto | £30 a month or £300 a year | Diary, job cards, reminders, 50 vehicle lookups a month |
| Garage Software Solutions | £49.99 to £99.99 a month | Tiered modules with hosting and a domain included |
| Motasoft Virtual Garage Manager | £65, £95 or £135 a month | Essential, then Haynes technical data, then the technician app |
| Garage Hive | From £145 a month | One plan, one-month rolling, the full feature list |
Every figure above was read on the supplier's own pricing page on 15 August 2026 and is reproduced, not estimated. These are list prices for the plans as published; what you pay after a conversation, a discount scheme or a multi-site quote may differ. Check the supplier's page before you buy.
The ones that publish nothing
TechMan names four plans (Starter, Lite, Advanced and Pro) and describes two commercial shapes without pricing either: a Partner Plan at a 20% lower monthly rate with no upfront cost on a minimum-term agreement, and a Flexi Plan on 30 days rolling with an onboarding and implementation fee. MOT Manager states a fixed monthly fee with support included and no hidden costs or credits, but no figure. MAM Autowork Online routes to a contact form. Three further suppliers are absent from this site entirely because we could not read their websites on the day: Autoflow refused our connections, CarVue did not resolve, and MOT GMS serves a TLS certificate that does not match its hostname.
The costs that are not the software
A garage running MOTs has two DVSA costs that no software changes. You buy MOT test slots in advance and use one slot for each pass you record: gov.uk states each slot costs £2.05 and that VAT is not charged on slots, with 25 to 125,000 slots per transaction (gov.uk). And there is a ceiling on what you can charge the customer: the maximum MOT fee is £54.85 for a car and £29.65 for a standard motorcycle, with no VAT on the fee (gov.uk). Both were read on 15 August 2026.
What actually moves the price
- Users and sites
- Some suppliers price per site with unlimited users (Motasoft states unlimited users on all tiers), others build the quote around headcount. Ask which model you are on before you compare two numbers.
- Technical data
- Haynes or Autodata licences are a real cost and are bundled differently: Motasoft moves you from £65 to £95 to add Haynes data, while TechMan states a HaynesPro E3 licence is included with every subscription.
- Vehicle lookups
- Lookups are frequently metered. Workauto includes 50 a month and charges £10 a month for 100. A busy MOT bay burns through a lookup allowance faster than the marketing suggests.
- Text messages
- MOT reminders by SMS are the feature garages actually use, and the commonest hidden cost. MOT Manager states unlimited texts with no credits; other suppliers sell message bundles. Ask for the per-message rate in writing.
- Onboarding and data migration
- TechMan's Flexi Plan carries an onboarding and implementation fee where its Partner Plan does not. Getting five years of job history out of your old system is where a cheap monthly price quietly stops being cheap.
- Trade schemes
- TechMan states discounts for LKQ Euro Car Parts, GSF and NAPA customers and RAC Approved Garage Network members, and preferential rates for AutoCare members. If you buy parts from a group, ask before you take the list price.
A price behind a demo is not a red flag, but it is information
Suppliers who quote rather than publish are usually selling into a longer conversation, often with onboarding attached. That can be the right product, and two of the three quote-only systems here are long established. It does mean you cannot compare them on cost until you have given a salesperson your details, and it means the price is negotiable, which a published one is not. Ask for the monthly figure, the minimum term, the SMS rate and the migration fee in the first call.