Shopmonkey’s published plans start at $239 a month. Below $100 there is a real field of shop management products, and depending on how many people need a login, several of them cost less than Garage does.
Prices below were checked on each vendor’s own site in July 2026: Shopmonkey, ARI, Orderry, ManageAutoShop, AutoRepair Cloud, MaxxTraxx, Tekmetric, AutoLeap, Shop Boss, Shop-Ware. SaaS pricing changes without notice, so open the page yourself before you sign anything. We do not quote prices from review sites: the directories contradict each other constantly in this category.
⚠️ Pricing note. Every price in this article was read on the vendor’s own pricing page in July 2026, and each one is linked so you can check it. Software pricing moves without notice: plans get renamed, tiers get split, and fees get added. Open the vendor’s page and confirm the current number before you decide anything. If you find one of these out of date, the vendor’s page wins, not this article.
Most “Shopmonkey alternatives” pages are auto-generated software directories, and they answer the question by listing six platforms that cost the same or more. That is a lateral move, not an alternative. This one’s for the owner who just opened a renewal notice, ran the math on a two-bay shop, and wants to know what else is out there for less. Garage is one of the seven. It is not automatically the right one, and this article says exactly when it isn’t.
The short version
- Shopmonkey’s entry plan is $239/mo, plus $20/mo per additional user.
- The other large platforms do not solve a budget problem: Tekmetric $199, AutoLeap $199, Shop Boss $199, Shop-Ware $279.
- Under $100 the real field includes ARI at $39.99/mo with unlimited users, Orderry at $39 and $69, ManageAutoShop at $49.99, AutoRepair Cloud from $34.99, and Garage at $39 and $69.
- ARI is cheaper than Garage from roughly two users on, because their price covers unlimited users per shop.
- Orderry’s $69 tier mirrors ours and covers more staff, up to 15 against our 7.
- Garage has no integrations, no parts ordering, no labor guides, and no automated texting. Check that list before you get to price.
First, who should stay on Shopmonkey
Not a courtesy paragraph. If you recognize yourself here, close the tab and keep paying, because you’d bail on a cheaper product inside a month and blow a whole quarter on the round trip.
You run four or more bays with a service advisor at the counter. Shopmonkey is built for a shop where writing, dispatching, and cashing out are three different people’s jobs. That workflow is worth real money.
Your parts ordering lives inside the software. If your counter person pulls live availability and pricing from suppliers inside the repair order, leaving means going back to phone calls and browser tabs. That’s a tax you pay every single day, and it’s bigger than anything you’d save on the subscription.
You bill off labor time guides. If your estimates are built from a published labor database, a product without one changes how you quote. That is your pricing method, not a preference.
You depend on automated customer messaging. Text approvals, reminders, and status updates cut phone time, and customers who are used to them notice immediately when they stop.
You have more than one location, or you are integrated with your accounting. Multi-shop reporting is its own category, and unwinding an invoice sync costs more in bookkeeping hours than any subscription saving.
If you’re in any of those buckets, Shopmonkey at $239, or Tekmetric and AutoLeap at $199, is an honest purchase.
What Garage doesn’t have
Up top, not in a footnote. A lower price only means something next to what it doesn’t buy.
- No parts ordering or supplier catalogs, and no labor time guides
- No QuickBooks or accounting integration, and no public API
- No multi-location support, and no automated text reminders
Those four are the reasons a shop leaves Shopmonkey and comes straight back. The complete list, including what license plate and VIN search does and doesn’t return, is in the full list of what Garage doesn’t do.
Read that as the current product, not as a roadmap.
The seven options under $100
1. ARI, $39.99/mo, unlimited users
The one to check first if you have staff. ARI prices per shop rather than per user, so a three-person operation pays the same $39.99 as a solo mechanic. They also run a permanent free tier limited by record count. If your constraint is “everyone needs a login and I have no budget,” ARI beats us on arithmetic and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
2. Orderry, $39/mo (2 employees) or $69/mo (up to 15)
The closest structural match to Garage in the whole category, and their $69 tier covers 15 employees where ours covers 7. They also offer a 7-day trial with no card, the same terms we do. If you are shopping our tier, price both.
3. ManageAutoShop, $49.99/mo per shop
Another per-shop price rather than per-seat. Worth a quote alongside ARI if headcount is what drives your cost.
4. AutoRepair Cloud, $34.99 to $74.99/mo
The lowest entry price in this group. Read the tier boundaries carefully, because what separates $34.99 from $74.99 is where the actual decision lives.
5. MaxxTraxx from Scott Systems (price not published)
Long-running shop software with a 30-day trial and no card required, which is the longest look at a working system available in this market. They do not publish a flat monthly price the way the others do, so ask directly and ask about setup.
6. Garage, $39/mo (1 user) or $69/mo (up to 7 users)
Repair orders, estimates, invoicing, scheduling, vehicle history, and a customer-facing app on Essential. Premium adds POS and parts inventory, technical reports with photos, employee commissions, cash-flow and cost-vs-profit reporting, and cloud backup. Essential is one user, so it suits an owner-operator or a mobile mechanic, not a front counter. Premium includes up to 7 users, with an additional charge from the eighth. Seven-day trial, no card, month to month, no setup fee.
7. A template and spreadsheet stack (not software, but it is honest)
Free, and honestly enough for a very small operation. The tradeoff is that nothing links: estimate, invoice, parts, and history live in separate tabs and depend on you updating all of them. Start with our auto repair work order template and auto repair invoice template, and read spreadsheet vs software for an auto repair shop for where that stack stops working.
One more move that costs nothing: before migrating anything, count seats on your current plan. Shopmonkey charges $20/mo per additional user, and removing logins for people who touch the system twice a week is the fastest saving on this page.
Five questions before you switch
Yes or no, out loud.
- Do I order parts from inside my current software every day?
- Do I build estimates from a labor time guide?
- Do my invoices sync to my accounting software?
- Do I rely on automatic texts going to customers?
- Do I have more than one location, or more than seven people who need a login?
If you answered yes to two or more, don’t buy Garage. On question five specifically, look at ARI or Orderry rather than us.
Where the tiers actually differ: how the product is sold
Feature parity is not the argument, and neither is being the cheapest, because in this group we are not. The clean line runs between the under-$100 field and the $199-and-up field, and it runs through the commercial terms.
Trial. Garage gives 7 days with no card. So does Orderry. MaxxTraxx gives 30. ARI has a permanent free tier. At the top of the market, Tekmetric states plainly that it offers free demos but not free trials, and AutoLeap says it does not offer a free trial because the system is custom-built with your shop information. Both are reasonable positions. They also mean you commit before you touch the software.
Setup and migration. Garage has no setup fee. AutoLeap’s pricing page acknowledges a setup fee without publishing the amount. Shop Boss lists migration at $399 or $899.
Contract. Month to month, cancel whenever, is normal in the under-$100 group and less normal above it.
Published pricing. Every number here came from a page anyone can open, which is the minimum bar and not everyone clears it.
Frequently asked questions
How much is Shopmonkey per month?
Their published plans were $239, $399, and $499 per month when we checked in July 2026, plus $20/mo per additional user. Confirm on their pricing page.
What is the cheapest auto repair shop software?
It depends entirely on headcount. AutoRepair Cloud starts lowest at $34.99. ARI at $39.99 covers unlimited users, so for any shop with two or more logins it undercuts the per-seat and capped-seat products, Garage included.
Will I lose my customer history if I switch?
Not automatically, but nobody moves it for you. Export your customer list, vehicle list, and past invoices while your current account is still active, before you cancel.
Does cheaper software handle multiple technicians?
Some do it better than others. Garage Essential is one user and Premium covers up to seven. Orderry covers up to 15 at the same $69, and ARI does not cap users at all.
Bottom line
If parts ordering, labor guides, accounting sync, or automated texting are part of your day, the $199-and-up platforms are the honest purchase and you should stay. If you are a one-to-three bay shop and the constraint is headcount with no budget, look hard at ARI and Orderry before you look at us. If you are an owner-operator or a mobile mechanic who wants repair orders, invoicing, scheduling, and your own vehicle history in one place, Garage does that for $39.
You have 7 days to find out, no card, no contract.
