There are three different things hiding behind the word “free”: a permanent free tier with limits, a time-limited trial that becomes a bill, and open-source code you host yourself. Garage is none of them. Garage is a 7-day trial and then $39 a month, and this article says so up front because the rest of it is only useful if you trust it.
Terms below were checked on each vendor’s own site in July 2026: ARI, Orderry, MaxxTraxx, Workshop Software, ManageAutoShop, Enerpize, Mitchell 1 Manager SE, Tekmetric, AutoLeap, Fullbay. We do not source claims from review directories here, because in this category their trial and pricing fields are wrong often enough to be useless.
⚠️ 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 If you find one of these out of date, the vendor’s page wins, not this article.
Search for free shop software today and you get told to build your own app on a no-code platform or to stand up a Docker container. If you had time to do either, you would not be searching at 9pm after closing. So here is the plain audit.
The short version
- Genuinely free, permanently: ARI runs a free tier capped by record count. That is the closest thing to real free shop software with an active product behind it.
- Free trials, no card required: MaxxTraxx 30 days, Workshop Software 14 days, ManageAutoShop 14 days, Enerpize 14 days, Mitchell 1 Manager SE 14 days through a reseller, Orderry 7 days, Garage 7 days.
- No trial at all, by their own statement: Tekmetric, AutoLeap, and Fullbay.
- Free forever if you host it: open-source shop management projects exist. They are free in license, not in time.
- Actually free with no catch: a spreadsheet and a set of printable forms.
- Garage is not free. Seven days, no card, then $39/mo for one user or $69/mo for up to seven.
The five kinds of “free”
1. A permanent free tier
Software you can use indefinitely without paying, limited on some axis. ARI is the meaningful example in this market: a free tier limited by number of records, from a product that also sells a $39.99/mo plan with unlimited users per shop. When the free tier runs out of room, the paid plan does not punish you for having staff, which is unusual in this category and worth knowing before you compare anything else.
The trade is always the same. Free tiers are limited where your business grows, so the day the software becomes useful is the day it starts costing money. That is not a trick, it is how the model works.
2. A free trial
Free until a date, then a bill. The useful question is not “is there a trial” but “how long, and do they want a card.” No card means you cannot forget and get charged.
Checked in July 2026: MaxxTraxx 30 days, no card, the longest real look at a working system in this market. Workshop Software, ManageAutoShop, and Enerpize at 14 days, no card. Mitchell 1 Manager SE at 14 days, no card, offered through a reseller rather than the main site. Orderry at 7 days, no card. Garage at 7 days, no card.
And the other side, stated by the vendors themselves: Tekmetric says it offers free demos but not free trials. AutoLeap says it does not offer a free trial because the system is custom-built with your shop’s information. Fullbay says it currently offers only a free demo with a team member. All three positions are defensible for complex platforms with hands-on onboarding. They just mean you commit before you touch the product.
3. Open source
Free in license. There are self-hosted shop management projects you can download and run, and if you are comfortable with a server, a database, and backups, they cost nothing but your time. If you are not, they cost a weekend that turns into three, and then you own uptime for the system that holds your invoices. Ask yourself who restores the database on the Tuesday it breaks. If the answer is “me, between two brake jobs,” this is not free.
4. A no-code app you build
The advice most often given by the pages that rank for this search. It works, in the sense that you can assemble a form and a table. It doesn’t work in the sense that you now own a one-off system with no support, no vehicle history to speak of, and nobody to call.
5. Paper and a spreadsheet
Genuinely free, genuinely used by thousands of profitable shops, and honest about what it is. A work order pad, an invoice format, and a parts sheet will run a one-or-two bay shop. Ours are free and not behind a form: auto repair work order template, auto repair estimate template, auto repair invoice template, and the full shop forms kit. The limit is that nothing links to anything, so vehicle history only exists if you file it perfectly, every time. We wrote about where that breaks in spreadsheet vs software for an auto repair shop.
When free is the right answer, and you should take it
Not a throwaway paragraph. If you are here, take the free option.
You have not opened yet. Do not buy software for a shop that does not have cars in it. Use templates and a spreadsheet until you have a customer list worth protecting.
You do fewer than a handful of jobs a month. A free tier with a record cap will hold everything you have, for as long as you have it.
Your only real problem is invoicing. A free invoicing tool solves that, today, and you can move later.
You genuinely enjoy running your own server. Then open source is fine and you will be happier with it than with anything you rent.
Cash is the binding constraint this month. ARI’s free tier exists, it is real, and $0 beats $39 when $39 is the problem. Nobody should talk you out of that.
What Garage doesn’t have
Stated high, because an article about honesty that buries the gap is not an honest article.
- No QuickBooks or accounting integration
- No parts ordering or supplier catalogs
- No labor time guides or estimating database
- No automated text reminders or bulk SMS
- No multi-location support
- No public API
- No third-party integrations or app marketplace
- No Carfax or external VIN decoding. License plate and VIN search returns your own shop’s history on that vehicle
- No free plan. Seven days, then $39 or $69 a month
Five questions before you pay for anything
Yes or no.
- Am I comfortable maintaining a server and my own backups?
- Do I write fewer than a handful of repair orders a month?
- Is my only real problem producing an invoice?
- Would a record-capped free tier hold everything my shop does?
- Is $39 a month genuinely not available in my budget right now?
If you answered yes to two or more, don’t buy Garage. Take the free tier, the open-source project, or the templates, and come back when the shop has outgrown them.
What you pay for when you stop using free
What ends free is always the same thing, and we wrote it up separately in spreadsheet vs software for an auto repair shop. What that page doesn’t do is tell you what the paid tier costs, so: ARI $39.99/mo with unlimited users, Orderry $39 for two employees or $69 for up to 15, ManageAutoShop $49.99/mo per shop, AutoRepair Cloud $34.99 to $74.99, Garage $39 for one user or $69 for up to seven with an additional charge from the eighth. If headcount is what drives your cost, the per-shop pricing models will beat the capped ones and you should let them. We broke that comparison down in Shopmonkey alternatives under $100.
Frequently asked questions
Is there truly free auto repair shop software?
Yes, in two forms: a permanent free tier such as ARI’s record-capped plan, and open-source projects you host yourself. Everything else marketed as free is a time-limited trial.
Is Garage free?
No. There is a 7-day trial with no credit card, then $39/mo for one user or $69/mo for up to seven users, month to month.
Which shop software has the longest free trial?
Of the products we checked in July 2026, MaxxTraxx at 30 days with no card required.
Can I run my shop on free forever?
A one-or-two bay shop with low volume, yes. The constraint that ends it is usually vehicle history and multiple people needing the same information at the same time, not invoice count.
Bottom line
If free fits your shop today, take free, and take the templates on the way out. If what you need is your shop’s history in one place and more than one person able to see it, you are going to pay someone, and the honest range in this tier is roughly $35 to $70 a month depending on how many logins you need. Compare on headcount, not on the sticker.
Ours is $39, month to month, no setup fee, and you have 7 days to find out, no card, no contract.
