TEKMETRIC VS SHOPMONKEY

Price and terms

The headline difference is the pricing unit. Tekmetric charges per shop and says so in plain words: unlimited users, unlimited repair orders, no charge by user. Shopmonkey charges per plan and includes a set number of user licenses — three on Basic, four on Clever, five on Genius — with each extra login at $20 a month. The shaded cell is the better deal on that row for a single-location shop.

Two notes before anyone quotes these back to a sales rep. First, both pages show a monthly price and a lower annual one; the annual figure is a commitment, so compare month-to-month against month-to-month. Second, the plan names do not line up feature for feature, which is why the next two sections matter more than the price row.

The headcount question

Tekmetric Grow and Shopmonkey Clever are the two middle plans, and they are the closest match: both add a labor guide and a time clock over the entry tier. Here is what each costs at list, month to month, as the number of people who need a login grows.

Count logins honestly. A technician who opens inspections on a tablet needs one, and so does the service advisor, the owner and whoever does the books. A four-person shop pays more on Shopmonkey from the first day; by ten logins the gap is $170 a month. That is a real number on the break-even calculator — software is fixed overhead, and every dollar of it has to be covered by cars through the door.

At the counter and in the bay

On the work itself the two overlap more than they differ. Both build estimates, decode VINs, take digital authorization and order parts from inside the job. The differences are in which tier unlocks what.

Two rows deserve a second look. Inspections: Tekmetric includes digital vehicle inspections on Start, while Shopmonkey Basic limits you to two inspection templates — fine if one multi-point covers your shop, a squeeze if you run separate courtesy, brake and pre-purchase sheets like the vehicle inspection checklist and the pre-purchase checklist. QuickBooks: Shopmonkey names QuickBooks Online and Desktop on its pricing page. Tekmetric names neither on its pricing page or anywhere in its integrations directory, though it does sell an add-on integration with The Back Office. If your bookkeeper lives in QuickBooks, get the answer in writing during the demo.

When Tekmetric fits

• You have, or plan to have, more than four people logging in.
• Inspections are central to how you sell work, and you want them on the entry plan.
• You manage by the numbers and will use the parts and labor matrices, the time clocks and the reports — the efficiency ratios and the effective labor rate are only as good as the hours captured.
• You can live without two-way texting, or you are buying Scale anyway.

When Shopmonkey fits

• A small crew — three or four logins — where the user licenses never bite.
• Texting customers and taking card or online payments are day-one requirements.
• Your books run in QuickBooks Online and you will be on Clever or above.
• You want MOTOR labor times, and on Genius MOTOR diagrams and procedures, inside the estimate. Both platforms link to ALLDATA; the repair-information decision itself is covered in Mitchell 1 vs ALLDATA.

If neither fits the budget yet, the free shop software comparison covers what you give up, and the wider shop software roundup puts both next to Shop-Ware, AutoLeap and Mitchell 1 Manager SE.

Demo checklist