Guide · Software pricing
How much does detailing and PPF software cost?
Published prices by category, each one dated and sourced — and then the part the pricing pages leave out: the seats, messages, processing and add-ons that decide what you actually pay.
Updated · Service VIN
The short answer
How much does detailing, PPF and tint shop software cost?
- Trade-specific shop software mostly sits between about US$80 and US$400 a month per shop, and the spread inside that range is decided by seats and add-ons more than by the headline tier.
- Home- and field-service platforms publish the widest ladders — roughly $39/mo entry to about $599/mo at the top for Jobber, and about $59 to $299/mo for Housecall Pro — with per-user fees on top (published pricing and third-party breakdowns, July 2026).
- Repair-shop systems sit higher because they carry parts and labour-guide machinery: Tekmetric publishes $199, $349 and $439 per month per location, with Marketing, Multi-Shop and Tire add-ons on top (July 2026).
- Flat single-plan tools are the simplest to budget: Tint Wiz publishes one $150/month plan with unlimited users, and OrbisX is marketed around US$100/month flat with no public tier table (July 2026).
- Service VIN is flat per shop — Essentials $79, Growth $199 and Command $399 in US dollars, no per-seat charge — plus a $299/mo AI Front Desk entry option, with 14 days free to test it.
Bottom line: Compare the shape, not the sticker: a $39 plan with three seats, an SMS bundle and a metered AI receptionist can finish the year above a $199 flat plan that includes all three.
The market
What does shop software cost, by category?
| Category | What the pricing looks like | Published figures |
|---|---|---|
| Trade-specific, single flat plan | One plan, everything in, usually unlimited users | Tint Wiz $150/mo; OrbisX marketed around US$100/mo1 |
| Trade-specific, tiered | Two to four tiers, with features stepping up a tier | Urable publishes tiers but no hard prices we could verify2 |
| Home- and field-service platforms | Tiered, per-user fees on top, AI receptionist metered | Jobber about $39–$599/mo plus ~$29 per extra user; Housecall Pro about $59–$299/mo3 |
| General auto-repair systems | Per location, with paid add-on suites | Tekmetric $199 / $349 / $439 per month, plus Marketing, Multi-Shop and Tire add-ons4 |
| Estimating-first apps | Cheapest to start, narrowest scope — the estimate, not the shop | We could not verify current pricing first-hand, so we state none5 |
Sources & notes
Facts checked
- 1.Tint Wiz: per tintwiz.com pricing, reviewed July 2026 — one flat plan at $150/month with unlimited users and a 30-day free trial. OrbisX: as of 2026-07-23, per SourceForge and OptimizeIt listings plus a snapshot of OrbisX's pricing page — marketed around US$100/mo flat, with an optional one-time Premium Setup; OrbisX's own site blocked automated checks.
- 2.Urable: as of 2026-07-23, aggregator listings agree Urable sells three paid tiers with unlimited users on every plan, but their hard prices conflict across sources, so this page states none. Urable's 3D Visualizer is cited as a paid add-on (around $150/mo) on top of the subscription.
- 3.Jobber and Housecall Pro: per each vendor's published pricing and third-party breakdowns, July 2026. Jobber runs from around $39/mo for a single user to roughly $599/mo, with about $29 per extra user, and its AI Receptionist is a metered add-on. Housecall Pro starts around $59/mo (Basic, billed annually) and climbs through roughly $149 to about $299 (MAX), with per-user fees on the top tier and monthly billing above annual.
- 4.Tekmetric: per published pricing, July 2026 — $199 (Start), $349 (Grow) and $439 (Scale) per month per location, month-to-month, with published add-on rates of about $70/mo per shop for Multi-Shop Management, $39/mo per shop for the Tire Suite and $345/mo per shop for Marketing.
- 5.DetailPro, QuoteIQ and Mobile Tech RX: reviewed July 2026. We could not verify their current prices or feature tiers first-hand, so this page prints none rather than a figure it cannot stand behind.
Every competitor figure above is a dated third-party or published-pricing claim, not a quote. Software pricing moves — check each vendor's own site before you budget, and treat a headline tier as the floor rather than the bill.
For comparison
Where does Service VIN sit?
Flat, per shop, with no per-seat charge: Essentials $79, Growth $199, Command $399 in US dollars, two months free on annual billing, and unlimited team logins from Growth up. The AI calling copilot and the texting agents are part of the plan rather than a metered add-on, which is the line item that usually moves most between a quiet month and a busy one.
If all you want is the phone answered, the AI Front Desk plan is $299/mo and needs no migration at all. Either way, every plan starts with a 14-day free trial of every feature, no credit card — long enough to quote three real jobs and check the margin against what those jobs actually earned. The full ladder is on pricing.
The real bill
What else lands on top of the subscription?
Per-seat fees
The single biggest gap between the sticker and the bill. A shop with an owner, two installers and a front desk is four logins; on a platform charging roughly $29 per extra user, that is about $87/mo on top of the plan before anyone has sent a text.
SMS, and the A2P paperwork
Texting customers from a business number is application-to-person messaging, so it carries carrier registration and per-message costs. Ask what the monthly allotment is, what a message costs above it, and who pays the campaign registration fee.
Payment processing
Card processing is a percentage of everything you take, so on a shop doing serious volume it dwarfs the subscription. The question that matters is whether you are the merchant of record on your own account or being resold a bundled processor.
AI as an add-on
An AI receptionist billed per conversation is cheap in a quiet month and expensive in your best one — which is the wrong way round. Check whether AI is included in the plan or metered, and what happens to the meter as call volume grows.
Setup and onboarding fees
Some vendors offer a one-time onboarding package (OrbisX lists an optional Premium Setup, as of 2026-07-23). Optional is fine; find out whether it is genuinely optional or effectively required to get your data in.
Annual versus monthly
Most published entry prices are the annual-billing rate, and monthly runs above it. If you compare one vendor's annual price to another's monthly, you will pick the wrong one — normalise both to the same billing period first.
Method
How do you compare two quotes fairly?
- 1
Count your real logins
List everyone who needs an account — owner, installers, detailers, front desk — and price every candidate at that number of seats, not at one.
- 2
Normalise the billing period
Convert every published price to the same basis, monthly or annual. Entry prices are usually quoted at the annual rate; monthly is typically higher.
- 3
Add the meters
Add expected SMS above the allotment, any AI receptionist conversations, integration fees and card processing on your real monthly card volume.
- 4
Add the one-time costs
Include onboarding or setup packages and the hours of your own time the migration will take, then spread them across the first year.
- 5
Compare cost per booked job
Divide the annual total by the jobs you actually book. The tool that wins on cost per job is rarely the one with the cheapest headline tier.
Want the per-tool detail instead of the category view? The comparison pages carry the same figures with their sources, one vendor at a time — and the alternatives roundup covers the field in one page.
Questions
Software pricing, answered
How much does detailing software cost per month?
Most shop software for this trade lands between roughly US$80 and US$400 a month per shop, with home-services platforms starting lower (around $39/mo for a single user on Jobber, per its published pricing in July 2026) and repair-shop systems starting higher (Tekmetric publishes $199/mo at entry). Trade-specific flat plans sit in the middle — Tint Wiz publishes $150/month with unlimited users and OrbisX is marketed around US$100/month. What decides your bill inside that range is seats, SMS and add-ons, not the tier name.
Is there free detailing shop software?
Not one a working shop can run on. What the category offers is trials rather than free tiers: Tint Wiz publishes a 30-day trial with no card (reviewed July 2026), and Service VIN gives you 14 days of every feature with no credit card. Free spreadsheets and calendars are genuinely free, and they cost you the thing software is for — knowing what a job made.
Why is PPF and tint software more expensive than a generic booking app?
Because it has to know about material. A booking app schedules an appointment; film software has to track a roll by the linear foot, cost a quote from what that specific roll cost you, hold a bay for a multi-day install, and register a warranty against a VIN. That machinery is what turns a price into a margin — and it is the reason the cheapest tool is often the most expensive way to run a film shop.
What does Service VIN cost?
Service VIN is flat monthly pricing per shop with no per-seat charge — Essentials $79, Growth $199 and Command $399 in US dollars, with two months free on annual billing and unlimited team logins from Growth up. There is also a $299/mo AI Front Desk plan for shops that only want the phone answered. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial of every feature, no credit card required.
Should I pay annually to save money?
Only once you are sure. Annual billing is genuinely cheaper almost everywhere — Service VIN gives two months free on annual, and most published entry prices elsewhere are annual rates — but it also locks in a decision you have made on a demo. Run the trial monthly, put three real jobs through it, and switch to annual after the first month if the software is doing what you bought it for.
Price it against your own three jobs
The only comparison that settles it: quote the three jobs that pay you best and check the margin against what they actually earned. 14 days, every feature, no credit card.