Two shops a mile apart get quoted wildly different numbers for work that sounds identical over the phone. Tell the tool below what you need, how tight your market is, and how big the shop is, and it gives you the band an honest provider should land in.
Run the free tool ↓Three taps: what you need, how competitive your market is, and how big the shop is. The band updates as you tap, with no email wall and nothing you pick sent anywhere.
Prefer a full page? Open the What Should You Pay? tool here.
Three questions go in, a spending band comes out. Each means something particular for a shop.
Out comes a one-time band, a monthly band, or both, plus a fixed red-flag list every visitor sees. The general what should you pay tool explains the baselines.
The band matters less than what a real quote looks like beside it.
Inside the band, with shop work named, is a good sign. Honest scope sounds like a page for each repair you want more of instead of one services page with thirty line items, pages for the towns your cars come from, and a review ask that goes out with the keys.
Far under the band is the tell this trade gets burned by. At that price nobody is writing about your diagnostic fee, your warranty, or the makes your techs handle. You get bulk directory submissions and a stock article on the signs you need new brakes.
Far over can be legitimate, but it has to be named. Store groups, fleet accounts, and metros where dealers advertise hard cost more. Ask what the extra buys.
One tell specific to this trade: a proposal that never mentions your Google Business Profile. A driver watching a temperature gauge climb opens the map, not a page of blue links. That is local SEO and Google Business Profile work.
Both are invented to show how the tool behaves. Neither is a client, and neither number is a quote.
Say a two-bay independent in a mid-size city wants a new site. The owner taps A new website, Mid-size city, and Solo or small local, and the tool displays $5,000 to $12,500 as a one-time band. That has to cover a page each for brakes, engine diagnostics, transmission, AC, and tires and alignment, photos of the real bays and techs, tap-to-call that works with one thumb, and written answers to the diagnostic fee and warranty questions callers ask. Tap The whole package instead and the headline becomes $5,000 to $12,500 to build, then $3,500 to $8,400 a month, as the monthly line picks up AI search alongside SEO.
Imagine a three-store group in that same market, sites already built. They tap SEO / Local SEO, Mid-size city, and Multi-location or franchise, and the tool displays $3,400 to $7,800 a month. That is the multi-location answer working: three profiles, three review streams, and pages written so the stores stop competing for the same town. What it cannot know is that only store three has a transmission bench, or that a fleet contract deserves its own page.
A number only helps if the work behind it is right. For auto repair, that is a short list.
Assistants are part of the same question now, because drivers ask them who to trust with a make. Google sells ads in and around those AI answers, so that screen carries paid inventory. What no budget buys is the organic answer itself: which shops get named comes out of what an assistant can read and verify about you. That is what AI search work does.
Since the tool sits on our site, here is our side of it. A custom build runs $3,500 to $12,000+ one-time. Ongoing SEO or Local SEO runs $1,500 to $3,500 a month for most businesses, and $3,500 to $7,500 a month in competitive metros or for multi-location work. Custom tools price separately: calculators from $600, most workhorse tools $1,500 to $4,000, Tool Care $75 a month per tool. That is how a financing calculator lands on a big-ticket repair page. Everything is month-to-month, and you own the site, the content, and the accounts.
For detail written for this trade, read what a website costs a shop and what SEO costs a shop, or the wider guide on SEO cost. To grade a site you already have, the report card for shops is one of more than 50 free tools in our tools library, none behind an email wall.
No. It is a band built from three broad answers, and honest projects land outside it. A real number needs scope: how many repair pages, which towns, whether you want online scheduling, and the shape of your current site. Call or text (407) 694-2055.
Count everyone a driver can choose, not only shops like yours. Add the dealer service departments, the national chains, the tire stores that do brakes, and the mobile mechanics. If drivers have real options within a short drive, mid-size is the honest answer.
Because those plans are automated. Bulk directory submissions and one stock article do not build pages about your diagnostic fee, your warranty, or the makes you specialize in, and they do nothing for the profile that feeds your phone. The tool flags rock-bottom monthly SEO for that reason.
No. It does not visit your site, read your Google Business Profile, or count your reviews. It is three buttons and arithmetic running in your browser, and nothing you tap gets sent anywhere. For a real look, run the website report card for auto repair shops.
The tool prices it as its own monthly line and adds it to SEO under the whole package. Whether it is worth it yet depends on how many drivers in your market ask an assistant who to trust. Google sells ads in and around AI answers, so that screen carries paid inventory. Money does not buy which shops the organic answer names.
Probably the monthly one. Plenty of shop sites have decent bones and need repair pages, speed work, and a profile somebody actually maintains. Others sit on a page builder that cannot be made fast, where rebuilding costs less than fighting it. An audit tells you which.
What Should You Pay?: full tool page and methodology · Marketing for auto repair shops · SEO cost for auto repair shops · AI Visibility Checker for Auto Repair Shops · Website Report Card for Auto Repair Shops · All free tools
Tell us the bays, the towns you pull from, and the repairs you want more of, and you get honest scope plus a free mockup or audit before you spend a dollar. Orlando-based, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008.
Book a free consultation → Or call/text directly: (407) 694-2055Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.