A booking system for a car workshop costs €7.90–19.95 a month by published price lists. The formula looks the same as for a barbershop — price times number of staff — but in a workshop it produces the wrong number. The reason is that a workshop’s bottleneck is not always a person. Just as often it is a lift, an alignment rig or a tyre machine.
Prices checked 21 July 2026 from providers’ own published price lists. Pricing can change — always verify current terms with the provider.
Starting prices from published price lists
| Service | Starting price | Basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hallinnoija | €7.90/mo | Per bookable resource — person or equipment | hallinnoija.fi |
| Vello Basic | €7.90/mo | Plus VAT; rate drops with longer billing period | vello.fi |
| Ajas | €16/mo | Plus VAT; below €10/mo the minimum term is 12 months | ajas.fi |
| Evaraus | €19.95/mo | On a 12-month billing period | evaraus.fi |
| Vello Pro | from €48.90/mo | Plus VAT | ohjeet.vello.fi |
On its page aimed at car workshops, Hallinnoija quotes €7.90/month per mechanic and gives an example: €23.70/month for a three-mechanic workshop, with no setup fee, no hidden costs and a 30-day free trial. The same company offers an alternative model priced at 1% of completed bookings only.
Up to here the arithmetic is straightforward. The next part is not.
Equipment is a resource just as a mechanic is
Picture a workshop with three mechanics and one alignment rig. A customer books a wheel alignment online for Tuesday morning. A second customer books the same service at the same time. According to the calendar everything is fine — two mechanics are free. In reality the second car sits in the yard, because there is one rig.
This is a workshop-specific problem that does not exist in a salon calendar. Hallinnoija describes the solution on its own workshop page: a service can be linked to the resources it requires, so booking a wheel alignment automatically reserves the alignment rig for the same slot, and a reserved rig no longer shows as available to others. The company calls this the system’s best feature for workshops.
For pricing, what matters is that equipment is typically counted as its own bookable resource. Three mechanics and two rigs is therefore not €23.70/month but €39.50/month. Still a small sum, but the calculation goes wrong if only people are counted as resources.
A practical rule for comparison: list every bottleneck first — mechanics, lift bays, specialist equipment — then multiply. Also check whether the system can tie equipment to a service at all. If it cannot, the cheapest price is not the cheapest, because double bookings cost more than a monthly fee.
The problem a calendar does not solve: duration is unknown
A barber knows a haircut takes 30 minutes. A workshop knows nothing until the car is on the lift.
This makes online booking harder for a workshop than for other trades, and there is one arrangement that works: sell diagnosis online, not repair. The customer books a fixed slot for fault finding, and the repair slot is agreed once the fault is known. That keeps the calendar honest and stops one large job from wrecking the day.
Fixed-duration jobs are a different matter. Oil changes, tyre work, scheduled servicing and air conditioning service take roughly known amounts of time and suit online booking as they are. For many workshops the sensible start is to open online booking for these only, keeping fault finding on the phone until the rhythm is established.
It is worth noting here that workshop management software and a booking system are not the same thing. Workshop software covers job orders, standard times, parts and invoicing. A booking system covers the calendar and reminders. If you already have workshop software, check what its scheduling does before buying a second system alongside it.
What comes on top of the monthly fee
The same items as in other trades, and Hallinnoija says outright in its own guide that comparing monthly fees alone is misleading:
- SMS at €0.05–0.15 per message
- Online payments at Hallinnoija €9.90/month plus 2.5% + €0.39 per completed transaction
- Card terminal €5.90/month
- Percentage alternative: 1% of completed bookings
For a workshop the percentage model is worth considering for a different reason than for a salon. The average invoice is large but transactions are few, and some of them are major repairs. A percentage of a big collision repair is not the same as a percentage of an oil change. Run both models on your own average invoice before choosing.
What the calendar does not fix
The automotive trade has a structural problem no booking system solves: the customer cannot judge the quality of the work. They cannot see whether a part was replaced or cleaned, and they do not know whether the price was fair. So the choice gets made on other grounds — recommendations, reviews, how the business looks online.
That is why a workshop’s website does a different job from a salon’s. In a salon, the site removes friction from booking. In a workshop, it builds trust before booking: who does the work, what it costs, how the price is formed, what the warranty covers. A transparent price list online is a stronger argument for a workshop than most advertising.
Website prices are one-off: single-page €400–900 plus VAT, multi-page €700–2,500 plus VAT (WebFin, 25 June 2026), with booking €2,000–6,000 (Poickeus, 2026), with integrations €3,000–10,000 (Nerot.fi, 2025). Maintenance €35–50/month, domain €10–30/year. Our own packages are Starter €790, Business €1,290 and Premium €2,490, VAT 25.5% included; the agency prices exclude VAT. A comparison is on our comparison page, and the background to the figures is in our website cost guide.
Who this does not suit
If your calendar is full three weeks out and work arrives purely through recommendations, online booking will not bring you more of it. It can even get in the way, if you open the calendar and fill it with the wrong kind of job. In that case the sensible investment is a clear one-page price list, not a booking system.
The investment justifies itself when you compete with a franchised dealer workshop in the same town, do plenty of fixed-duration jobs, and want to fill quiet mornings. Picture a workshop with a €70 hourly rate and two empty lift slots a week: that is roughly €140 a week, or over €7,000 a year of unsold capacity. Against that, €23.70/month is a small number — provided the booking system actually fills those mornings rather than just moving phone calls to another channel.
See an example on our demo sites or run your own numbers in the calculator.