Compare UK Garage Management Software (2026)
An honest side-by-side. Features as published by each vendor or reviewed.
Most “best garage software” lists are written either by the vendor themselves or by an affiliate site that gets paid to put one product first. This page isn’t that. We’re going to walk through the main UK garage management systems, including ours, and tell you what each one does well, where each costs more than its headline suggests, and where the real differences live.
If you’re thinking about Torqueflow, we’d rather you choose us with eyes open than choose us by accident.
This page is the head-to-head comparison. For a plain-English primer, read our guide to garage software; for a ranked shortlist, see the best UK garage management software, ranked. Torqueflow itself is garage management software built for UK independents.
The vendors we cover
Core garage workflow
The basics. This table was rebuilt on 2026-08-31 by going back to each vendor’s own website and checking every cell, because the version before it said “Yes” in almost every box and a bare “Yes” reads as “included, at no extra cost”. We could not stand behind that for most of these.
How to read the cells:
- Included means the vendor’s own site states it is in the base subscription.
- A tier name means it is stated, but only from that tier up.
- Add-on means it is stated as costing extra.
- Claimed, no detail means the vendor says they do it in marketing copy but publishes nothing about tier or cost.
- Not published means we could not find it stated on the vendor’s own site. That is not the same as the vendor not having it. Ask them, and ask what it costs.
Three things this exercise turned up, and one of them was ours.
We had “Yes” against eVHC and video capture in our own column. Neither is true. Torqueflow has findings with photos, reusable checklists and severity-badged quotes that customers approve in the portal, which covers most of what a garage wants from a health check, but there is no branded VHC module and video walkarounds are not built. Both cells are corrected above.
Multi-location was the worst of the rest. We had a flat “Yes” for all six. In fact MyGarageCRM gates it to their top tier, GarageRevs does not mention it anywhere, and TechMan and AutoChain both say they do it without publishing what it costs. If you run two sites, that is a question to take into every demo you book, ours included.
And check AutoChain’s add-ons against their site yourself rather than against this page. When we checked on 1 September 2026, parts and tyre management were in their core plan, and the only published add-ons were SMS and Haynes Pro.
AI features
Where the gap genuinely is wide. Torqueflow is the only platform on this list with integrated voice AI, integrated AI on every messaging channel, and AI invoice scanning shipping today.
The closest UK alternatives for AI voice are standalone AI receptionist services like Electronic Receptionist or Lineshift. Those are separate products that sit alongside your garage management software: two systems, two logins, data living in two places. Of the systems on this page, Torqueflow is the only one where the AI receptionist is part of the same system that runs your workshop.
Customer-facing features
The hygiene-credits philosophy: where vendors split into two camps
This is the comparison angle most buying guides skip. UK GMS has split into two distinct philosophies on how to handle the hygiene tasks every garage runs daily - DVLA lookups, MOT data refresh, SMS reminders, mailshots:
Philosophy A · Hygiene included
The operations that have no real per-event cost are bundled into the subscription.
You can run your day without watching a credit meter.
Philosophy B · Hygiene metered
You pay credits or per-event fees for routine lookups, reminders, and mailshots on top of the subscription.
The headline price is rarely what the bill ends up at.
The principle behind Torqueflow's model
Credits exist, and we use them too, but only where there's a real per-use cost behind the work. Every voice call, every AI WhatsApp reply and every invoice extraction is real AI work paid to AI providers. A Haynes Pro vehicle lookup and the Xero connection carry a real cost as well, so they draw on credits too. Looking up a registration on DVLA is essentially free at the platform level, so we don't charge credits for it. Sending an SMS reminder that a staff member typed is essentially free at the platform level, so we don't charge credits for it. We charge credits where the cost is real and we don't where it isn't.
For more on how Torqueflow's credits work in practice, see What are AI credits? and How credits are consumed by feature.
Integrations
Pricing model and contract
How a real garage's bill works out
Torqueflow is £249 a month plus VAT, or £2,490 a year, whatever the size of your garage. There's no upfront fee, no per-user licence and no add-on module. The subscription includes 700 AI credits a month, plus your phone number, and usage beyond that is metered.
We don't reproduce other vendors' prices here, because they change and a page like this goes out of date the day after it's checked. Ask each vendor for a written quote for your real team, bay count and SMS volume, including any upfront fee and any credits, and compare that all-in figure against ours.
Where each vendor genuinely wins
Torqueflow is the wrong choice when
The other side of the same page. If any of these is a hard requirement, buy something else. We'd rather you found out here than three weeks into a trial.
- You sell cars as well as fix them. There's no forecourt or vehicle sales module. It's intended, it isn't built, and "not yet" is the honest answer rather than "coming soon".
- You run a loyalty or membership scheme. No loyalty module and no recurring membership billing. If your business model is 200 customers on a monthly service plan, we can't run that for you today.
- You want fault codes read off the car. The AI diagnostic assistant reasons from symptoms, photos and job history. It doesn't plug into the vehicle and it doesn't replace your diagnostic kit.
- You work on a make whose manufacturer wiring data is thin. Wiring diagrams are in, but how much the manufacturer holds swings wildly between makes, and no software vendor can conjure data the manufacturer never published. Ask us to check your top three makes before you commit.
- Your accounts live in Sage or QuickBooks. Xero is the live two-way integration and it syncs in under a minute. Sage, QuickBooks and FreeAgent are on the roadmap, which is not the same as being in the product.
- AutoData is the reference your technicians reach for. Torqueflow has Haynes Pro built in, but no AutoData. TechMan and Garage Hive both carry it.
- A long track record is what reassures you. Torqueflow is new in 2026 and growing. TechMan and Garage Hive have far larger user bases and years of case studies behind them. The scale gap is real, and no feature table is going to settle it for you.
- You want unlimited AI at a fixed price. Every voice call and every invoice scan is computational work with a real cost behind it, so usage past your monthly allowance is metered. Bundling it would mean charging every garage the heavy user's rate.
- You're outside the UK. VAT treatment, MOT rules, DVLA and DVSA data are all built around UK garages, and UK independents are who we sell to.
- Your history has to come with you and you're not on TechMan. We have importers for TechMan and MAM Autowork Online, and Autowork brings customers and vehicles only. From anything else there's no import. Registrations fill in their vehicle details from DVLA as you type them, and we'll look at what your current system exports and tell you straight what can come across, but that's a conversation, not a promise.
- You want the AI to put bookings in the diary with nobody checking. The AI offers callers real times from your diary, and a member of your team confirms the slot. Customers who book online through the widget or the portal do book themselves in.
- You want a report showing what every job made. Parts carry a cost price and a sell price, labour comes off your labour codes at your rate and technician time is logged against the job, so the figures come out as an export instead of a retype. There's no job-profitability report.
- Everyone needs every screen in Polish. The staff app and portal are in Polski, but a few screens, the PDFs, the phone calls and most customer emails are still in English.
Frequently asked
The questions that come up.
Anything else, drop us a line - we’ll answer plainly. No “contact sales for pricing”.
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