Every platform on Shop Tech Score gets an STS Score from 0 to 10, built from five weighted factors. The weights reflect what actually decides whether software works in a repair shop, and they are the same for every product we cover.
The five factors
Auto-Repair-Specific Fit (25%)
The heaviest weight, because generic business software fails in a shop. We look for digital vehicle inspections, labor guide integration, parts catalog connections, fleet and heavy-duty support, and workflows built around repair orders rather than generic invoices.
Ease of Use (20%)
How fast a service advisor or tech can learn the system and how much clicking a routine job takes. Software the team avoids is wasted money, so this counts as much as raw features.
Features (20%)
Depth and quality across the core workflow: estimates, inspections, parts ordering, scheduling, reporting, and customer communication.
Pricing Value (20%)
What you get for the monthly cost, including the parts of the bill that are easy to miss: setup, training, data migration, and payment processing.
Support (15%)
Response speed, quality of help, onboarding, and training resources, judged heavily on documented owner experiences.
Score tiers
- STS Gold: 9.0 and up. Top of the category.
- STS Silver: 8.0 to 8.9. Strong, with trade-offs worth knowing.
- STS Bronze: 7.0 to 7.9. Works, with real limitations.
Where the data comes from
Every score starts with the same homework: what a platform really costs on both billing modes, how it handles the daily work of a shop, and where owners consistently hit friction. We do not take vendor claims as fact without checking, and we attribute real-world problems to the people who hit them. When pricing or features change materially, we re-check the score.
See the system in action on our reviews, or put two platforms side by side with the comparison tool.