The DMS is mandated. The tools stacked on top of it are not.
A dealership's core system is chosen for it, by the manufacturer or by long habit. Everything layered above that core was a separate purchase, with its own per-user price, its own contract term and its own renewal date.
What sits on top of the DMS
List your own. Most stores find more subscriptions than anyone on the management team could name from memory.
Per user, per rooftop, per contract
Sales floors turn over, and seats have a habit of outliving the people they were bought for. Unless someone audits the user list against payroll, a store pays for logins nobody has used since the spring.
Groups feel a second multiplier. Pricing is commonly per rooftop, so the same tool is bought several times and the customer who shops two of your stores exists as two unrelated records.
The contracts are staggered. Each tool was signed in a different month with a different term, which means there is never a single moment when the whole stack is up for review. Overlap survives for years that way: two products that both send follow-up texts, two that both score leads.
What we rebuild around the core system
- A CRM that fits your sales processLeads, customers, vehicles of interest and every touch, using the stages your desk actually works in.
- Follow-up that does not rely on memoryEach new lead routed to a person at once, with reminders until contact is made and a record of every attempt.
- Chat and web forms into the same queueA website conversation becomes a lead with the transcript attached, not an email to be retyped.
- Trade-in lead captureThe customer's vehicle details captured as a lead. The valuation figure still comes from your data provider.
- A manager's viewUntouched leads, overdue follow-ups and appointments set, by salesperson and by store.
What we leave alone
- The DMS and anything the manufacturer requiresMandated systems, certified website programmes and brand compliance tools stay exactly as they are.
- Valuation and vehicle data providersBook values and vehicle history are their data. We display it under your licence.
- Credit and finance portalsApplications and lender decisions run through the lenders' and bureaus' own systems.
- Inventory listing sitesClassified sites are an audience, and their leads are brought into your queue.
- Card processing and phone carriersPayments and text delivery both ride on networks that charge their own rates.
Start with the overlap, not the replacement
Before replacing anything, write down the job each tool does and who opens it each week. It takes a morning. Most stores discover two or three products doing the same job for different departments, and at least one that nobody opens at all.
That list is also what we ask for first. It tells us which tools can be folded into one system you own and which exist because of a manufacturer programme. Whether data can flow to and from the DMS depends on what your DMS provider permits, so we find that out before quoting and tell you plainly which steps would remain manual.
Questions dealers ask
Can you connect to our DMS?
That depends on your DMS provider. Some offer approved ways to read and write data, and some do not. We establish what is possible before we quote, and where a connection is not allowed we design around it rather than promise something the provider will block.
Our manufacturer requires certain tools. Would we fall out of compliance?
No. Anything a manufacturer programme requires stays in place and is outside the scope from the start. We replace only the products you chose yourselves.
How does pricing work for a group with several rooftops?
Our price does not count users, and we quote once we have seen what the group pays today across all stores. A shared system also means a customer who visits two of your stores is one record.
How do we switch without dropping leads mid-month?
The new system runs beside the old one and takes a copy of incoming leads first. The old CRM remains the system of record until your managers have worked from the new one for long enough to trust it.
From the blog, for car dealerships
- What SaaS auto-renewal means and how to cancel in timeSeptember 25, 2026 · Auto-renewal rolls your software contract into a new term unless you give notice. How to find the notice date, calendar it and cancel in writing.
- How to get your data out of CRM softwareSeptember 21, 2026 · The four ways data leaves a CRM, what flat exports leave behind (notes, attachments, history, record links), and a test export checklist for dealerships.
Keep reading
Send us the stack on top of your DMS
Each tool, what it costs per user or per month, and which ones your team opens daily.
Hiro costs about a tenth of what you pay now, quoted against your own bill. Hosting, fixes and changes included, and no per-seat fees.