Garage software questions, answered

Yes. The Solo plan is free forever with no card required. Paid plans start with a 14-day free trial, again with no card upfront. You only pay if you decide to continue after the trial. Cancel during the trial and nothing is charged.

Yes. Autera works on iPad (any model running iPadOS 15 or later) and Android tablets (Android 9 or later). The web portal works on any modern browser including desktop and mobile. Technicians typically use the tablet app on the shop floor; managers and reception staff usually use the web portal.

Autera has a built-in setup wizard that walks you through your first job end to end. Most garages are fully operational within 30 minutes. If you get stuck, email hello@getautera.com or send us a WhatsApp. Our UK team replies, usually within an hour during business hours.

Autera requires an internet connection to function. For in-progress jobs, modern tablets will retain local state temporarily so you can finish what you started. We recommend keeping a mobile data connection or 4G hotspot available as a backup. If your broadband goes down, you can hotspot from your phone and keep working.

No setup fee and no minimum contract. You pay monthly, or save roughly 20% by paying annually. Cancel any time. We do not charge an exit fee, and we do not lock your data.

Yes. Cancel from your billing page in under a minute. No phone calls, no retention teams. Your access continues until the end of the current billing period and you can export everything you put in. Once cancelled, your data remains available to download for 60 days before it is removed.

Solo is free forever but capped: 20 jobs, 20 invoices, 20 quotes per month, 20 new customers a month, and 1 user, plus unlimited MOT history lookups and fair-use DVLA reg lookups. Starter (£29/month) lifts those caps: unlimited customers, invoices, quotes, and DVLA reg lookups, 100 jobs per month, 3 mechanics, the analytics dashboard, document and photo filing, and branded PDF invoices.

Per mechanic - and admin users are free. Solo includes 1 mechanic (you), Starter 3 mechanics + unlimited free admin users, Workshop 6 mechanics + unlimited free admin users, and Multi-Bay is unlimited on both. Office staff (managers, parts desk, accountant, receptionist) don't cost anything on paid plans. See the full breakdown on our pricing page.

Yes. Pay annually and save approximately 20% versus monthly billing. The annual price equates to roughly 10 months of monthly fees on Starter, Workshop and Multi-Bay plans. Solo is free either way.

You type a UK registration plate and Autera queries the DVLA Vehicle Enquiry Service in real time. Make, model, colour, fuel type, engine size, and year fill in automatically. Each lookup takes about 2 seconds. MOT history is unlimited on every plan; DVLA reg lookups are fair-use on the free Solo plan (a generous monthly allowance) and unlimited on Starter and above.

Yes. The Autera Workshop plan (£79/month) includes ADAS calibration certificate generation. You can create PAS 1880-compliant certificates, file them against the job, and email them directly to the customer with attached photos. Technician IMI numbers are captured on each certificate.

Yes. Multiple users can be logged in simultaneously across web and tablet. Starter supports 3 mechanics + unlimited admin users, Workshop supports 6 mechanics + unlimited admin users, and Multi-Bay supports unlimited on both. Mechanics clock on and off jobs; admins see live shift status and time per job.

Yes, on the Workshop plan and above. Autera tracks the MOT expiry date for every vehicle you record and sends automatic reminders 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before expiry, by email, with your branding. The reminder workflow drives noticeable repeat-business uplift in the garages we have piloted with.

Yes. Upload your logo, set your colour and add your VAT details once, and every invoice, quote and ADAS certificate goes out branded. PDFs are signed off the workshop name, not "Autera". Customers see your business, not ours.

Yes. Customers can pay invoices online by card via a Stripe-powered checkout link sent by email. Funds settle to your Stripe account next working day. There is no per-transaction fee from Autera, just standard Stripe rates (1.5% + 20p for UK cards at the time of writing).

Yes. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. We run automated daily encrypted backups stored separately from the primary database, with 30 days of retention. Autera is hosted on UK infrastructure. We do not share your data with third parties except the processors listed in our Privacy Policy (Stripe for payments, Firebase for authentication).

Yes. You can export your customer list, vehicle list, job history and invoices at any time from your account settings as CSV or JSON. We believe your data belongs to you, not us. After you cancel, your data remains available to export for 60 days before it is permanently deleted.

All Autera customer data is stored on UK-based servers. We do not transfer your customer or operational data outside the UK or EEA, except where required by named third-party processors (Stripe, Firebase) under appropriate data transfer safeguards. See our Privacy Policy for full details, including each processor and their role.

Yes. We comply with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are the data processor for the data you put in; you are the data controller. We have a documented data retention policy, a data export tool, and a deletion process. We are happy to sign a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) on request.

Yes. We offer a free data migration service. Export your customers, vehicles, and job history from your current software and send it to us. We will import it into your new Autera account, usually within 24 hours. See our ServiceM8 migration guide for the full step-by-step.

No. Your existing software (ServiceM8 or otherwise) keeps running until you cancel it. Autera is provisioned in parallel during the trial. There is no maintenance window, no downtime, and no day where neither system is available.

Photos are not part of the standard ServiceM8 export, so they do not migrate by default. If you need historic job photos transferred we can quote a separate manual transfer, or you can carry them across by exporting them via ServiceM8 manually. New photos taken in Autera are filed automatically against the job.

Yes. Autera integrates with both Xero and QuickBooks Online. Once connected, invoices sync automatically so your accounts stay up to date without double entry. The integration is available on Starter plan and above.

Email and WhatsApp support, replied to by an actual UK person, usually within an hour during UK business hours and within one business day outside them. We do not outsource. We do not have a "tier 1" team. The person who replies is the person who fixes it.

You can customise branding, invoice templates, job statuses, technician roles, and the document folders for each customer. We do not offer fully bespoke development. If your workflow needs something genuinely missing, email us. About a third of the features in Autera shipped because a UK garage owner asked for it.