Scheduling Software for Mobile Mechanics
A wrong-parts trip is not a delay, it’s a lost day — you drove out, diagnosed for free, and now the job is a second appointment. Cartoply captures the vehicle and the symptom at booking, collects the diagnostic fee before the slot confirms, and keeps the van’s day inside one territory.
You can’t quote a job you haven’t seen, and you can’t see it over voicemail
Every mobile repair starts with an information problem. "My car is making a noise" is not a job you can price, parts-order, or time-box. It could be a 40-minute wheel bearing or a four-hour timing job you shouldn’t take in a driveway at all. So the booking becomes a phone call, the phone call becomes a callback, and by the time you actually know the year and the engine code the customer has already called somebody else.
Then there’s the parts trip. You get to the address with pads and rotors for a 2016 model and it turns out to be the 2017 refresh with the different caliper. That’s an hour to the supply house and back, or a return visit, either of which eats the margin on a job you already quoted. The fix is not being smarter on the phone — it’s never taking a booking without the year, make, model, engine, and ideally the VIN attached to it.
And the access problem nobody asks about. A car parked on a busy street, in a stacked apartment lot, or nose-in inside a one-car garage is a different job than one on a flat driveway, and sometimes it’s not a job at all. Cartoply solves all three at the same moment: the customer answers the questions, pays the diagnostic fee, and the appointment lands on the calendar of the van that covers their ZIP.
What Cartoply does for mobile mechanics
Vehicle intake that makes the job quotable
Add up to ten custom questions per job type: year, make, model, trim, engine, mileage, VIN, the symptom in the customer’s own words, when it started, whether the vehicle currently starts and runs, whether the check engine light is on, any codes they already pulled, and a photo or short video of the noise. The answers land on the appointment and in your notification email, so you order parts and set expectations before the van moves.
Diagnostic fee collected before the slot confirms
Attach a diagnostic fee — or a deposit against a quoted repair — to any job type and collect it through Stripe or PayPal at booking. Cartoply authorizes the payment first and captures only once the slot is secured, so nobody is charged for a booking that lost a race. The fee does two jobs: it pays for the drive, and it quietly filters the caller who wanted a free opinion on whether to buy a car.
Territory routing so the van isn’t crossing town twice
Draw each tech’s coverage on a map by ZIP code, city, radius, or a shape you draw around the corridor you actually work. A customer enters their address and sees only the availability of a van that covers it. Jobs cluster instead of scattering, which is the difference between four stops with 90 minutes of driving and four stops with three hours of it.
Job types with honest durations and buffers
A diagnostic is not a brake job and a brake job is not a fluid service. Each job type gets its own length, price, and questions, so the slot a customer takes is the slot you actually need. Set a buffer after every appointment for drive time, cleanup, and the parts run, and Cartoply enforces it in both directions — the next window a customer sees already accounts for getting the van there.
A 24/7 booking page that answers "can you come Tuesday"
You compete with the shop down the road on convenience, and convenience is decided at 9pm when someone’s alternator died and they’re comparing three phone numbers. A booking link answers the only question that matters — when can you be here — instead of sending them to voicemail. Turn on instant booking and the page shows a flat list of next available times so they can take one in two taps.
More than one van, routed without a dispatcher
Running two or three techs? Give each one a territory and Cartoply assigns each booking to whoever covers that address and is actually free, checked against their live Google Calendar or Outlook. Overlapping zones rotate fairly instead of piling onto whoever happened to be idle. If someone specializes — diesel, EV, European — route those job types to just those techs.
Who at a mobile repair business uses Cartoply
Owner-operators
You are the tech, the service writer, and the person whose phone rings while you’re under a car with both hands dirty. A booking page absorbs the entire intake: the customer picks a job type, answers the vehicle and symptom questions, pays the diagnostic fee, and gets a confirmation with your arrival window — none of it interrupting the job you’re on. Your radius, your hours, your minimum notice, and your daily job cap are enforced by the page instead of by you saying no on the phone.
Start on the free plan. There’s nothing to pay until you put a second van on the road.
Multi-van shops
Set territories once and inbound work distributes itself. New tech starts Monday? Assign a coverage area and they’re taking bookings that afternoon. Because job types carry their own durations, the schedule you look at on Sunday night is a schedule that can actually be driven, not an optimistic list.
Pro runs $7/seat/month — $28 for a four-van operation, less than one wrong-parts trip.
Whoever answers the phone
Routine bookings, diagnostic fees, reminders, and reschedules happen without a person. What’s left is the call that actually needs judgment: the customer describing something that shouldn’t be attempted in a driveway, the fleet manager who wants six vehicles on one visit, the person who really needs a tow before they need you.
See it set up for a mobile repair van
We’ll configure a diagnostic job type with a fee, full vehicle intake questions, and your territory — in 15 minutes.
Book a 15-minute demoHow to set up online booking for your mobile mechanic business
Most mobile mechanics go from signup to a live booking page that collects a diagnostic fee in under 30 minutes.
- 1
Create your Cartoply account
Sign up free — no credit card required. Add your business and invite any other techs.
- 2
Connect your calendar
Connect Google Calendar or Outlook. Cartoply reads live availability, so a parts run or a personal appointment never gets booked over.
- 3
Draw your territories
Map each van’s coverage by ZIP code, city, radius, or a custom shape around the corridor you work. Customers outside it never see open slots, and inside it every booking routes to the right tech.
- 4
Create your job types
Mobile diagnostic, brake job, oil and fluid service, battery and alternator replacement, starter, pre-purchase inspection — each with its own duration, price, and drive-time buffer.
- 5
Add your vehicle intake questions
Year, make, model, engine, mileage, VIN, the symptom, when it started, whether it starts and runs, any codes, and where the vehicle is parked — driveway, street, garage, or apartment lot.
- 6
Turn on the diagnostic fee
Connect Stripe or PayPal and set a fee or deposit per job type. The slot confirms only after the payment is authorized, and your cancellation cutoff decides what happens to it.
- 7
Publish your booking link
Put it on your website, your Google Business Profile, your truck, and every text you send. Customers book 24/7 and Cartoply routes each job to the van that covers them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best scheduling software for a mobile mechanic business?
It depends which problem you’re solving. If you need a full shop management system — repair orders, parts catalogs and ordering, labor guides, invoicing, and technician payroll — that’s what Shopmonkey, Tekmetric, and Mitchell 1 are built for, and broader field platforms like Jobber, Housecall Pro, Workiz, and ServiceTitan cover dispatch and invoicing for mobile trades generally. If your problem is the front door — customers calling instead of booking, no vehicle details until you arrive, diagnostic fees you never collect, and a van crossing the metro twice a day — that’s the booking and intake layer, and that’s Cartoply. It puts a 24/7 booking page in front of your business, captures year/make/model/VIN and the symptom, authorizes the diagnostic fee before the slot confirms, and routes each job to the van covering that address. Plenty of shops run Cartoply for booking alongside a shop system for the repair order.
How do I get the year, make, model, and VIN before I drive out?
Add them as custom intake questions on each job type — up to ten per type, with short text, dropdowns, and required fields. A typical mobile setup asks year, make, model, trim and engine, mileage, VIN, the symptom described in the customer’s own words, when it started, whether the vehicle starts and runs, whether the check engine light is on, and any stored codes they already read. The answers are stored on the appointment, emailed to you on booking, and visible in the dashboard, so you can order parts, adjust the duration, or call back and decline before the day is spent.
Can I charge a diagnostic fee when someone books online?
Yes. Connect Stripe or PayPal and attach a diagnostic fee — or a deposit against a quoted repair — to any job type. The customer pays when they book, and Cartoply authorizes first and captures only once the slot is actually secured, so a customer who loses a race for the same window is never charged. It covers the drive, and it changes who books: people shopping for a free opinion tend not to put a card down, which is exactly the filter you want on a mobile calendar.
How do I stop customers outside my service area from booking?
Territories. Draw the area you actually serve as ZIP codes, cities, a radius around where the van starts the day, or a custom shape following the highway corridor you work. When a customer enters an address outside it, no slots are offered — so you never have the awkward "that’s an hour each way" conversation after the job is already on the calendar. If you run multiple vans, each gets its own territory and bookings route accordingly, with overlapping zones rotating fairly between techs.
Can I offer different appointment lengths for a diagnostic versus a brake job?
Yes, and you should. Every job type is its own appointment with its own duration, price, buffer, and questions. A mobile diagnostic might be 60 minutes, an oil and fluid service 45, front brakes 2 hours, a battery and alternator job 90 minutes, and a pre-purchase inspection 75 with a completely different question set about the seller and the listing. Because the length is attached to what the customer selects, the schedule reflects reality — and drive-time buffers after each job keep the next customer’s window honest.
Can customers book same-day or next-day mobile repair online?
Yes. Set a minimum notice — say two or four hours — and a cap on jobs per day, and everything inside those limits is bookable without a phone call. Turn on instant booking and the page drops the calendar grid for a flat list of the next available times grouped by day, which is what someone with a dead battery at 9pm actually wants to see. You compete with shops on convenience, and a page that answers "can you come Tuesday" at midnight beats a voicemail box every time.
Ready to stop diagnosing for free?
Start free. No credit card required.
Set your diagnostic fee, draw your territory, and put paid, fully-detailed jobs on the calendar — in under 30 minutes.
14-day free trial — no credit card required. $7/seat/month after that.