Dealer Engine
The operating layer independent motor dealers have been building in spreadsheets for twenty years — finally as a product.
Independent dealers were pricing, funding, and delivering cars on spreadsheets, WhatsApp, and a wall planner — and losing margin on every one.
Stock, enquiries, pricing and delivery lived in four different places. Funding applications were PDFs. Delivery was a whiteboard. The margin being lost to admin was bigger than the margin being made on the car.
A deal desk and inventory operating layer — stock, pricing, funding, and delivery on one screen, per dealership.
One pipeline, one price engine, one delivery board. Integrated with the funding providers and trade pricing feeds independents actually use. Built to be opened on a showroom laptop and understood in a minute.
Frontend
- Next.js
- React
- Tailwind
Backend
- NestJS
- TypeScript
Database
- Postgres
- Prisma
Infrastructure
- AWS
- Cloudflare
Integrations
- Autotrader
- Close Brothers
- BCA
- Stripe
Two weeks on site with three independent dealers. Every workflow sketched before the first screen.
A pricing model that combines trade feeds, stocking days, and margin targets — the engine that earns its keep daily.
One screen for the enquiry, the pricing, the funding and the delivery. The tab supervisors actually live in.
Direct integrations with the funders independents already use — application to approval in minutes, not days.
Closed pilot with three dealerships. First invoice inside the first month.
Dealer Engine is in paid closed beta with three independent dealerships and routing every deal through one surface.
The early numbers show what we hoped: time-to-deal down by a third, funding acceptance up, and zero enquiries falling into the WhatsApp abyss.
Dealer Engine is a per-dealership monthly SaaS subscription, with a per-funded-deal fee for the funding layer — recurring software margins on top of a real automotive economic unit.
Commercial breakdown
- Model
- SaaS + per-deal fee
- Status
- Closed beta
- Revenue
- Subscription + per-deal
- Ownership
- Co-founder, majority
It's the first tool that looks like our business, not the business a VC thinks we run.
Tom Reid · Proprietor, pilot dealership