Shortlist

The best way to take card payments as a mobile mechanic

One of these companies publishes a card reader you can hand to a customer. The rest send a link. That is most of the decision.

Taking a card is not the hard part any more. Any payments company will sell you a reader and an app this afternoon and you will be charging cards by Friday. If that is the whole question, you do not need anything on this page.

The reason mechanics end up taking the card inside their job software instead is quieter: the payment lands on the job. You know which invoice it settled, what is still outstanding, and who owes you for a job you finished three weeks ago. A payment taken in a separate app is money in the bank and a reconciliation problem in the evening.

So this page ranks seven job systems by how they actually collect the money, starting with the one thing most of them cannot do at all. Fixty publishes this page and is third, because Fixty has no card reader and does not claim one.

How this list was sorted

  1. 1

    Can you take a card in person, at the vehicle, with hardware the vendor sells?

    First because it is the sharpest divide in the set. Exactly one of these seven publishes a card reader of their own. Everyone else, including Fixty, is asking the customer to type their card into a link, which works fine right up until you are standing next to somebody holding a physical card and no phone signal.

  2. 2

    Can the customer pay from a link, without making an account?

    The link is the whole mechanism for six of the seven, so how it is described matters. Two vendors say plainly that the payment request goes out by text; the others describe portals, hubs and touchpoints, which is a longer walk for the person paying.

  3. 3

    Does the payment ride on the same document as the job?

    This is the actual reason to pay a monthly subscription rather than using a standalone reader. If the payment does not settle the invoice inside the same system, you have bought a card machine with extra steps.

  4. 4

    What else can the customer pay with?

    Bank transfer matters on a large repair bill where the card fee is real money. Phone wallets matter because half your customers no longer carry the card itself. One vendor publishes each of those and the rest say nothing we could quote.

  5. 5

    What does the platform cost, and on which basis?

    Last, and read the entries carefully. This is the subscription, not the processing rate, and the two are not the same bill.

What is not on this list

The biggest omission on this page is deliberate. A standalone card reader from a payments company, with its own app, is a completely legitimate answer to this question and is what a lot of mobile mechanics actually use. We hold no sourced dataset on those products, so they are named nowhere and ranked nowhere, rather than being dismissed with a sentence somebody wrote from memory.

Cash, bank transfer arranged by text, and the payment apps people already have on their phones are also real answers and are also not ranked here, for the same reason.

Nothing on this page ranks processing rates, because the sourced dataset behind it has no cell for them. It records what these companies publish about features, plans and subscription prices, not what anybody charges per transaction, and the same gap applies to Fixty. See the section below before you treat any subscription price here as the cost of taking a card.

1

Shopmonkey

Shopmonkey is the only company in this set whose own FAQ describes both halves of the problem: collect payments in person with a Shopmonkey card reader, or remotely by sending the customer a secure payment link by text or email.

For a mobile mechanic that first clause is the whole ranking. A customer standing at the driver door with a card in their hand is the easiest money in the trade, and six of these seven products have nothing to say about it.

Right for

A mobile operation that wants to tap a physical card at the vehicle and still be able to send a link to whoever is paying from an office somewhere else.

Wrong for

Anyone choosing on subscription cost. Shopmonkey publishes the highest entry figure on this page and it assumes their annual discount.

How the money is collected

Yes

“You can collect payments in person with a Shopmonkey card reader, or remotely by sending your customer a secure payment link via text or email.”

shopmonkey.io/faq, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

$215 a month, their starting figure, which their own pricing page ties to annual pricing discounts.

“Simple pricing for auto repair and shop management software. Shopmonkey offers plans starting from just $215/month with annual pricing discounts.”

shopmonkey.io/pricing, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, month to month

Not recorded in our data yet. That is not the same as the two prices being equal: open their pricing page with the billing toggle set to monthly and read it there.

Try before you buy

Demo walkthrough, about 30 minutes

“See how Shopmonkey fits your shop in a quick, no-pressure walkthrough.”

shopmonkey.io/pricing, read August 29, 2026

2

Tekmetric

Tekmetric publishes the most specific payment sentence in the set after Shopmonkey: their payments product processes credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Text to Pay. That is criteria two and four answered in one line, with the wallets named rather than implied.

It is auto repair software, so the payment settles a repair order rather than a generic job, and their pricing page says every shop gets full access with no charge per user and none per repair order.

Right for

A repair business whose customers pay with a phone rather than a card, and who wants Text to Pay as a named feature rather than something you assemble from a payment link.

Wrong for

Taking a card in person, which nothing on their site describes, and anyone who wants to try before buying: their FAQ says demos and self guided tours rather than trials.

How the money is collected

Yes

“Tekmetric Payments can process credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Text-to-Pay.”

tekmetric.com/feature/payment-processing, read August 29, 2026

What the subscription buys

Yes

“We don’t charge by user or by repair order. Every shop gets full access to Tekmetric. Unlimited users, unlimited RO's, unlimited support, no hidden fees.”

tekmetric.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

$179 a month, their rate when billed annually, which is the cheapest monthly figure they publish.

“Tekmetric starts at $179 per month when billed annually.”

tekmetric.com/ai-info, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, month to month

Try before you buy

Free demo and self guided tours. No free trial.

“Tekmetric offers free demos but not free trials. However, you can test drive Tekmetric 24/7 with our self-guided tours.”

tekmetric.com/faq, read August 29, 2026

3

Fixty

This is us

Fixty is third on its own page and the reason is criterion one: there is no Fixty card reader. Payment runs through Stripe on the same link the customer already opened to approve the estimate, so the money settles the job it belongs to without anybody re-keying anything, and Starter is $99/mo published on a month to month basis.

What this page will not do is claim anything about phone wallets or bank transfer for Fixty, because there is no published statement to point at. If Apple Pay matters to you, ask before you buy rather than reading it into the word Stripe.

Right for

One mobile mechanic whose customers pay from a phone after approving the work, and who wants the payment attached to the estimate it came from rather than sitting in a separate app.

Wrong for

Anyone who needs to take a physical card at the roadside. Fixty has no reader, and a standalone payments app plus a reader is the honest answer to that even though it is not on this list.

How the money is collected

Yes

Stripe, paid from the same link as the estimate.

Our own product, so there is no outside page to quote.

Does it ride on the job

Yes

The customer opens a link, picks the lines they want, and signs.

Our own product, so there is no outside page to quote.

Entry price

$99/mo for Starter, billed month to month.

$149/mo for Growth. Both published, no sales call.

4

AutoLeap

AutoLeap describes sending digital invoices by text or email so customers can pay anytime, anywhere. That is a clean answer to criterion two and, because their whole product is built around a repair order, a clean answer to criterion three as well.

It is fourth because criteria one and four are silent. Nothing on their site describes hardware, a bank transfer option or a phone wallet, and this page does not fill silence in with assumptions.

Right for

An auto repair business that wants the invoice and the payment request to be one message, sent from wherever the vehicle is.

Wrong for

In person card payments, and anyone who wants to test the flow first: their pricing FAQ says there is no free trial.

How the money is collected

Yes

“Send digital invoices via text or email so customers can pay anytime, anywhere.”

autoleap.com/features/payments, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

$179 a month, their starting figure, which is the annual billing rate.

“Power your shop with #1 Auto Repair Software starting at $179/mo. Flexible monthly and annual plans designed to streamline operations for shops of any size.”

autoleap.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, month to month

Not recorded in our data yet. That is not the same as the two prices being equal: open their pricing page with the billing toggle set to monthly and read it there.

Try before you buy

Demo only, no free trial of the shop software

“AutoLeap doesn’t offer a free trial due to the fact that we custom-build the system with your necessary shop information. However, we encourage you to see AutoLeap in action during a personalized demo.”

autoleap.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

5

Jobber

Jobber is the only product on this page that publishes bank transfer. Their own sentence is that customers pay invoices through their client hub by entering debit or credit card details or using ACH bank transfers, which on a four figure repair bill is the difference between a card fee and no card fee.

It ranks fifth on criterion two rather than on capability. Payment happens in a client hub, which is a portal the customer signs into, rather than a link that arrives by text and opens. That is a small friction on every single invoice, and small friction on every invoice is how invoices go unpaid.

Right for

Larger jobs where the customer would rather send a bank transfer than put four figures on a credit card, at the lowest published subscription figures on this page.

Wrong for

In person payment, and vehicle work generally: Jobber is home service software and the payment settles a job at a property.

How the money is collected

Yes

“Customers can pay invoices through their client hub by entering debit or credit card details or using ACH bank transfers”

getjobber.com/features/field-service-credit-card-processing, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

$29 a month, the cheapest per month figure they publish, billed annually.

“Jobber plans from $29 to $529/mo (billed annually).”

getjobber.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, month to month

$49 a month, paid month to month with no commitment.

“For 3 months, then $49/mo”

getjobber.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

Try before you buy

14 day free trial, on the Grow plan

“For 14 days you get full access to all of Jobber's features on the Grow plan”

getjobber.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

6

Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro accepts secure credit and debit card payments with options at every customer touchpoint, which is a sentence that could mean several things and does not name any of them.

That is the whole reason it sits sixth. The capability is obviously real and widely used. What their quoted sentence does not name is hardware, a text message, or any other way of paying, and this page ranks what a vendor states rather than what is probably true.

Right for

Home service style mobile work already inside Housecall Pro, where payment is one part of a product bought for scheduling and booking.

Wrong for

Anyone choosing specifically on how the card gets taken. There is not enough published detail here to choose on.

How the money is collected

Yes

“Accept secure credit and debit card payments with seamless options at every customer touchpoint.”

housecallpro.com/features/payment, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

$59 a month, the annually billed rate for the one user entry plan.

“Basic, 1 user: $59/month, saving $20 per month [dash normalized]”

housecallpro.com/llm-info, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, month to month

$79 a month, paid month to month with no commitment.

“Basic, 1 user: $79/month [dash normalized]”

housecallpro.com/llm-info, read August 29, 2026

Try before you buy

14 day free trial with full access to the MAX plan

“Enjoy full access to all Housecall Pro features on our MAX plan for 14 days”

housecallpro.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

7

ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan publishes getting paid fast in the field, in the office or online with secure digital payments. In the field is a real claim and it is the closest anybody but Shopmonkey comes to criterion one, without naming hardware.

It is last because of criterion five, which on this page is not a tiebreak but a wall. No price is published anywhere on their site, every package carries a request pricing button, and their own sentence says pricing is per technician and fitted to the business. For one van, that is a sales call to find out whether you can afford to take a card.

Right for

A contracting business with a crew, where payments are one workflow inside a system bought for dispatch.

Wrong for

A solo mechanic. There is no published number to compare and no trial we could find.

How the money is collected

Yes

“Get paid fast in the field, in the office, or online with secure digital payments.”

servicetitan.com/features/payments, read August 29, 2026

Entry price, long commitment

No price published. You have to ask them for one.

“Get Pricing & Personalized Demo”

servicetitan.com/demo, read August 29, 2026

Try before you buy

Free demo

“See the Value of ServiceTitan with a Free Demo”

servicetitan.com/pricing, read August 29, 2026

One card reader between seven companies

Search the seven vendors for hardware and you find one sentence. Shopmonkey: collect payments in person with a Shopmonkey card reader, or remotely by sending your customer a secure payment link. ServiceTitan says get paid in the field without saying with what. The other five, Fixty included, describe a link.

For most mobile repair work the link is genuinely fine. The customer approves the estimate on their phone, the invoice arrives on the same phone, and the card details go in while you are packing up. Nobody has to find a card.

It stops being fine in two situations, and both of them happen. An older customer who pays with a physical card and does not want to type it into anything. And a driveway with no signal, where the link will not load and you are not leaving with the money. If either of those is a regular part of your week, the honest advice is either Shopmonkey, or a standalone reader from a payments company alongside whatever job software you use, and this page ranks the second option nowhere because we have no sourced data on it.

Nobody here publishes what taking the card actually costs

Every price on this page is a software subscription. None of it is the cost of taking a card, which is a percentage of every job you do and which will, over a year, be larger than the subscription for most working mechanics.

No processing rate appears anywhere in the sourced dataset this page is built from, for any of the seven, Fixty included. That is a limit of the research rather than an accusation, and it means every entry above is comparing the smaller of the two bills.

So make the processing rate the second question on any call, right after which plan includes what. Ask for the percentage, the fixed amount per transaction, whether cards typed in by hand cost more than cards tapped, and how long the money takes to arrive. Those four answers will separate these products more sharply than anything ranked above.

Why take the card inside the job software at all

It is worth being clear about what the subscription is buying, because on this specific question it is not much. A standalone payments app takes a card faster than any of these, with less setup and a rate you can read on their website.

What it does not do is know which invoice was paid. The mechanic who takes cards in a separate app spends an evening a month matching amounts to jobs from memory, and quietly loses one, and then stops chasing the ones that are late because working out which ones are late is itself the chore.

That is the entire argument for criterion three, and it is why it sits above the payment methods rather than below them. The value is not in the card being taken. It is in the job being marked paid without anybody doing it by hand.

Questions

What is the best way for a mobile mechanic to take card payments?

If you need to take a physical card at the vehicle, Shopmonkey is the only product on this page that publishes a card reader of its own, and a standalone reader from a payments company is the obvious alternative we do not rank here. If your customers pay from a phone, any of the seven will do it and the question becomes which one settles the invoice for you. Fixty, which publishes this page, is third and has no reader.

Can customers pay from a text message?

Tekmetric names Text to Pay as a feature, AutoLeap describes sending invoices by text or email for payment, and Shopmonkey describes a secure payment link sent by text or email. Fixty puts the payment on the same link the customer used to approve the estimate. Jobber routes payment through a client hub, and Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan describe payments without naming the mechanism.

Does Fixty have a card reader?

No. Payment runs through Stripe on the link the customer already has open. If tapping a physical card at the roadside is a regular part of your work, Fixty is not the right answer and this page ranks it third for that reason.

What does card processing cost with these?

None of them publishes a rate on the pages this comparison was built from, and that includes Fixty. Ask every vendor for the percentage, the fixed amount per transaction, whether manually keyed cards cost more, and how quickly the money settles. It is the larger of the two bills and the one nobody advertises.

If Fixty is the one that fits

Fixty is a CRM for one mobile mechanic: estimates approved by text, photo inspections, scheduling and card payments, all from a phone. Starter is $99/mo with a 14 day free trial, and if one of the products above suits your work better, buy that one instead.

Try Fixty free for 14 days