Shop Boss Pricing Explained (2026)

Shop Boss is a web-based shop manager built around a live workflow board, the BOSS Board, where every repair order sits in a visual column by status. Here's what its published pricing actually includes, and the one line item most reviews skip past. Pricing changes, so always check the vendor's site for current numbers before you commit.

The published tiers

Shop Boss's Gold tier starts at $199 a month, with published tiers rising to $649 a month for its higher packages. Unlike per-user platforms, every tier includes unlimited users, so a shop that adds a fourth or fifth service writer isn't paying a per-seat fee to do it. It's month-to-month, no long-term contract required to get started.

The migration fee: the number that isn't on the pricing page

Moving your existing customer, vehicle and repair-order history into Shop Boss carries a separate one-time data migration fee of $399 to $899, on top of whatever monthly tier you land on. That's a real cost of switching, not a subscription line item, and it's easy to miss if you're comparing headline monthly prices side by side without asking about onboarding.

What that fee buys is presumably a hands-on import of your prior system's records rather than a self-serve upload, which matters if your existing data is messy or spread across a legacy desktop tool. But it also means the true first-month cost of switching to Shop Boss is the $199 to $649 tier price plus up to $899 on top, before you've written a single new repair order. Worth asking exactly what's included in that fee, and whether a partial migration (say, active customers only, not five years of closed history) brings the price down.

What that compares to

A CSV export from most shop software isn't hard to produce, and a platform that accepts a self-serve CSV import at no extra charge turns that same job into a free afternoon instead of a four-figure line item. That's worth pricing into your total switching cost alongside the monthly subscription, not just comparing the tier prices in isolation.

Who Shop Boss actually fits

Established shops that want the BOSS Board's live visual workflow view, and that are comfortable in the $200-and-up monthly bracket, are the clearest fit. Unlimited users at a flat tier price is a genuinely solid structure for a shop with a full front counter and several bays running at once. The tradeoff shows up in reviews: users report outages at the counter and a laggy mobile app, and inventory and accounts-payable controls are described as clunky. Smaller shops in reviews also call it expensive for what they actually use day to day, worth weighing if your shop is one or two bays rather than a full crew.

What that budget buys elsewhere

Tekmetric and Shopmonkey sit in a similar or higher monthly bracket, with their own gates and per-user math layered on top. Lugbird sits underneath all of them on price: a free tier that covers a small shop's daily pipeline with unlimited users, and a flat $49 a month Pro plan, no per-seat fees, no annual contract, cancel any time. We don't have a dedicated visual kanban-style workflow board like Shop Boss's BOSS Board, that's a real, honest gap if that specific view is what you're shopping for. What we do have is a free CSV export, any time, with no migration fee attached, which matters most in the exact scenario Shop Boss's pricing page doesn't mention: the day you decide to move your data somewhere else.

For a shop still building its customer base, or one that just wants to try digital estimates and a photo inspection workflow before committing to a $200-a-month platform and an up-front migration bill, running the same core repair-order pipeline free is a lower-risk way to find out whether the switch is worth it at all.

Questions worth asking before you sign

• What exactly does the $399-899 migration fee cover, and does a smaller or partial data import cost less
• What is the actual monthly total once my shop's headcount and tier land, in writing, not a ballpark
• How does data export work if I ever decide to leave, and is there a fee for that too
• Can I trial the BOSS Board with my own workflow before paying the migration fee to bring my full history over

Common questions

Does Shop Boss charge per user?

No. Unlimited users are included on every tier, from Gold at $199 a month up through its higher packages at $649 a month.

What is Shop Boss's data migration fee?

A one-time fee of $399 to $899 to move your existing customer, vehicle and repair-order data in, separate from the monthly subscription. It's worth asking exactly what it covers before you sign, and whether a smaller import costs less.

Is Shop Boss month-to-month?

Yes, month-to-month billing is available with no long-term contract required, based on its published terms.

Is Shop Boss a good fit for a small one or two bay shop?

It can work, but reviews from smaller shops describe it as expensive for what they actually use, and the $200-and-up bracket plus the migration fee are easier to justify once a shop has the volume and headcount to use the BOSS Board's full workflow view daily.