Walk it, price it, keep it
Defectbird is for the shop that inspects vehicles: the independent repair shop running a multi-point on every car that comes in, the mobile mechanic and the RV inspector working out of a van, the foreman walking a used vehicle before it is quoted.
Free for 14 days. No card needed.
Defectbird Pro is $29 per seat per month, billed monthly, one seat per technician who signs an inspection.
The independent repair shop or service center running a multi-point inspection on every vehicle it takes in
The mobile mechanic, RV inspector or fleet workshop that walks a checklist and hands over the defect list
Tools
The free checklist on this site sizes an inspection by the points your sheet actually walks and prices the red and yellow work it finds against your own labor rate and your own authorization rates, so what the bay spends on inspecting and what it gets back are two figures you can read side by side.
Defectbird Pro keeps each signed inspection against the vehicle, the customer and the technician, with the photos and the authorization, so the next visit starts from what the last one found.
Free to use. No account, no card, no sign-up.
In figures
375USD
Median for general home, the middle half 350 to 442.5 USD
29 sources with a published figure, read 19 October 2026.
What it finds
A finding a customer cannot see is a finding they decline. Holding each red and yellow item against the vehicle, with the photo the technician took and the note they wrote, is what turns a conversation at the counter into something the owner can look at and say yes to.
What it is worth
Almost no shop knows what its inspections cost it. The minutes go in, the advisories come out, and the two are never put next to each other. The free checklist on this site does exactly that from the shop's own rates, and it is usually the first time a foreman sees the return on an eighteen minute walk.
What was declined
Declined work is not lost work, it is work with a date on it. A yellow item declined in March is the first thing the counter should see when the same car books in for an oil change in September, and in a paper shop it is the one thing nobody can find.
Defectbird Pro
$29
per seat, per month
Upgrading turns the worksheet into the record. The checklist becomes an inspection filed against a vehicle, with its photos, its findings and what the customer authorized, and the vehicle keeps every inspection it has ever had, so the advisory declined in March is on the screen in September when the same car comes back.
Free for 14 days. No card needed.
Defectbird Pro is $29 per seat per month, billed monthly, one seat per technician who signs an inspection. Billed monthly. Cancel any time from your account page. Price and renewal terms are shown before checkout.
If your shop management system already does inspections the way your technicians will actually use them, keep it. Defectbird is not trying to run your bays, your parts or your invoicing, and a product that does all of that and inspections is a fair choice for a shop that wants one screen.
| Defectbird | A full shop management system runs the ticket end to end: scheduling, parts, labor, invoicing, payments and inspections as one module among many. That is more product than a two bay shop usually needs and it is priced accordingly. | |
|---|---|---|
| What you are buying | The inspection and its record: every vehicle, its findings, its photos and what was authorized | The whole ticket: scheduling, parts, labor, invoicing and payments, with inspections as one module |
| How it starts | You open it and add your first vehicle; the free checklist needs no account at all | An onboarding call, your parts and labor catalog loaded, and a switch-over weekend |
| How it is priced | $29 per seat per month, billed monthly, cancel from your account page | A three-figure monthly sum per location, often on an annual term, with modules priced on top |
| Who it suits | One to a handful of technicians who want the inspections kept and nothing else moved | A shop ready to run its whole counter on one system |
Defectbird does one thing: the inspection and its record. The free checklist is free forever and needs no account, and Pro is $29 per seat per month for the shops that want the inspections kept rather than the whole ticket moved.