Compare / BookMyGarage
GarageCal vs BookMyGarage
These are not the same kind of thing. BookMyGarage brings you other people’s customers and takes a cut. GarageCal converts the customers you already have and takes nothing.
BookMyGarage is a comparison and booking marketplace: drivers enter a registration and postcode, compare quotes from local garages, and book. For a garage, it is a lead source, and like every lead source it comes at a price per job.
GarageCal is not a marketplace and never will be. It is the booking page on your own website, under your own name, at your own prices. There is no listing, no ranking against the garage down the road, and no commission.
Worth being straight about this: they are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of garages will sensibly run both, using a marketplace to fill genuinely quiet weeks and their own booking page for everyone else. The mistake is paying commission on customers who were already yours.
At a glance
Checked 2 August 2026. Where a figure is not published, we say so rather than guess at one.
| GarageCal | BookMyGarage | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Your own booking page | A comparison marketplace |
| Cost per booking | Nothing | Commission or fee per job |
| Whose customer it is | Yours | Shared with the platform |
| Listed against nearby garages | Never | Yes, that is the model |
| Who sets the price | You do | You quote, drivers compare |
| Brings you new customers | No, it converts the ones you have | Yes, that is the point |
| Runs on your own website | Yes | No, on theirs |
Where a marketplace genuinely helps
- It reaches drivers who have never heard of you. We cannot do that: GarageCal only converts people who already found you.
- It fills genuinely empty bays. If next week is bare, a commissioned job beats an idle ramp.
- It costs nothing until it produces work, which is a fair deal when you are quiet.
- New garages with no website traffic and no customer list have to start somewhere.
Where your own booking page wins
- Your existing customers, who should never cost you a commission to rebook.
- Anyone who found you on Google, from a sign, or from a neighbour’s recommendation.
- MOT reminders going out to your own list, rebooking in one tap.
- Every job where you would rather compete on being good than on being cheapest in a list.
Questions people actually ask
Should I stop using comparison sites?
Not necessarily. The sensible pattern is to keep a marketplace for filling quiet weeks, and to make sure the customers who already know you never arrive through a channel that charges you for them.
Will GarageCal bring me new customers?
Not by itself, and we would rather say so. It converts the demand you already have, which for most garages is the bigger leak. Getting found is a separate job, mostly Google Business Profile and local search.
What does BookMyGarage charge garages?
They operate on a commission or fee-per-job basis. The current rates are a question for them, and we are not going to publish a number we cannot verify.
Sources, checked 2 August 2026: BookMyGarage, how it works
Other comparisons
See it running on your own bays
Twenty minutes on a call, with your own bays and products set up as they actually are. Compare it against what you use now with something real in front of you.