Pistonlog's standard plans are Essentials, Pro and Group. Pricing is per workshop, with no per-seat add-ons. You pick one per workshop at signup and can manage it from billing. Every plan includes unlimited users. Existing Lifetime customers can find account guidance in Plans & Billing.
What's in each plan
| Feature | Essentials | Pro | Group |
|---|---|---|---|
| Users | unlimited | unlimited | unlimited |
| Jobcards, jobs, parts, labour | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customers, vehicles, businesses | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Workflow board, my-work, calendar | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Invoices & payments | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Messages (jobcard + DM) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Reviews | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mobile app (technician) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom branding on outputs | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Inspections module | No | ✓ | ✓ |
| Automatic reminders | No | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer approvals & signatures | No | ✓ | ✓ |
| Diagnostic Library | No | ✓ | ✓ |
Those four bold rows are the only features a plan gates. Everything else is on every plan, Essentials included.
The upgrade triggers when moving Essentials → Pro are the Inspections module (form builder, 22 field types, submissions, vehicle history, mobile inspection flow), automatic reminders (the daily cron that fires MOT/service reminders without you doing anything), customer approvals (send work to the customer to approve or decline online, with a signature), and the Diagnostic Library (your workshop's searchable record of faults and fixes).
Multi-site
Running several workshops under one company works on any plan. Nothing in the software checks your tier before letting you switch sites. Group is the commercial arrangement we put multi-site customers on: custom pricing across the group, plus dedicated account management. If you're regularly opening locations, talk to us about it rather than expecting a feature to be switched on.
Pricing today
Per the public pricing page:
- Essentials: £99/month (£950/year, saving 20%)
- Pro: £179/month (£1,720/year, saving 20%)
- Group: custom pricing (contact us), for groups running several workshops, with dedicated account management
Prices exclude VAT. Annual subscriptions are paid upfront for a full year.
Pricing is per workshop, not per seat. Adding a team member doesn't change your bill. Start your workshop's first monthly Essentials or Pro subscription during setup to get 3 days free, with the card taken up front and the standard price starting automatically afterwards.
Your first plan payment, monthly or annual, is covered by a 14-day money-back guarantee. Any free trial comes before the guarantee window. Email ross@pistonlog.com within 14 days of that payment for a full refund of the plan payment. See Plans & Billing.
The paywall
The full-screen paywall has one trigger: a workshop with no plan at all. That happens before you've ever subscribed, or after a cancellation reaches its end date. Until a plan is chosen the app is blocked, apart from a small set of community pages.
Being on Essentials is not the same thing. A feature your plan doesn't include is simply unavailable: its settings card is greyed out with "Upgrade to Pro to unlock" underneath, and if something reaches the server anyway it's refused. You don't get a full-screen upgrade screen out of it.
Switching plans takes effect immediately via Stripe — no contract renewal needed.
Inspections plan badge
Articles that require Pro or Group for the inspections module carry a "Requires Inspections plan" pill at the top.
SMS credits
SMS credits aren't part of any plan — they're consumable, bought separately. See SMS credits billing.