A car dealer website builder gives you a stock-ready dealership site without an
agency: vehicle pages, search, enquiry forms and the plumbing behind them, on a
monthly price. This guide covers what to look for, what it should cost, and the
traps to avoid.
Builder, agency or DIY?
- Generic DIY builders (the household names) can make a pretty page, but they
don't know what a car is. No plate lookup, no stock feed, no vehicle schema —
you end up rebuilding a stock system out of product cards.
- Agencies can do beautiful work, but you pay upfront, wait weeks, and every
price change becomes a support ticket.
- A dealer-specific builder ships the car-shaped parts on day one: plate-to-listing,
stock management, finance display rules, deposits, leads. You keep control.
For most independents, the third option wins on both cost and speed. (Here's
what building it yourself actually involves.)
The non-negotiables
- Plate-to-listing. Type a registration, get the spec filled from the DVLA.
If adding a car takes more than five minutes, stock goes stale.
- Your own domain and your own leads. Enquiries should land in your inbox,
not be resold to you.
- Vehicle structured data.
AutoDealer and Vehicle schema on every car so
Google can show your stock — this is where free traffic comes from.
- Finance done properly. FCA rules are unforgiving; representative examples
should only appear once your FRN is on file, handled by the platform.
- Deposits to your account. A buyer at 11pm should be able to reserve.
- Month-to-month pricing on the page. If you need a demo call to learn the
price, the price is negotiable — against you.
What it should cost
UK dealer website products run from roughly £30 to £300+ per month. The gap is
rarely about the website — it's whether stock management, leads and payments are
included or sold as add-ons. Compare the total, not the headline.
Signs you should walk away
- Setup fees for "design work" on a templated product.
- Contracts longer than a month.
- Your stock data locked in — ask how you'd export it on day one.
- Leads routed through their CRM with per-lead pricing.
Where Stayloo fits
Stayloo is a car dealer website builder with the non-negotiables
built in: plate-to-listing, live stock, one leads inbox, deposits, FCA-aware
finance display and a customer build-your-car configurator
for add-on profit — one system, price on the page, no demo call. Start free and
have a car live today.
Put this to work on your own property
APM by CPH gives you a branded storefront, a leads inbox, bookings and long-let rent tools. No per-lead fees, ever. Free to start.
Start free
