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Switch & compare

Thinking about switching? Here's the honest comparison.

Every yard owner weighing a change is really asking two questions: does it actually fit my shop, and can I switch without stopping it cold? This page answers both: no invented numbers, no smoke, and an honest look at where other systems win.

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Run in parallel, no big-bang cutover
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Cancel anytime, no contract
Your data is yours, export anytime

Staying put is the real risk

What your current system quietly costs

Doing nothing feels safe because the bill never arrives as a line item. But it shows up every month, as boats you didn't bill, cash that came late, and margin you couldn't see.

Lost boats

A job on a sticky note or a buried tab is a job nobody bills. Work gets done, then never invoiced.

Late invoices

Days between splash day and the invoice going out are days your cash sits in someone else's pocket.

Hidden margin

Without live per-job profitability you keep taking work that quietly loses money, and you find out at tax time.

Locked data

Desktop ERPs and shared drives make your own customer and vessel history hard to get at, and harder to leave with.

The status quo isn't free. It just never sends you an invoice. A switch, done right, is how you stop paying it.

Find your starting point

Most yards move off one of three things

Wherever you're coming from, the specific pain is different, but the fix is the same board. Find your door.
Door 1

Moving off Spreadsheets, whiteboards & paper

The wall board and a stack of tabs run the yard. Boats slip through the cracks, invoices go out days late, and at year-end you still can't say which jobs actually made money. It's free, until you count the billable hours that quietly walk out the door.

One live pipeline replaces the board, the tabs, and the sticky notes, with real-time job profitability behind every ticket.

Door 2

Moving off Generic auto or field-service software

You translate every day: "vehicle" for vessel, "ARO," "tire," "quick lube." The catalog was built for cars, marine is a rename, and your techs never bought in because nothing on the screen looks like their yard.

A marine-native model (vessels, hull, equipment, service history, and a 100+ marine service catalog), so the team sees themselves in it on day one.

Door 3

Moving off A legacy marine or dealer ERP

Service is bolted onto slips, fuel, and dealership accounting. The core is typically desktop-rooted and quote-gated, pricing is opaque, training is long, and your data lives somewhere you can't reach without a support ticket.

Service-first and cloud-native, with published pricing and your data in an isolated database that's yours to export anytime.

Built for boats, not bolted on

The full side-by-side, including where others win

Marine-native means vessels not vehicles, a marine service catalog, and flagtime labor with zero automotive vocabulary. Here's the honest breakdown against every category yards actually leave, and we've kept the rows where the alternatives have a real edge.
Capability ShopTrack Spreadsheets & Whiteboards Generic Shop Software Legacy Marine / Dealer System
Marine-native data model Vessels, hull, equipment, service history, 100+ marine services Whatever columns you build by hand Vehicle/auto model; marine is a thin landing page Yes, but heavy dealership ERP
Work-order pipeline view Drag-and-drop Kanban + Calendar + Table + live Dashboard Rows, tabs, and a wall board Usually a list or calendar; boards rarely marketed Service is a secondary module, often desktop and clunky
Pricing transparency Published Basic / Pro / Enterprise tiers Free, but the labor cost is hidden Often public but seat / add-on inflated Opaque, quote-only, demo-gated
Per-user / per-seat fees None, unlimited technicians included N/A Common (per user, per location) Per-module / per-slip, add-on heavy
Free trial 14 days, full access, cancel anytime N/A Short or demo-only None, demo or sales call required
AI Technician Assistant Multi-model diagnostics, troubleshooting, customer summaries None Absent or vague AI tools AI scheduling at most; rarely a diagnostic assistant
Invoicing & payments PDF invoices, Square + QuickBooks, auto late fees, keep your own merchant account Manual invoices, no profit visibility Yes, but payments often gated to top tier Yes, but bundled into ERP accounting
Time tracking & flat-rate labor Clock in/out, breaks, approvals, overtime + flagtime flat-rate Paper timecards and manual math Time clock often a higher-tier add-on Flat-rate exists; shift / timesheet depth thin
Real-time job profitability Live margin on every work order + 40+ reports None you can query Reporting varies; live per-job margin rare Buried in ERP accounting, not real-time
Customer portal & booking Included: status, online booking, payment links Phone calls and emails Sometimes; not always foregrounded Often a paid add-on module
Architecture & access Cloud-native, real-time, any device Local files / shared drive Cloud, modern Desktop-rooted; web / mobile bolted on
Data isolation / security Dedicated isolated database + subdomain per shop Files anyone can copy or lose Shared multi-tenant; not marketed Shared platform; not marketed
Onboarding & switching Self-serve start today, guided import, parallel run Instant but chaotic Same-day to demo-gated Long, sales-led; reviewers cite painful training

A legacy marine ERP can go deeper on slips, fuel, and dealership accounting. If that back-office breadth is your priority over service-floor speed, it's a fair trade to weigh.

If you're evaluating others

Common alternatives shops compare us to

These are the names yards search when they start looking. Here's how ShopTrack is different at a category level: no prices, no scorecards, just honest, defensible distinctions.

Marine, marina & dealer platforms

DockMaster · Molo · Lightspeed DMS

  • Service-first and work-order-centered, not slips, fuel, and reservations with repair as a secondary module
  • Published pricing you can see today and a self-serve free trial, no demo required to unlock a number
  • Guided import and a parallel-run switch instead of a long, sales-led onboarding

Auto-shop tools

Shopmonkey · Tekmetric

  • A marine data model (watercraft, hull, equipment, service history) vs a vehicle model with marine bolted on
  • A 100+ pre-built marine service catalog and flagtime flat-rate labor, not automotive vocabulary to translate
  • A multi-model AI Technician Assistant for marine diagnostics vs auto-first or absent AI tools

Product names belong to their respective owners and are referenced only to describe category differences. The surest comparison is your own: start free and run a few real jobs through both.

See your migration path

A switch you can govern, not gamble on

You don't flip a switch and pray. Run ShopTrack beside your current system until your team is confident, then go live, in weeks, with no shop downtime.
  1. 1

    Start free in minutes

    Full access, nothing to install. Your own subdomain and isolated database, ready to go.

  2. 2

    Import your data

    Bring over customers, vessels and watercraft, and open work orders. You'll see exactly what transfers before you commit.

  3. 3

    Run in parallel

    Push a few real jobs through ShopTrack alongside your current system. No big-bang cutover, no pressure.

  4. 4

    Validate, then go live

    Confirm the invoices and reports match, then switch. Weeks, not quarters, and no peak-season downtime.

No long-term contract, cancel anytime

We never rip features out from under you

What comes over on import

You'll see exactly what transfers before you commit

Migration isn't a leap of faith. You review precisely what maps over (no surprises, nothing overwritten in your old system) and only go live once it matches.

  • Customers

    Your full customer list with contact details and history, so the phone book comes with you intact.

  • Vessels & watercraft

    Boats with hull and equipment records (and their service history) attached to the right owner.

  • Open work orders

    Jobs currently on the hard or in the bay come across as live tickets, so nothing in flight gets dropped.

Preview the import and confirm it looks right before a single job depends on it. If it doesn't match, you haven't switched anything.

ShopTrack vessel record with equipment and service history that transfers on import
No long-term contract
Month to month. Stay because it works, not because you're locked in.
Cancel anytime
No exit interview, no cancellation maze. Leave whenever you choose.
Nothing ripped out
We never pull features out from under you or hold your workflow hostage.
Your data is yours
Export your customers, vessels, and work orders anytime. It's yours to take.

The switch questions, answered straight

Downtime, imports, training, and getting your data back out

No, because you never flip a switch and pray. Start on the 14-day free trial, import your customers, vessels and open work orders, and run ShopTrack in parallel through a few real jobs. When your team is confident and the invoices and reports match, you go live. There is nothing to install and no server to cut over, so the yard keeps working the whole time.
Customers, vessels and watercraft with their equipment, and your open work orders come across. Deep historical accounting entries generally stay in your old system, which is why we recommend keeping it read-only for a season rather than deleting it. You will see the mapping before anything is committed, so there are no surprises after the fact.
No. Start with the office and one or two technicians on real jobs. A drag-and-drop board is closer to the whiteboard your crew already uses than a spreadsheet is, so the shop floor is usually the easy part. There are no per-user fees, so adding the rest of the team later costs nothing.
Yes, and we recommend it. Run a handful of live jobs through both for a couple of weeks and compare the invoices and the reports. That parallel run is what turns a switch from a gamble into a decision you can defend to your partners.
Spreadsheets are free until you count what they cost: boats that never get billed, invoices that go out weeks late, hours reconstructed on Friday from memory, and margin you cannot see until the season is over. One recovered repower job usually covers a year of software.
Yes. Your shop runs in its own dedicated, isolated database, and you can export your data at any time. No long-term contract, cancel whenever you like, and we do not remove features you are already relying on.
See transparent pricing and what's included

Start free today

Stop gambling on your current system. Start free instead.

Full access for 14 days, and no charge until it ends. No long-term contract, cancel anytime, and your data lives in a database that's yours.

  • Get paid faster
  • See profit on every job
  • Stop losing billable hours
  • No per-user fees, ever
Start your 14-day free trial See your migration path