The automotive industry runs on payment complexity that general-purpose processors weren’t designed to handle. Vehicle sales involve multi-party transactions between buyers, lenders, and dealers. Service departments collect split payments between customers and insurance carriers. Buy-here-pay-here dealers manage in-house loan portfolios requiring ongoing installment billing. Collision shops track insurance payments arriving weeks after customer deductibles are collected.
The payment processing companies that serve automotive businesses well understand these industry-specific workflows-and have built their platforms to handle them natively rather than through workarounds. Here’s how the leading options compare.
What Separates Automotive-Specialized Processors from General Ones
The dividing line is integration and workflow depth. Any processor can accept a card payment. Automotive-specialized processors integrate with dealer management systems, shop management software, and estimating platforms so payment data flows automatically into existing business records. They handle split payments between customers and insurance carriers. They manage installment billing for in-house financing. They process mobile payments for lot sales and vehicle delivery. General processors handle none of this natively.
Top Automotive Payment Processing Companies
1. Revitpay
Revitpay’s automotive payment processing serves the full range of automotive businesses-dealerships, independent repair shops, collision centers, and specialty automotive retailers-with payment infrastructure built specifically for how automotive businesses operate. DMS integration with CDK, Reynolds & Reynolds, and Dealertrack eliminates manual reconciliation for dealerships. Shop management software integration with Mitchell 1, CCC ONE, and ALLDATA does the same for repair operations.
Payment plan capabilities address automotive’s high-ticket reality: vehicle down payments, large repair bills, and insurance deductibles that customers need time to pay. Split payment handling manages the customer/insurance split that defines collision repair billing. Mobile payment capabilities serve the lot, the service drive, and vehicle delivery. Reporting provides the financial visibility automotive businesses need to manage cash flow across complex multi-source revenue streams.
2. CDK Global Payments
CDK dominates franchise dealership management and offers deeply integrated payment processing for dealers running CDK DMS-a natural choice for franchise dealers already invested in the CDK ecosystem.
3. Reynolds and Reynolds
Reynolds provides comprehensive dealership management including payment processing tightly integrated throughout their platform, serving franchise dealers who prioritize ecosystem integration.
4. Tekmetric Payments
Tekmetric integrates payment processing directly into their shop management software, creating seamless workflows for repair shops that use Tekmetric for operations management.
5. Worldpay Automotive
Worldpay offers dealership-specific payment solutions with broad DMS integration capabilities and the scale of a major payment network behind the automotive-specific feature set.
How to Choose the Right Automotive Payment Processor
Start with integration compatibility. Identify your existing DMS or shop management software and prioritize processors with native integration rather than manual data export. Evaluate payment plan capabilities against your actual business needs-BHPH dealers need robust loan management, repair shops need flexible installment billing, dealerships need down payment split capabilities. Assess pricing at your actual transaction volume, since per-transaction fees compound across high-volume automotive operations.
Bottom line: Automotive payment processing is a specialized category. The processors who do it well have built their platforms around automotive business workflows rather than adapting retail infrastructure. The right choice depends on your specific segment-dealer, repair shop, or collision center-and your existing software ecosystem.
