on all orders over $150*
on all orders over $150*
Learn the right price of the machine and utilize its use for your locksmithing business! Many of you have been asking questions about the Smart PRO pricing. I’ve gathered all the puzzle pieces, so let’s put it together.
There are three main ways to use the Smart PRO, although there are four, and I'll be covering that in the latter part. What I'm not going to be talking about are ways that you can purchase the machine. The reason for that is, over the past few years that the Smart PRO's been out, there have been all sorts of different options whether to buy the machine or to trade an older device for the Smart PRO. I figured that if you can understand the options well, you'll be able to make a well-informed decision for your business on what choice would be right for you. But, feel free to ask questions, send us an email or a call, and we can go over the current pricing available.
The main ways to use the Smart PRO are listed in the image below.
PURCHASING SOFTWARE
Suppose you were to purchase a Smart PRO and do not want to pay any maintenance fees or subscriptions. Buy the software. Owning one will be free of charge for as long as you choose to. Seventy-one individual pieces of software can be purchased and installed on the machine. And the pricing for the software ranges between $499 to $799. So if you were to buy the software individually, you're looking at about $35,000. The good thing is there are packages available that can be purchased in big groups for less.
And the best advice I could give you in purchasing software is to: buy software that you are into Chrysler Dodge Jeep; focus on the software category such as programming to the purchased software e.g., Chrysler Dodge Jeep; buy the software once in a while. Later you’ll know that you’ve expertise and completed the software.
PURCHASING TOKENS
The thing with Advanced Diagnostics that gets people fired up - is tokens. In this case, the term token doesn't mean that you insert the machine to use it as an arcade game. It's a virtual token, a token that represents programming a vehicle. So, for the most part, or 85% of the time, it will require one token when you program a car. For example, when you read the skim code on certain vehicles, like on a Chrysler, and you have to read that code, it doesn't bypass it and cost you a token. Then when you successfully programmed, that's also going to charge you a token. Let’s look at how much it will cost me X amount per vehicle to program.
That's what a token is. Now let's talk about the pricing. The pricing could change, but the principle behind it is ‘buy more, pay less.’ For a ten-pack of tokens, each token will be $40 per piece. The next option is a 25 pack of tokens for $33 per piece. Followed by the 50 pack of tokens, that pricing will go down to $27 per piece. And last but not least, if you buy the 250 groups of tokens, it will bring the price down to $13 per piece.
In my perspective, it is much more reasonable in today's competitive market to buy 50 or 250 packs. And the reason you would want to purchase tokens, from my perspective, is the use factor. For example, you decided to buy ten packs of tokens; it might cost you $40 to $80 per vehicle to program. That's going to make you pretty unhappy over time. It is because that's a lot of money per vehicle if you're doing 50 or 70 a year. But to get back to my original point here is that if you're programming 50-75 cars a year, consider going with a token option, like a 50, or even better a 250 pack. Now, make sure you stick around to the end because I'm going to be going over a hybrid option that really starts to make a lot more sense when it comes to tokens.
PURCHASING UTP
Now, my favorite part of the Smart PRO, the UTP. It stands for Unlimited Token Plan, which means you have unlimited use of the machine for the time set and essentially a UTP a SaaS, Software as a Service. Like a cell phone where you have to pay every month to use it. The good part about is when new software comes available, you can download that right onto the machine and you can use it. There's no extra fee because you're paying for a service, software as a service.
There are three different options you can choose from with the UTP. The first one is going to be your monthly plan, meaning, you have to sign up for X amount of time. For example, you sign up a year at that time and you agreed to pay $320 a month. The next option is going to be your yearly UTP, which is $3200 all at once. You’ll be charged one time per year for $3200. And if we break that down per month, that's going to be $267. A little less and the savings between the monthly and the yearly is quite significant so I highly recommend it if you can afford it. The third option is the 24-hour pass. This will make more sense in a few moments when I get into the hybrid options of the machine. But essentially, you buy a five-pack of UTP 24-hour passes for $225 which comes out to $45 per 24 hours.
HYBRID OPTION
That's a lot of different options and that’s where the hybrid option comes in. It’s something that can make sense for a lot of Smart PRO users, the hybrid feature. Let’s put it in a scenario, let's say you bought all of the Ford programming software, however now and then, you do some GM, but you don't have any of the GM software and you don't do enough to justify purchasing outright the software for GM. In that case, your option is to buy tokens. So when that GM comes in and you need to program it, it’s going to use one of the tokens. That's going to allow you flexibility based on what you're trying to accomplish and what your business needs are.
What's even more exciting about the hybrid process is you can also purchase those 24-hour UTP passes. So let's say you had all those Ford software's that you owned, however, all of a sudden, you have 30 vehicles that you need to program with different makes and models. You can do the Fords, but you don't have any ability to do anything else, or let's say you didn't have any other software and your only option is to buy 50 packs of tokens. To burn up 25-35 tokens in one day is not really wise, because due to the cost of the token. Your other option in either one of these scenarios is to purchase a 24 hour UTP pass. Now, you have to purchase those in packs of five, but if you break it down it will be about $45 per 24 hours. It's going to allow you to not burn up your tokens if you have them or if you just have the software and you don't have enough software to do everything you need to do. It doesn't matter, you can get that 24-hour pass for $45 and you can program all of that. A great option if you're not using just the standard UTP plan, so those are the three options available for the Smart PRO. Four if you include the hybrid option.
OVERVIEW
The big question is, what do I recommend? What do I think you should do? If you're going to be just doing three, four, or five, maybe $10,000 a year in key programming, that's great. We all have to get started and build up the business. But that makes the Smart PRO super expensive, right on a per-use basis. I think in those types of situations better to use some good entry-level machines. That would make sense if that's all the programming that you're going to be doing for now. However, if you're doing 25,50,100 plus $1,000, a year of key programming, getting the Smart PRO with the yearly or monthly UTP is really the sweet spot because the cost per vehicle is going to be super low. It's really going to allow you to capitalize on the profits available for key programming. Purchasing software by itself, in today's environment that we live in is just probably not the best option outside of a very small percentage of people. And the reason why is the amount of technology that's coming into these keys into the cars and the constant updating in the new software that's coming out. For example, I think the peak of AD software output in the year was right around 12-13 different programs. So if you're paying five $5 to $800 per piece for those, that's super expensive. And then at the same time, when it comes to tokens, I really don't like to see anyone using a $40 token. It's hard. I mean, that takes a lot of money off the table for you and so that's why I think the sweet spot, in my opinion, is getting that UTP plan. I really appreciate you taking the reading this blog. I'd love to know what type of questions you have!
