Online Car Pricing Tools: Helpful but Incomplete
If you have spent any time researching a new car purchase, you have probably used TrueCar, Edmunds, or Kelley Blue Book to get a sense of what you should pay. These tools are genuinely useful. They give you market data, show what others have paid, and provide invoice pricing information. But they all have limitations that can cost you money if you treat their numbers as the final word.
Understanding how each tool works, where the data comes from, and what it does not include will help you use them as the starting point they are meant to be, not the endpoint.
How TrueCar Works
TrueCar is a lead generation platform. When you enter a vehicle and your zip code, TrueCar shows you a price curve illustrating what others have paid in your area and generates a "TrueCar Price" from participating dealers.
Here is what happens behind the scenes: dealers pay TrueCar a fee for every lead (potential customer) the platform sends them. When you submit your information to see a price, your contact details go to one or more participating dealers who have agreed to offer a pre-negotiated price through TrueCar.
The price you see is competitive, but it is not necessarily the lowest available. Not every dealer participates in TrueCar. The dealers who do participate build the lead generation cost into their pricing. A non-participating dealer down the road might offer a lower price because they are not paying a third party for leads.
What TrueCar Gets Right
- Market context: Seeing what others paid in your area is genuinely useful for setting expectations
- Price transparency: The pre-negotiated price reduces the back-and-forth at the dealership
- Time savings: You get a price before visiting, which reduces dealership games
What TrueCar Misses
- Not all dealers participate, so the lowest price may not be represented
- "What others paid" data can lag behind current market conditions
- Does not factor in holdback, manufacturer-to-dealer incentives, or volume bonuses
- Your contact info goes to dealers who may call and email aggressively
How Edmunds Works
Edmunds takes a different approach. They publish detailed invoice pricing for every new vehicle, including the base price and every option package. They also provide a "True Market Value" (TMV) estimate based on recent transaction data in your area.
Edmunds also connects you with dealers through their platform, similar to TrueCar, but their pricing data is more granular. You can see the gap between invoice and MSRP for every configuration, which is helpful for understanding where the margin sits.
What Edmunds Gets Right
- Invoice pricing detail: Best in the industry for option-level invoice data
- True Market Value: A data-driven estimate of what you should expect to pay
- Educational content: Strong articles explaining pricing concepts and negotiation tactics
What Edmunds Misses
- Invoice is still not the dealer's true cost (holdback and incentives sit below it)
- TMV is an average, not a floor, meaning many buyers pay less
- Dealer quotes through the platform are from participating dealers only
How Kelley Blue Book (KBB) Works
KBB provides a "Fair Purchase Price" that estimates what you should pay based on recent transactions and market conditions. They also offer trade-in values, which makes KBB particularly useful if you are selling or trading a vehicle as part of your deal.
KBB is owned by Cox Automotive, which also owns Autotrader and dealer software platforms. Their data comes from a massive pool of actual transactions, giving their estimates a strong statistical foundation.
What KBB Gets Right
- Fair Purchase Price: A reliable market-based estimate
- Trade-in values: The most commonly referenced trade-in pricing tool in the industry
- Brand recognition: Dealers expect you to reference KBB values, so it carries weight in negotiations
What KBB Misses
- Fair Purchase Price is a regional average, not the best available deal
- Does not show invoice pricing as clearly as Edmunds
- Trade-in values are estimates, not guaranteed offers
What None of These Tools Show You
All three platforms share a common blind spot: they do not reveal the dealer's true cost. None of them account for:
- Holdback (1% to 3% of MSRP returned to the dealer by the manufacturer after the sale)
- Manufacturer-to-dealer incentives (temporary cash payments for selling specific models)
- Volume bonuses (quarterly or annual bonuses for hitting sales targets)
- Floor plan assistance (interest cost reductions on inventory loans)
These hidden factors can reduce the dealer's true cost by $1,000 to $4,000 below the invoice price that Edmunds shows. That means the "great deal" these tools suggest may still have room to negotiate.
The Lead Generation Problem
Here is something most buyers do not realize: when you submit your information on TrueCar, Edmunds, or KBB to get dealer quotes, you become a lead. Dealers pay $200 to $500 per lead on these platforms. That cost gets factored into the pricing they offer.
The moment you submit your info, expect calls, texts, and emails from multiple dealers. Some will be helpful. Others will be aggressive. This is the trade-off for "free" pricing information.
If you want to compare prices without becoming a lead, use the pricing data from these sites for research, but contact dealers directly via email to request quotes. You maintain control of your information and avoid the lead generation machine.
How to Use Pricing Tools Effectively
The best approach is to use all three tools together and then go further:
- Check Edmunds for invoice pricing on your specific configuration
- Check KBB for the Fair Purchase Price in your area
- Check TrueCar for the price curve showing what others paid
- Average the three to establish your target price
- Contact 3 to 5 dealers directly (not through the platforms) and ask for their best out-the-door price on the same vehicle
- Compare the actual dealer quotes against the tool estimates
In many cases, you will find that at least one dealer's direct quote beats the best price any of the tools suggested. That is because direct quotes bypass the lead generation markup, and dealers competing for your business will often go lower than the "fair" price algorithms suggest.
"I Got the TrueCar Price, So I Got a Good Deal"
Maybe. But "good" is relative. If TrueCar shows a price of $37,500 on a vehicle with an invoice of $36,000 and a true dealer cost of $34,500, you left $1,000 to $3,000 on the table compared to what was possible. The TrueCar price was better than MSRP, but it was not the best available deal.
Online pricing tools optimize for a reasonable deal, not the best deal. Getting the best deal requires competition between dealers, knowledge of the dealer's true cost, and willingness to negotiate beyond what algorithms suggest.
How Vantage Differs from Pricing Tools
We do not generate leads for dealers. We negotiate against them on your behalf. We know the holdback, incentives, and current market conditions for every major brand. When we source a vehicle, we are not showing you an algorithm's estimate; we are showing you the actual negotiated price after competing multiple dealers against each other.
The result is typically below what any pricing tool suggests, because we are working from the dealer's real cost, not the published invoice.
What Is the Catch?
Vantage charges a broker fee. Pricing tools are free to use (because you are the product they sell to dealers). The difference is that our fee is disclosed upfront, and we work for you, not the dealer. In most cases, the savings we generate exceed our fee. But if they do not on a specific vehicle, we will tell you before you commit.
The Bottom Line
TrueCar, Edmunds, and KBB are useful starting points, not finishing lines. Use their data to educate yourself, then go beyond them by getting direct quotes from multiple dealers. The best deal comes from competition and knowledge, not algorithms.
If you want to skip the research phase and get a real, negotiated price based on what dealers actually pay, get your free quote from Vantage in 5 minutes. No spam. No pressure. Unsubscribe anytime.
