Inside the 11 dealerships that run both, Dealer Car Search closes higher at 11 of them and Cars.com at 0. Across every dealership we measure, Cars.com leads close at 2.1% and Dealer Car Search leads at 4.8%. Dealer Car Search wins on both counts: it closes better and, at about 78 leads a month, still works out to more sales per dealership (3.8 against 1.9 a month).
Inside the same 11 stores
The fairest comparison available: dealerships that received enough leads from both providers for each store's own close rate to mean something. Same team, same process, same lot.
Cars.com wins
Dealer Car Search wins
in these stores
in these stores
Side by side
Across every dealership we measure for each provider, leads from July 2025 to June 2026.
| Cars.com | Dealer Car Search | |
|---|---|---|
| Close rate | 2.1% | 4.8% |
| Leads per dealer per month | 94 | 78 |
| Sales per dealer per month | 1.9 | 3.8 |
| Leads worked per sale | 48 | 21 |
| Avg days to sale | 5.4 | 6.5 |
| Dealerships measured | 129 | 55 |
| Leads measured | 114,416 | 43,194 |
Green marks the better figure. Sales per dealer per month is volume times close rate — the number that decides which provider actually sells more cars.
Dealer Car Search wins on both counts: it closes better and, at about 78 leads a month, still works out to more sales per dealership (3.8 against 1.9 a month).
Close rate by year
| Year | Cars.com | Dealer Car Search |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 2.4% | 5.6% |
| 2023 | 2.0% | 5.6% |
| 2024 | 2.1% | 6.9% |
| 2025 | 2.0% | 4.6% |
| 2026 (partial) | 2.2% | 4.7% |
Across every dealership measured for each provider that year. Partial years include leads that have not had the full 90 days to close yet.
Common questions
Is Cars.com or Dealer Car Search better for car dealers?
Inside the 11 dealerships that run both, Dealer Car Search closes higher at 11 of them and Cars.com at 0. Across every dealership we measure, Cars.com leads close at 2.1% and Dealer Car Search leads at 4.8%. Dealer Car Search wins on both counts: it closes better and, at about 78 leads a month, still works out to more sales per dealership (3.8 against 1.9 a month).
Which sends more leads, Cars.com or Dealer Car Search?
A dealership using Cars.com received about 94 leads a month, and one using Dealer Car Search about 78, from July 2025 to June 2026.
How is this comparison measured?
The same-store comparison counts only dealerships that received at least 300 leads from each provider in the window, and compares each store's close rate on one against its close rate on the other, so the sales team is the same on both sides. A lead counts as sold if it sold within 90 days of arriving, measured from CRM records with no attribution modeling.
Methodology
The same-store comparison includes a dealership only if it received at least 300 leads from each provider between July 2025 to June 2026. A store counts as a win for whichever provider's leads it closed at the higher rate. We publish a comparison only when at least 10 dealerships run both.
A lead counts as sold if it sold within 90 days of arriving, from each lead's own CRM record, with no attribution modeling. We count only leads that arrived through each provider's integration, exclude bulk imports from previous CRMs, and leave out dealerships that record their sales outside the CRM. The data comes from dealerships whose AutoRaptor agreements allow aggregated, anonymized research; it benchmarks the two providers and is not a measure of AutoRaptor's performance. Figures are aggregated across many dealerships; no individual dealership's results are shown.