How to customize financing settings on your website

How to customize financing settings on your website

Dealer Inspire’s financing tools — including Shop By Payment or Online Shopper — allow shoppers to get prequalified or submit full credit applications directly on your website. These tools can be customized to match your dealership’s existing finance process, preferred lenders, and business goals.

In this article, you’ll learn which financing settings are customizable, how to request changes, how to view your current configuration, and how RouteOne or Dealertrack integration works.

1 What you can customize

As a Dealer Inspire customer, you can configure the following elements of your website’s financing experience:

Rate Card

Purpose: Controls how payments are displayed when real-time lender offers aren’t available.

  • Default: Standard rate card
  • Customization: Adjust interest rates to reflect your pricing strategy
  • Why it matters: Ensures shoppers always see estimated payments, even if prequalification isn’t returned

Lender Selection

Purpose: Define which lenders can return offers to shoppers.

  • Soft pull lenders: All prequal-enabled lenders are active by default, including your OEM captive
  • Captive lenders: Automatically enabled for new and CPO inventory
  • Bring Your Own Lenders (BYOL): Add up to 3 additional lenders from your RouteOne or Dealertrack account

Common in-network lenders include:

Capital One, Chase, Global Lending Services, Westlake Financial, US Bank, and more

Trade-In Settings

Purpose: Determine how trade-in values are presented.

  • Trade book: Choose from AccuTrade (default), JD Power, or Kelley Blue Book
  • Trade-in flow: Enable or disable trade-in collection entirely

Dealer Fees

Purpose: Show accurate fees in payment calculations.

  • Default: State cap or regional median doc fee based on dealership location
  • Customization: Override with your actual fee structure

Max Lender Fee Threshold

Purpose: Prevent shoppers from seeing offers with excessive lender fees.

  • Default: $200 for new vehicles / $1,000 for used vehicles
  • Customization: Raise or lower based on your finance department’s preferences

Price Lock (Lead Gate)

Purpose: Require contact information before revealing personalized payments.

  • Default: Disabled
  • Benefit: Enabling this setting can increase lead volume

2 How to request changes

To update your financing tool settings, choose one of the following:

Option 1: Email Support

Send a request to support@dealerinspire.com with “Payments Plugin Adjustment” in the subject line.

Include:

  • Dealership name and website URL
  • Specific changes requested (e.g., rate card updates, lender changes, trade-in book preference, fee edits, threshold updates, or Price Lock toggle)

Option 2: Contact Your Performance Manager (PFM)

Your PFM can submit changes on your behalf and offer strategic guidance tailored to your dealership.

3 Viewing your current settings

To review your active financing configuration, contact your PFM or email support. A settings summary can include:

  • Rate card settings
  • Active lenders (soft and hard credit)
  • Trade-in book and flow configuration
  • Document fee settings
  • RouteOne or Dealertrack integration status
  • Price Lock (lead gate) status

4 RouteOne and DealerTrack integration

Integrating RouteOne or Dealertrack enables shoppers to submit full credit applications (hard credit pulls) that automatically route to your dealership’s Credit Application Network (CAN).

Integration Details

  • Included with Shop By Payment
  • Optional add-on ($99/month) for dealers not using Shop By Payment

To check or enable your integration, contact your PFM.

5 How to contact your Performance Manager

To find your PFM’s contact information:

  1. Log in to the Cars.com Hub at hub.carscommerce.com
  2. Navigate to your account dashboard
  3. Your PFM’s contact information will be displayed

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