Vehicle · head-to-head
Auto Body Shop Directory vs Kelley Blue Book
Auto Body Shop Directory lists more than 81,000 collision repair and auto body shops across the United States, searchable by ZIP code, city, or coordinates. The keyless API returns JSON across five public endpoints, including city search and single-shop profile lookups. It is a free directory service with no paid tier; listings that use the data should credit AutoBodyShopNear.com.
Kelley Blue Book's Cox Automotive-run API program (IDWS, Advertising Data, Instant Cash Offer, and Batch VIN) provides vehicle valuation, pricing, and configuration data behind an approval-gated API key, per developer.kbb.com's own access instructions. Its legacy Swagger doc-viewer content pages (/content/data/*.html) now 404 into the site's SPA shell — orphaned — but the surrounding portal, the key-request process, and Cox Automotive's successor developer platforms (developer.coxautoinc.com, coxautoinc.mashery.com) all remain live over HTTPS, confirming https true and that the program has moved rather than gone dead; cors could not be re-probed live since no public endpoint or key is available. Access requires Cox Automotive approval with no public self-serve signup — paid.
| Auto Body Shop Directory | Kelley Blue Book | |
|---|---|---|
| Authentication | None | API Key |
| Pricing | free | paid |
| Formats | JSON | JSON |
| CORS | no | no |
| HTTPS | Yes | Yes |
Auto Body Shop Directory needs no API key, while Kelley Blue Book requires API Key — pick Auto Body Shop Directory to start without signup.