Web agencies know this job well. A dealer comes to you wanting something that does not look like every other dealer site. You design it properly. The home page is good. The about page is good. The photography is good.
Then you get to the stock page, and it all goes a bit wrong.
The cars live in another system. So either somebody types them into your site by hand, and it is out of date by Tuesday, or you drop in a stock widget from somewhere else that looks nothing like the rest of your design. Either way, the one page buyers actually came for is the weakest page on the site. And the enquiries arrive as emails that the sales team has to copy into their own system, if they remember.
The Vehiso API fixes that. You build the website however you like. The stock comes live from the dealer's dealer management system. The enquiries go straight back into it.
Your site, their live stock
The idea is straightforward. The dealer keeps managing stock in Vehiso, exactly as they do now. Your website reads from it.
When a car comes in, it appears. When the price changes, it changes. When it sells, it goes. There is no second list to maintain and no Monday morning upload, because there is only one list and it belongs to the dealer.
The stock record carries each vehicle, its status and its images, so a bespoke site can show every car with its photos. How you lay it out, filter it and style it is entirely yours. That is rather the point.
The publishable key, and why it matters
To read stock from a public website you need a key, and the kind of key matters.
A key is the password a piece of software uses to reach the dealer's data. Most keys must be kept secret, on a server, because anyone who finds one could use it. That is awkward for a website, because a website's code is sent to every visitor's browser, where anybody can look at it.
A publishable key is designed for exactly that situation. It is safe in browser code. It lets a website show stock and send enquiries, which is what a public website needs to do, and nothing that would worry a dealer if a curious visitor found it.
So you can build a site that talks to Vehiso directly from the page, without having to stand up a server of your own just to hold a secret.
Keys are created by a dealer administrator in the DMS under Administration > Developers. If you are an agency, the dealer creates the key and gives it to you, which keeps them in charge of who has access to their business. The same controls apply to every key: it acts as its owner, limited to its scopes and that person's DMS permissions, and every request shows in the request log. There is more on that in car dealer API keys, permissions and the sandbox.
Enquiries and valuation requests, straight into the inbox
A dealer website that shows cars but loses leads is only half a website.
With the API, the enquiry forms on your bespoke site send enquiries and valuation requests straight into the dealer's Vehiso inbox. They land in the same place as every other enquiry, so the sales team works them in test drive and enquiry management alongside the ones from their other channels.
That changes the conversation with a dealer client. You are not asking them to watch another inbox or trust a contact form that emails a shared address. The lead from your beautiful site is treated exactly like every other lead, with the notes, the follow-up and the history in one record.
For the dealer, it also means they judge your website on what it produces, in the system they already use. That tends to be good news for agencies who build good websites.
Themes, if you would rather not start from nothing
Not every project needs a blank canvas.
The API also reaches the AI theme builder, so you can request, preview and publish website themes from your own tools. For an agency looking after several dealer clients, that is a way to work with Vehiso themes as part of your own process rather than logging into each dealer's account to do it by hand. Theme requests run on a secret key, so they are part of the paid plans.
Some agencies will build fully bespoke. Some will start from a theme and push it. Both are fine, and the stock and enquiries work the same way either way.
Who this is for
Dealers with a developer. If you already have someone who looks after your website and you like what you have, you can keep it and connect it to live stock, rather than rebuilding on a template.
Web agencies. Build the site your client wants, on stock that is always right, and hand over something that keeps working after you have invoiced. We have more for agencies on the agency platform page and in car dealer websites for agencies.
Dealers who want bespoke without the maintenance. If what you want is a one-off design, our bespoke dealer websites service is worth a look before you hire anyone.
How to get going
Create the key. A dealer administrator creates a publishable key in the DMS under Administration > Developers.
Build against demo data first. On a paid plan, your developer can use a test key against the dealer's own sandbox, a practice dealership filled with demo stock and enquiries, so real leads are never touched while the site is in progress.
Follow the Quickstart. The Quickstart covers the first request, and the developer docs hold the full reference. We deliberately keep the technical detail there rather than in blog posts.
A few honest limits
You are building a website, so you own everything a website involves. Design, hosting, speed, accessibility and search engine basics are down to you or your agency. Vehiso provides the stock and takes the enquiries. It does not make a hand-built site good by itself.
A publishable key is for what a public website does: showing stock and sending enquiries. Anything more, such as syncing records into another system, needs a secret key on a server, and secret keys are on the paid plans.
A publishable key only reads the stock the dealer's Vehiso website already shows, and on the free plan that is up to five vehicles. That is enough to prove the build works, and a real limit for a busy forecourt.
The sandbox, which is the sensible place to build, comes with test keys, and those are on the paid plans too.
Which plan it is on
Publishable keys are on every plan, including Free. A website you build yourself can show live stock and send enquiries and valuation requests into the Vehiso inbox without a paid plan. The free plan includes the dealer management system and lists up to five vehicles.
Secret keys, test keys, the sandbox, webhooks and OAuth apps are on every paid plan, from £49 a month. Everything is set out on the pricing page.
If you have a website you love and stock that lives somewhere else, you no longer have to choose. Read how it works on the car dealer API page, then hand your developer the Quickstart. For the whole picture of what the API covers, start with introducing the Vehiso API.
