Stripe and Autonomy.
Stripe is the payment service behind Autonomy's online reservations. A customer reserves a car with a deposit the dealer sets, paying by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. The car is marked reserved, the dealership is emailed, the reservation can go to the dealer's CRM, and the deposit sits in the dealer's Stripe account.
What it does.
Every vehicle can carry a "reserve" button with a deposit the dealer chooses, typically £99 or £100, and amounts can vary by vehicle make. Autonomy runs the checkout with Stripe, handles card declines and confirms the reservation when Stripe's webhook reports payment. The vehicle's registration goes to Stripe as the payment reference so the dealer can match payments in their Stripe dashboard. mtc. is a Stripe partner.
A confirmed reservation marks the vehicle reserved on the site, emails the customer and the dealership, and is forwarded to the CRM integrations that accept reservations. Reservations that are not completed expire after a set period and the car returns to sale, with reminder emails before expiry. The dealer manages reservations from the Autonomy dashboard and refunds in Stripe.
What flows where.
| Data | Direction | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Checkout and deposit payment (card, Apple Pay, Google Pay) | Autonomy to Stripe | Real time at reservation |
| Payment confirmation (webhook) that confirms the reservation | Stripe to Autonomy | Real time |
| Vehicle registration and reservation details as the payment reference | Autonomy to Stripe | Real time at payment |
| Confirmed reservation to the dealer's CRM (where the CRM accepts reservations) | Autonomy to CRM | On confirmation |
Test keys and live keys are kept separate; the platform uses live keys only in production. Online payment is for vehicle reservations; the service booking journey takes no payment.
What the dealer sees.
"Reserve for £99" (or the dealer's amount) on search results and vehicle pages, the reservation journey with card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and "Reserved" labels on reserved cars. In the dashboard, the reservations list with status, expiry and processing history.
Setup and ownership.
The dealer opens or uses its own Stripe account and gives mtc. developer access to it; mtc. adds the test and live keys in the Autonomy dashboard, sets the deposit amount and the email addresses that receive reservation notifications, and runs test reservations before switching to live keys.
What the dealer provides
- Stripe account, with test keys and live keys
- Developer access to the Stripe account for mtc.
- Deposit amount (and any per-make amounts)
- Email addresses for reservation notifications
