Carly App Review 2025: Pricing, Features, and Honest Assessment

Carly has been around for a while now, and if you've spent any time in BMW forums or Mercedes owner groups, you've almost certainly seen it recommended. It's positioned as the friendly, approachable car coding and diagnostics app -- the one you'd hand to a friend who just bought their first 3 Series and wants to enable those hidden features they keep reading about online.

And honestly? For that specific use case, Carly delivers. It's probably got the best coding interface of any consumer-grade OBD2 app on the market. But "worth it" is a loaded question when you're looking at a proprietary adapter purchase on top of annual subscription fees, so let's break down what you're actually getting.

The Interface Is Genuinely Excellent

I'll start with what Carly does better than almost anyone else: the user experience. Where tools like OBDeleven can feel like they were designed by engineers for engineers, Carly feels like someone sat down and thought about what a normal person would want to see when they plug into their car for the first time.

The home screen gives you a clean overview of your vehicle. Diagnostic codes are displayed with plain-language descriptions rather than just alphanumeric soup. The coding options are organized by category -- lighting, comfort, infotainment, driving -- rather than buried in adaptation channel numbers that require a forum thread to decode. For someone who's never touched a diagnostic tool before, this matters a lot. You can go from "just downloaded the app" to "enabling my daytime running lights as turn signals" in maybe fifteen minutes, and most of that time is the initial vehicle scan.

This isn't a small thing. The barrier to entry with most coding tools is that you need to already know what you're doing before the app becomes useful. Carly flips that -- the app teaches you what's possible on your specific car, then walks you through changing it. The one-click coding presets are curated and tested, though availability varies significantly by model year and variant. It's worth checking Carly's compatibility page for your specific vehicle before purchasing. That said, you're not going to accidentally brick your comfort module because you changed the wrong bit in a long coding string.

BMW and Mercedes Support Is Where It Shines

Carly works with most OBD2 vehicles from 1996 onward for basic scanning -- reading and clearing codes, pulling live data, that sort of thing. But the real value is in the deeper manufacturer-specific features, and that's where BMW and Mercedes owners get the most out of their subscription.

On a BMW (I tested primarily on an F30 3 Series and a G20), the depth of coding options is impressive. You can tweak exhaust burble settings on M-Sport models, change how the iDrive system behaves, adjust ambient lighting, modify the digital gauge cluster layout, enable sport displays that BMW left disabled from the factory. There's something genuinely fun about discovering that your car can do things it's been capable of all along -- you just needed the right tool to flip the switch.

Mercedes support is similarly strong. Things like adjusting the ambient lighting colors beyond the factory presets, enabling the hidden engineering menu, changing how the start/stop system behaves. If you've ever looked at the options list on a higher-trim Mercedes and thought "I wish I had that feature" -- there's a decent chance Carly can enable it on your car.

VW and Audi support exists too, though here you're getting into OBDeleven's home turf. Carly's VW/Audi coding catalog is solid but noticeably thinner than what OBDeleven offers for those brands. If your garage has a Golf and a 3 Series, Carly's multi-brand approach actually makes more sense than juggling two different apps and two different proprietary adapters. But if VW is all you drive, OBDeleven is probably the better coding tool for that ecosystem.

Beyond European brands, Carly's value drops off considerably. You can still read codes and view live data on a Honda or Toyota, but the coding features that justify the subscription price are either minimal or nonexistent. It's a perfectly functional code reader on non-European cars, but you'd be overpaying for what amounts to basic OBD2 functionality.

The Used Car Check Is Legitimately Useful

One feature that doesn't get enough attention in most Carly reviews is the used car check. When you're buying a used vehicle, the standard move is to check for diagnostic trouble codes, but a savvy seller can clear those minutes before you arrive. Carly's used car check goes deeper -- it scans multiple ECU modules, looks for patterns that suggest recent code clearing, checks for mileage inconsistencies between modules, and gives you an overall health assessment.

I've used this on three different vehicles during test drives, and it caught a cleared code on one of them -- a 2017 Mercedes C-Class that showed clean on a basic OBD2 scan but had fault history stored in a secondary module. That's exactly the kind of thing that saves you from writing a large check for someone else's problem. It's not a substitute for a full pre-purchase inspection with a mechanic, but as a first-pass filter it's genuinely valuable.

The Adapter Situation

Here's where the enthusiasm gets tempered. Carly requires their own Universal Scanner for anything beyond the most basic functionality -- the deep coding, the used car check, the manufacturer-specific diagnostics all need the Carly hardware. Generic ELM327 adapters won't cut it. So the scanner is a required purchase, not an optional accessory.

The Carly Universal Scanner currently runs approximately €80 to €95, depending on your region and any bundled deals. This creates a lock-in effect that's worth thinking about before you buy. If you later decide you want to try a different app, that Carly scanner isn't going to work with OBDeleven (which requires its own proprietary hardware) or most other advanced scanning apps. You're committing to Carly's ecosystem with that purchase, and switching costs money.

The adapter itself is fine -- good build quality, connects reliably via Bluetooth Low Energy, draws minimal power from the OBD2 port. I didn't experience connectivity drops or pairing issues on either iOS or Android. It's just the principle of proprietary hardware lock-in that rubs the wrong way, especially when plenty of excellent third-party adapters exist in the €25 to €60 range that work across multiple apps.

Pricing: What You're Actually Paying

The pricing structure deserves a close look because it's more layered than the marketing makes it seem.

The Carly Universal Scanner is approximately €80 to €95 -- that's your entry ticket. Then you've got subscription tiers. Subscription pricing varies by region and platform, but expect approximately €50 to €70 per year for a single brand, or €70 to €90 per year for all brands. Carly also now offers bundled packages that include the scanner at no additional upfront cost, which can be more cost-effective overall.

A realistic first-year cost for someone who wants the full Carly experience across brands is approximately €150 to €185, or potentially less with a bundled scanner-and-subscription package. After that, you're looking at €70 to €90 annually to keep the subscription active. If you let it lapse, you lose access to coding and advanced features -- the adapter becomes a basic code reader.

Is that expensive? It depends on your reference point. Compared to a dealer visit for a single coding change (often €100 to €200), Carly pays for itself quickly if you're the type who enjoys tweaking settings. Compared to the broader app market, you're paying a premium for that polished interface and curated coding library. A tool like Torque Pro costs about €5 once and works with any generic adapter, though it offers no coding at all, requires more technical knowledge, and is only available on Android.

What Carly Doesn't Do Well

I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't talk about the gaps, because they're significant depending on what you need.

Diagnostic depth is probably the biggest limitation. Carly reads codes and gives you clear descriptions of what each one means, which puts it ahead of many consumer apps. But when you're actually trying to figure out what's wrong with your car, you need more than "P0171 -- System Too Lean." You need to know whether that's a €3 vacuum hose, a €150 MAF sensor, or a €600 fuel injector problem. Carly gives you the what; it doesn't do a great job with the why or the how-much.

The Smart Mechanic add-on improves this somewhat -- you get more detailed explanations and some repair guidance. But it's an additional subscription cost on top of what you're already paying, and even then, the diagnostic analysis isn't particularly sophisticated. You're getting better code descriptions, not intelligent fault analysis.

Live data monitoring is functional but basic. You can pull data streams and view them in real-time, which is useful for tracking down intermittent issues if you know what parameters to watch. But there's no intelligent analysis of the data -- no flagging of values that are trending toward failure, no pattern recognition across multiple parameters. You're staring at numbers and deciding for yourself what's normal and what isn't.

For non-European vehicles, Carly is essentially a code reader with a nice UI. You're getting generic OBD2 access -- which, to be fair, is what most apps offer on non-supported brands -- but the premium pricing feels hard to justify when the advanced features that differentiate Carly aren't available on your car.

How It Compares to Real-World Alternatives

The landscape for consumer OBD2 apps has gotten more interesting over the past couple of years. Here's how Carly stacks up honestly.

OBDeleven is the direct competitor for coding, and it's a real horse race depending on your brand. OBDeleven has deeper VW/Audi/Skoda/Seat support -- their one-click app library for VAG vehicles is substantially larger than Carly's. But Carly has the edge on BMW and Mercedes, and the interface is more welcoming if you're not already steeped in VAG forum culture. Both require proprietary adapters, both use subscription models. If you drive VAG, lean toward OBDeleven. If you drive BMW/Mercedes, lean toward Carly. If you drive both... I'm sorry about your wallet. BimmerCode (approximately €30, one-time payment) and its companion app BimmerLink (approximately €30, one-time payment) offer BMW coding and diagnostics without a subscription. BimmerCode's coding depth for BMW rivals Carly's, and the one-time pricing makes it significantly cheaper long-term. The trade-off is that it's BMW-only and the interface is less polished than Carly's. If you drive a BMW and primarily want coding without ongoing subscription costs, BimmerCode is hard to beat on value. It's well-known on forums like Bimmerfest and BimmerPost for good reason. Torque Pro remains the budget king at about €5 and no subscription. It works with any generic Bluetooth adapter, offers incredible customization for data display, and gives you raw diagnostic power that neither Carly nor OBDeleven can match at the parameter level. But there's zero coding capability, the interface looks like it was designed in 2012, it assumes you already know what you're looking at, and it's Android only. It's the right answer for technically minded people who want diagnostic data and don't care about coding. Carista is another option worth knowing about. It's subscription-based (approximately €50 per year), supports multi-brand coding with their own adapter, and sits somewhere between Carly and OBDeleven in terms of brand coverage. It's not as deep as either on their best-supported brands, but it covers a wider range of manufacturers for basic coding. Skanyx takes a fundamentally different approach by focusing on AI-powered diagnostics rather than coding. It works with any standard Bluetooth OBD2 adapter (no proprietary hardware), interprets diagnostic data in plain language, and provides health scoring and repair cost estimates. It won't enable your needle sweep or change your ambient lighting, but if your primary question is "what's wrong with my car and what should I do about it" rather than "what hidden features can I unlock," it's worth a look.

Skanyx provides AI-powered fault analysis, vehicle health scoring, and Pre-Purchase Inspection reports -- all without proprietary hardware. Try it at skanyx.com/download

The Verdict

Carly is a genuinely good app with genuinely good coding capabilities, wrapped in what I'd argue is the best user interface in this product category. If you drive a BMW or Mercedes and you want to explore what your car can do beyond factory settings, it's a satisfying tool that delivers on its core promise.

But it's also a more expensive proposition than it first appears -- proprietary adapter plus ongoing subscription plus optional add-ons -- and the diagnostic side of the app hasn't kept pace with where the market is heading. The coding is the product; the diagnostics are a secondary feature.

For BMW and Mercedes enthusiasts who enjoy personalization, Carly is worth the investment. For BMW-only owners focused on coding, BimmerCode's one-time payment model deserves serious consideration. For people who primarily need diagnostics, repair guidance, or used car evaluation across a range of brands, there are better options that don't require proprietary hardware and offer more analytical depth. If diagnostics and vehicle health monitoring are your priority rather than coding, Skanyx works with any standard Bluetooth OBD2 adapter and provides AI-powered fault analysis, health scoring, and Pre-Purchase Inspection reports. Know what you're buying it for, and you won't be disappointed.