CarVeto vs Car Advert Check at a glance
Two tables, both read off CarVeto’s own site. The first is the job we rank on: what the check does with the records. “No” means nothing on their site describes it, not that they can’t.
| Provider | Reads the advert | MOT advisory analysis | Known faults with costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car Advert CheckOur pick | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| CarVeto | No | No | No |
Prices and features checked on 17 September 2026, read off each provider's own site: “No” means nothing on their site describes it. Providers change them; tell us if one has.
| Provider | One full check | Free tier | Data guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car Advert CheckOur pick | See pricing | Free scan: reads the advert against the DVSA MOT history, verdict, risk score and biggest finding, no card and no password | None stated |
| CarVeto | £12.95 (Platinum); £9.95 (Gold, excludes finance) | Tax status, MOT expiry, every MOT test with passes, failures, advisories and mileage, keeper indicator, plate change history, spec | Finance data guarantee of up to £10,000 (Platinum) |
Prices and features checked on 17 September 2026, read off each provider's own site. Providers change them; tell us if one has.
Where CarVeto beats us
Gives away the full MOT history with advisory text for free, more than our free scan shows without an advert, and its paid report has its own risk score. It’s the one to buy for the most generous free tier, with a risk score on the paid report.
CarVeto is the rival we watch most closely. Its free tier is the most generous we found, and it shows more raw provenance signal than our free scan does without an advert to read. Its Platinum report carries a risk score and purchase guidance, so it isn't a bare list of records either, and it also sells a physical pre-purchase inspection, which no desk check replaces. Its guidance pages say what we'd say about advisories: they always mean something needs attention, and repeated ones suggest it hasn't had it.
The difference is the input. CarVeto's score starts from the plate. Ours starts from the plate and the advert, so it can tell you when "full service history" doesn't match the car's own MOT record, or when "just needs a sensor" sits on an engine with a known fault at that age. If you only want the records read into a score, CarVeto does that well. If you want the seller's description read against them, that's ours, and the free scan does the first pass for nothing.
What CarVeto describes on its own site
Straight from the pages listed under Sources, with nothing filled in from anywhere else. Where the site didn’t show something, the row says so rather than guessing.
- Free tier
- Tax status, MOT expiry, every MOT test with passes, failures, advisories and mileage, keeper indicator, plate change history, spec
- One full check
- £12.95 (Platinum); £9.95 (Gold, excludes finance)
- Multi-check or packs
- Two Platinum £18.95; three £19.99; five £42.95
- Data guarantee
- Finance data guarantee of up to £10,000 (Platinum)
- Sources it names
- DVLA; DVSA; Police National Computer; MIAFTR; Experian (finance); BVRLA; RMI; National Mileage Register; VIC; salvage auctions; insurers
What its pages describe beyond the lookup: Guidance pages say advisories always indicate something needs attention and repeated ones suggest unresolved issues; the report prints advisory text and an MOT mileage chart, and nothing describes per-report analysis. The paid report carries a risk score with purchase guidance, the closest thing to our verdict in the category.
Read off CarVeto’s own site on 23 October 2026.
What Car Advert Check does with the same records
Start with what’s the same. Our outstanding finance, theft and write-off lookups come from the same places as everyone else’s: the lenders, the police and the insurers’ write-off register. Nobody holds a private source, and we’re not selling better records than CarVeto.
What’s different is what happens next. A plate lookup stops at the registration. Ours carries on and reads three things no lookup takes in: the advert you’re looking at, the car’s whole DVSA MOT advisory history, and our known-faults database for that model, with what each fault costs to put right. Then it gives you one verdict instead of a page of fields, and outstanding finance, a theft marker or a write-off sends that verdict straight to its highest risk rating, because none of those is something you negotiate around.
Where it earns its keep is a car that comes back clean on the registers. A standard check stops there and the car looks fine. Ours keeps going: if the advert says “full service history”, the MOT record shows the same suspension advisory three years running and the engine is one with a known fault at this age, the report says the description doesn’t match the car’s own record, what the fault would cost, and what to ask before you travel.
What it won’t do: we offer no data guarantee, we can’t see a car’s history from before it came to the UK, we don’t sell a car’s past adverts, and nothing we or anyone else sells can see accident damage that never became a claim or how well a repair was done. Those take your eyes and a ramp.
So which should you run?
You’ve got an advert open and you’re deciding whether it’s worth the drive. Run the free scan on that advert. It reads the wording against the car’s DVSA MOT history and tells you the biggest thing to worry about, with no card and no password.
You’re about to hand money over. Upgrade that report to the Provenance Check. It adds the outstanding finance, theft and write-off records, scores them in with everything else, and includes the Smart Check, so the seller questions and a figure to negotiate with come with it.
You need what CarVeto does that we don’t. Buy it. The section above says what that is, and we’d rather you had the right check than ours.
You lose nothing by starting free: the free report upgrades on the same link with no re-run, so you never paste the advert twice, and if the free scan already says walk away, you’ve saved yourself the rest.