I led UX design for the launch of the CarGurus Pricing Tool, a product that helps dealers price inventory using real-time market data and machine learning recommendations.

The goal was to make pricing decisions faster and more confident by combining market signals, clear recommendations, and simple pricing controls in one place.

The Problem

Pricing a vehicle is one of the most important decisions a dealer makes. But the workflow was messy.

Dealers had to jump between tools, spreadsheets, and marketplaces just to understand what the market was doing. Most tools focused on list prices, not real shopper demand, and many algorithmic recommendations felt like black boxes.

As a result, pricing decisions were slow, manual, and often based on gut feel.

Key Insight

One thing became clear during research:

Dealers don’t trust pricing algorithms they can’t understand.

Even when the recommendation was good, dealers hesitated to act if they couldn’t see the reasoning behind it.

That insight shifted the focus of the product from delivering recommendations to making those recommendations transparent and actionable.

Design Approach

The experience was built around helping dealers quickly understand the market and adjust prices with confidence.

A pricing slider with projected outcomes
Dealers can adjust a vehicle’s price and immediately see projected outcomes, helping them weigh trade-offs between margin and speed.

Transparent market signals
The interface surfaces signals like comparable vehicles, supply levels, and shopper engagement so dealers can see what’s driving the recommendation.

Explainable recommendations
Instead of a black-box number, the tool shows how market demand and competition influence the suggested price.

My Role

I was the lead designer for the product launch. I helped shape the product vision and designed the end-to-end experience, working closely with product, engineering, and data science to turn complex pricing models into something dealers could actually understand and use.

Outcome

The tool saw strong engagement during beta.

• 94 dealers participated, making ~2,500 price updates

• 160+ price changes were within 0.5% of the recommended price

• 73% of vehicles following recommendations saw increased VDP views

• 77% met or exceeded the estimated turn time

These results showed that when pricing guidance is transparent and easy to act on, dealers are much more willing to trust and use it.