Tomi Mikula spent about six years in car sales and finance, learning every lever a dealership pulls to squeeze margin out of a buyer. Then he switched sides. For a flat $1,000 (£790), his company Delivrd now handles the entire negotiation on behalf of consumers who would rather pay a professional than endure the showroom grind.
'I don't have a magic wand or a secret sauce to save you thousands of dollars more than you can on your own,' Mikula told theCar Dealership Guypodcast. 'I teach everything I do for free.' His argument is that buyers who follow his tips can match his results on their own. Most simply do not want to.
That bluntness has not hurt business. Delivrd pulled in $2.3 million (£1.82 million) in revenue in 2025 with top expenses of $1.5 million (£1.19 million), and is on pace to exceed $3 million (£2.37 million) this year, Mikula wrote in a first-person column forCNBC. The 33-year-old now employs 15 people, all working remotely, and completed 300 deals last month alone.
Before Delivrd charged a penny, Mikula spent 10 months negotiating car deals for strangers — first on Reddit, then through any forum that would have him. He described the early pitch as 'creepy': a random person sliding into DMs offering to haggle on someone's behalf.
What set those months apart was the research. Mikula offered a $100 (£79) Amazon gift card to every client who completed a third-party survey about the experience. The data reshaped his entire model. 'The biggest shocker to me is that consumers didn't care about savings at all,' he said. 'It was like out of the top four or five things, it was number five. People cared more about the time, the energy, the anxiety.'
When he asked what they would pay, most said he could keep half the savings he secured. He felt that model lacked the transparency he was trying to build. A flat $1,000 stuck. 'There were very few people that said below $1,000, and for those, they weren't our clientele,' Mikula said.
His marketing budget since day one is, remarkably, $200 (£158). Everything else came through social media. Mikula used to livestream 12 hours a day, showing his profits, his income, every call. Some dealers loathe it,Entrepreneurnoted.
One dealer branded him a liar on camera and took to calling him 'Bubba' during a 27-minute call that pulled more than 700,000 views. Others refuse his calls entirely. Mikula is fine with both. 'You yell at me, you curse me out — but you look terrible and it just advertises well for my business,' he said.
Live Negotiation With A Dealership. 2024 Mazda CX5. Craziest negotiation with a dealership to date.#newcar#carbuyingtips#dealership#carbuying#delivrd#carsales
Delivrd's average saving across price, trade-in, add-ons and finance charges comes to roughly $6,300 (£4,980) per deal. Against a $1,000 fee, the net benefit is $5,300 (£4,190) before accounting for the hours a buyer never spent being pitched warranties they did not want.
Source: International Business Times UK
