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Products Per Deal Haven't Moved in a Year. What That Means for the Next Product on Your Menu

Titan Secure4 min read
A dealership showroom with a sports car on display, with the Titan Secure logo and the headline 1.55 Products Per Deal.

On September 1, AutoSuccess reported that StoneEagle had released the second-quarter and first-half 2026 edition of its StoneEagleDATA TCP Report. F&I offices posted their highest first-half averages in that dataset for F&I gross profit per vehicle retailed and for monthly F&I income per dealer.

That is a real achievement for F&I teams, and it came during a year when the front of the deal got much thinner. This piece is an analysis of what the numbers suggest, not a forecast, and we'd welcome other readings of the same data.

The short version: F&I is earning more per deal, but customers are buying about the same number of products, so growth is coming from bigger tickets rather than more yeses.

What the Report Showed

These are the first-half 2026 figures as reported, compared with the first half of 2025:

  • F&I gross per vehicle retailed rose 5.7% to $1,989, from $1,882.
  • Front-end gross per deal fell to $536, from $765.
  • Total gross per deal was $2,525, down $122.
  • Average deals per month fell to 109, from 113.
  • Average products per deal was 1.55, essentially unchanged from a year earlier.

StoneEagle CEO Cindy Allen said that across those six months, "F&I generated nearly eight out of every 10 gross dollars per deal, helping keep a nearly 30% decline in front gross from producing a comparable decline in total gross."

Penetration held steady too. Vehicle service contracts stayed at 45%, paint and fabric at 20%, prepaid maintenance at 16% and tire and wheel at 10%, while GAP rose from 38% to 39%. Over the same period the average amount financed rose by $1,928 to $37,633.

Reading the Numbers

Our reading is fairly simple. If products per deal is flat while F&I gross per vehicle is rising, then most of the growth is coming from the value of each product and from larger financed amounts, not from customers saying yes to more products.

That has two implications worth thinking about. The first is that menu space is valuable. With customers buying about one and a half products on an average deal, a new product doesn't get added in a vacuum. It competes with what is already there for a limited number of yeses.

The second is that payment pressure is real. The report shows the average monthly payment rising from $673 to $685, and customers notice every addition to a payment that is already climbing. Any new product has to justify itself quickly and clearly.

READ: The Truth About Your Pack and Why It Needs to Change

What the Next Product Has to Show

If a product is going to earn a lasting place on the menu in this environment, we think it has to meet a few practical tests:

  • The customer understands it in one sentence. A product that needs a long explanation tends to get skipped when the deal is running late.
  • The customer can see it working. Products the customer interacts with after delivery tend to feel more valuable than ones they only remember at claim time.
  • It holds up to scrutiny. Add-ons get careful attention from customers and regulators, so the value needs to be clear and easy to document.
  • It doesn't add work in the back. A product that ties up the service lane costs the store in a different column.

Where Theft Prevention Fits

Theft protection can be one of the harder products to explain at the end of a long deal, and that makes it easy to drop. A prevention product is easier to explain than recovery alone, because the promise is simple: when the vehicle is armed, it won't start or drive away, even with a working key. That also answers the customer who says the car already has an immobilizer: a factory immobilizer trusts the key, and Titan doesn't.

That is how we approach Titan. The customer arms and disarms it from the Titan app or an encrypted Bluetooth remote and gets alerts if something happens, so it is something they can see working. It's integrated by Titan, not your service lane: our fitment engineers handle it on site. Titan also invests first, in inventory pre-fit, hardware, integration and training, so there's no buy-in. Titan can also support a dealer-controlled reserve strategy with reinsurance upside, which is a conversation to have with your agent and tax adviser rather than a promise we would make in an article.

None of this changes the main point of the data. The menu is crowded, and every product on it has to earn its place.

A Question for F&I Directors and Agents

We would value hearing from the people who build menus for a living. What does a new product have to prove before it earns a permanent spot on your menu?

See what Titan adds per unit in F&I and reinsurance income, or book a demo to see how it could fit alongside your current products. Agents who serve dealerships can become a Titan dealer partner.

Stop theft before it starts.

Titan Secure keeps vehicles where they belong. See how it works for dealerships.

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