Early Bird Entry Fee: $350 U.S. for the first entry. Additional entries from the same company receive a $100 discount.
Early Bird Deadline: April 17, 2026

Regular Entry Fee: $385 U.S. for the first entry. Additional entries from the same company receive a $100 discount.
Final Deadline: May 15, 2026

Payment: Credit card payments are preferred, but an invoice can also be requested.

1. Products must be introduced and available for purchase by the end-user between January 2025 and December 2025 to qualify.
2. Products must be innovative, meaning they must be new to the automotive industry or substantially updated within the last year. This does not include label or packaging updates. Additional judging criteria applies.
3. Companies must submit a completed entry form for each individual product entered.
4. A product may only be entered once, but a company may submit more than one new and innovative product.
5. Editorial has the right to move entries to more appropriate categories if necessary (company will be notified of category change).

• All products submitted will receive digital exposure.
• The products selected as category winners by our panel of judges will be published in the October 2026 issues of PTEN and Professional Distributor as well as in their newsletters and on their social media platforms.
• Those with the highest scores will be interviewed by a PTEN editor and will receive additional coverage in the coming year.
• Once the results are in and the category winners have been selected, the products reviewed by our panel of professional automotive technician judges will be entered into our 2026 PTEN People’s Choice Awards.
• The PTEN People’s Choice Awards allows our readers to vote on their top products. Voting will be open from July 1 through August 31. Winners of the 2026 PTEN People’s Choice will be published in the October issues of PTEN and Professional Distributor as well as in their newsletters and on their social media platforms.

Our group of industry professional judges will review each product based on the following criteria:

Time savings

• Product cuts down on time taken to complete a job/repair
• Increases opportunity for greater ROI

Task simplification

• Product increases productivity
• Measures how well product reduces workflow complexity

Uniqueness

• Evaluates how new or differentiated the tool is compared to existing solutions in the market
• Does the tool introduce a new concept/technology in later models

Market Relevance

• Tackles emerging issue(s) in the industry
• Likely to be broadly adopted and leave a meaningful impact on the industry

Technician experience/Ease of use

• How intuitive is this product
• How practical is the product

For the 5 categories of judging criteria, each product is given a score from 1-10. The scoring breakdown is as follows:

• 1-2: Minor variation of existing tools
• 3-4: Incremental improvement with some new elements
• 5-6: Moderate improvement with some new elements
• 7-8: Clear departure from standard approaches
• 9-10: Category-defining or first of its kind innovation

Each product is given a score out of 50. However, if a product is the only product in its category, then it must receive a score of 30 or higher to win the category. If the product does not receive at least 30 points, then it will given “Honorable Mention.”