One human reads every email. Real reply, usually within one business day.
info@carvapp.comMost replies arrive within 24 hours on weekdays.
Including the bits below saves a back-and-forth and gets you a fix faster.
Common requests have their own pages — no email needed.
If your car shows up in someone's spot and you'd rather it didn't — fill out the form. Removed within 30 days.
Permanently remove your Carva account and all associated data.
What data we store, what we don't, where it lives, and what your rights are.
The agreement between you and Carva when you use the app.
Same FAQ as the homepage, here for direct linking.
Carva offers 10 free scans to try the app. After that, you can either subscribe (Carva Pro at $4.99/mo for 100 scans a month, or Carva Pro · Annual at $49.99/yr for 1,500 scans a year — about $4.16 a month) or buy scan packs ($0.99 for 7 scans, $1.99 for 20 scans, or $3.99 for 50 scans — no expiry, use whenever). Neither subscription has a daily limit. On the annual plan, up to 150 scans are available in the first 14 days and the remaining ones open up after that — nothing is lost. Each scan uses paid car recognition regardless of whether you save the result, which is why the app relies on subscriptions or packs to operate.
Three ways, and they stack on top of the 10 scans a new account starts with. Invite a friend: they enter your code, and once they have saved 3 spots you both get +3 scans (up to 10 friends per 30 days). Share a spot: post the spot card publicly to TikTok, Instagram or Facebook with the #carva hashtag and we credit +1 scan once we find the post — the spot has to score at least 50 points (Exotic tier or better), be no more than 7 days old, and each spot pays only once, with at most one rewarded post every 3 days per person. Finish a weekly challenge: those pay 1-2 scans on top of the XP, while daily challenges pay XP only. Full conditions are in the Terms.
Every scored car lands on a 12-tier ladder, from Common (3 XP) up to Immortal (2600+ XP). Where it lands depends on what the car actually is: what it is worth today, how many were built, how old it is, how much real performance it has for its era, and whether it carries genuine motorsport or cultural pedigree — homologation specials, JDM and DTM legends, rally cars, movie icons. The rarer and more significant the find, the bigger the score. The exact weights, and how they combine, stay private — that is the only thing keeping the leaderboards honest.
Because Carva is a collection of cars that matter, not a traffic counter — if everything scored, a collection would mean nothing. Five kinds of vehicle never earn points: campers, motorhomes and RVs; vans, trucks and other commercial vehicles; stretch limousines and hearses; ordinary modern mass-market cars, until they have aged into rarity; and cheap, unremarkable everyday cars with no age, rarity or pedigree behind them. Everything else scores. Age alone is enough to get on the board — an ordinary car that survived long enough is already a rare sight in traffic, and the further back it goes the more it is worth. The car is still identified, named and saved to your feed either way.
There are three reasons a scan does not land in your collection, and the app tells you which one it is. “Already in collection” — you have that exact model already; each model counts once, so a second Golf GTI will not be added. “Too many nearby” — you have saved 5 cars in this area today; that is an anti-farming limit and it resets the next day, or as soon as you move somewhere new. “Too common” — the car is a modern mass-market model and does not score (see above). One thing worth knowing: recognition runs on paid AI the moment you press the shutter, so a scan is spent whatever the answer turns out to be. Pointing the camera at cars you already own, or at the traffic outside, is the quickest way to burn through them.
Ghost cars are rare legends that appear randomly on your map. Walk to one, open the AR view, and study the car from any angle as if it were really there. Catch it to add it to your Ghost Garage permanently.
Yes — every user gets a unique invite code, shown on the profile screen. Your friend enters it in the app, and once they have saved 3 spots BOTH of you get +3 bonus scans. A code can be redeemed once per account, and only if you have not already used someone else's. Up to 10 invited friends can pay out in any 30-day window.
No — never, at any point. Your own spots are yours at exact coordinates. For everyone else, the location is always shifted by about 5 km, and for the first 24 hours no location is shown at all. The spot itself appears in the feed after 3 hours, or straight away to people who follow you, but on the map it only turns up once those 24 hours have passed. Faces and plates are blurred on the photo either way — this protects the spotter and the car's owner.
Suspicious spots aren't "not counted" — they're rejected the moment you submit them and never enter the database. Every photo runs through a battery of checks: is it a real car or a scale model? Are these real-world pixels or a phone screen? Is it a poster, magazine page, or art print? Has the photo already shown up somewhere on the internet? Anything that fails goes straight to the bin. The exact methods stay private — that's the only thing protecting the leaderboards.
Yes — the AI works on any car anywhere. The leaderboard separates global ranking from country ranking, so you can compete with neighbours and the world at the same time.