Massachusetts is the rare state where the transparency question has a legal answer. Under 940 CMR 5.02(3), an advertised vehicle price must be the all-in price, every charge necessary before delivery included, the documentation fee expressly among them. In June 2026 the Attorney General's office advised dealers that disclosing the doc fee separately, even prominently, does not comply: the fee has to be inside the advertised price. Massachusetts sets no cap on how large the fee can be. It regulates where the number appears. That placement question is the single biggest category in CarThrive's Price Transparency Grades, worth 30 of 100 points, so Massachusetts is the natural first state to grade. Here are the Massachusetts dealers with full grades, checked in October 2026. The full grading method is in How CarThrive Grades Dealer Fees and Price Transparency, and the law behind it is in Massachusetts Dealer Pricing Rules.
| Dealer | Town | Doc fee | Grade | Why it scored there |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best Chevrolet | Hingham | $425 | A, 92 | The lowest Massachusetts fee in our sample, itemized inside the final price, and the site footer says so outright. |
| Jack Madden Ford | Norwood | $499 | A, 88 | Documentary preparation itemized inside the advertised price, and a fresh October check found the presentation consistent. |
| Herb Chambers Ford of Braintree | Braintree | $499 | A, 88 | Dealer documentary preparation itemized inside the advertised price, consistent across its Massachusetts presentation on recheck. |
| Nucar Chevrolet | Norwood | $529 | A, 88 | Buy prices state that they include the doc fee, and lease offers itemize the $529 fee inside the amount due at signing. |
| Quirk Chevrolet and Quirk Hyundai | Braintree | $499 | A, 88 | The fee sits inside the displayed Quirk Price at both stores, verified line by line, one figure across every page checked. |
| McGovern Chevrolet | Arlington | $595 | B, 81 | A named documentation fee line inside the stack and inside the displayed price. The presentation is right; the $595 level is what costs points. |
| Copeland Chevrolet | Brockton | $595 | B, 81 | A doc fee line inside the sale price, with site text stating the fee is included on every transaction. Same story as Arlington: level, not presentation. |
The pattern across the five A grades is boring, which is the point. Each one itemizes its fee as a named line inside the price a shopper sees, so the number on the screen is the number the paperwork starts from. Each one presents the fee the same way across the pages we checked, with no second disclaimer template quietly saying the opposite. And none of them bakes a forced add-on into the price. Fees at the A stores run from $425 to $529, all below the Massachusetts average of $558 published by CarEdge. The B grades are not presentation failures. McGovern and Copeland present their fees as cleanly as anyone in the state. They are held back by the size of the fee itself.
The dealers below publish a doc fee we have verified, but their full price presentation check is not finished, so they carry a provisional fee score out of 60 and no letter grade. Listing them here is a statement about the fee only:
| Dealer | Town | Doc fee | Fee score, of 60 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jannell Ford | Hanover | $529 | 48 |
| Tasca Toyota | Boston | $499 | 44 |
| Nucar Toyota | Norwood | $529 | 44 |
| Ira Toyota | Danvers | $595 | 39 |
| McGovern Honda | Everett | $595 | 37 |
| Kia North | Danvers | $599 | 37 |
| 24 Ford of Easton | Easton | $685 | 31 |
| Pride Chevrolet | Lynn | $699 | 31 |
| McGee Toyota | Hanover | $699 | 31 |
| Rodman Ford | Foxboro | $799 | 27 |
Ten more Quirk stores in Massachusetts (Kia in Braintree and Marshfield, Volkswagen Braintree, Mazda, Nissan, and Subaru in the Quincy and Braintree area, both CDJR stores, Buick GMC Braintree, and Ford's Quincy retail store) publish the group's uniform $499 fee and sit at 44 of 60, awaiting the same presentation check. At the other end of the information spectrum, some of the state's largest dealers, including Boch Toyota, Commonwealth Motors, Kelly, Prime Automotive stores, and Muzi, publish no doc fee amount at all, which leaves them ungradeable. Two Massachusetts sites contradict themselves on the amount, Mastria Subaru in Raynham ($695 in its price breakdown, $549.75 in its footer) and Colonial Ford in Plymouth ($595 against $495), and both are flagged incomplete until their own pages agree.
Grades move when published pricing moves, and the B dealers here are closer than the letters suggest:
Grades are re-checked when dealers change their pages, and every grade on a CarThrive profile shows the date it was checked. The grades above were checked in October 2026. Full profiles for every dealer named here are in the CarThrive dealership directory.
CarThrive dealer transparency rubric and scores (dealer websites, price stacks, specials terms, and disclaimers, checked October 13 to 16, 2026); CarThrive doc fee research (published fees captured October 12, 2026); Massachusetts Attorney General motor vehicle advertising regulations, 940 CMR 5.02(3), and the Attorney General's June 2026 advisory on documentary preparation fees, covered in "Massachusetts Dealer Pricing Rules" (carthrive.com); CarEdge Massachusetts dealer fee report (caredge.com, October 2026) for the state average fee. Fees and presentations change; grades are re-scored when a dealer's published pricing changes.