Car Lease vs Buy Calculator
Compare modeled lease payments, finance payments, repeated lease cycles, and estimated resale value before you shop.
Last reviewed: June 2026Vehicle Info
Lease Terms
Buy / Finance Terms
Results
| Cost Component | Lease | Buy |
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About the Car Lease vs Buy Calculator
This calculator compares two common ways to drive the same vehicle: leasing it for one or more lease cycles, or buying it with an auto loan and keeping the resale value at the end. The inputs match the numbers shoppers usually see on a dealer worksheet: MSRP, negotiated price, sales tax, lease down payment, lease term, money factor, residual percentage, purchase down payment, loan term, and loan APR.
The lease side estimates residual value as MSRP x residual percentage. It then subtracts the lease down payment from the negotiated price to get the net capitalized cost, calculates a monthly depreciation charge, adds the lease finance charge from the money factor, and applies sales tax to the modeled monthly payment. If your planned ownership period is longer than one lease term, the calculator repeats the lease down payment for each lease cycle and multiplies the monthly payment across the full period.
The purchase side adds sales tax to the negotiated price, subtracts the down payment, and uses a standard installment-loan payment formula for the selected APR and loan term. It then estimates vehicle value with a simple depreciation assumption: 15% loss in year one and 10% per year after that. That ending value is subtracted from the total purchase payments to show a modeled net cost.
Default Scenario Walkthrough
With the default inputs, the modeled lease payment is about $385.39 per month. A six-year plan requires two 36-month lease cycles, so the total lease cost is about $33,747.78 after monthly payments and repeated lease down payments. The purchase side shows a $593.05 monthly payment and about $40,583.00 paid toward the loan and down payment, but it also estimates $16,563.24 of vehicle value remaining after six years. That puts the modeled buy net cost near $24,019.75 and makes buying lower by about $9,728 in this simplified scenario.
What to Add Before Making the Decision
The calculator intentionally keeps the math transparent instead of pretending every contract can be reduced to one universal number. For a real shopping decision, add acquisition fees, disposition fees, title and registration, dealer documentation fees, excess mileage charges, wear-and-tear charges, gap coverage, insurance differences, maintenance, repairs after warranty, trade-in equity, state tax rules, and any incentive that applies only to leasing or only to financing.
Monthly payment can be a useful cash-flow check, but it can also hide the expensive parts of a deal. The FTC recommends getting the written out-the-door price before discussing financing, and the CFPB recommends comparison shopping auto financing early. Use this calculator after you have realistic price, residual, money factor, and APR numbers, then compare the modeled result against the actual contract terms.
Sources and Further Reading
For consumer context, review the FTC guide to financing or leasing a car and the CFPB auto loans resources. Those sources explain why the written price, financing terms, mileage limits, and add-on fees matter more than the advertised monthly payment alone.