Lease vs Buy Calculator
Compare the total cost of leasing or buying a vehicle using payments, upfront cash, mileage penalties, resale value, and opportunity cost.
Last updated: 2026-03-26
Compare leasing and buying
Enter your values
Enter the lease terms, the buy terms, and the driving pattern you actually expect.
Lower-cost strategy
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Enter the lease and buy assumptions to see which path costs less over your chosen time window.
Calculation History(0)
Example calculations
Tap an example to prefill the calculator with sample values.
Three-year lease, six-year compare
Two lease cycles versus buying and reselling at year six
A common real-world comparison where you want to see the total cash burn, not just the monthly payment.
Result: A multi-cycle comparison is more realistic than stopping the analysis at the first lease term.
Low-mileage lease fit
Mileage stays under the lease allowance
When your annual driving is modest, the overage penalty disappears and the lease case looks cleaner.
Result: Leasing usually looks best when the mileage cap actually matches how you drive.
High-mileage ownership case
Mileage penalties push the lease side up fast
Drivers who regularly exceed the lease allowance often discover that the monthly payment hid the real total cost.
Result: Mileage mismatch is one of the fastest ways for a lease to look cheap monthly but expensive overall.
How the lease-versus-buy estimate works
The lease side adds monthly payments, due-at-signing cash for each lease cycle, disposition fees, and any excess-mileage charges over the period you choose.
The buy side adds monthly payments and the initial down payment, then subtracts the vehicle's expected resale value at the end of the comparison period. It also includes an opportunity-cost estimate on the down payment so the upfront cash is not treated as free.
Lease vs buy FAQs
Use total cash cost, not just monthly payment, to compare the two strategies.
Why compare over multiple years instead of just one lease term?
Because people often keep replacing leases while owners keep the same car or sell later. A multi-year window makes the total economics easier to compare fairly.
Where does opportunity cost show up?
The calculator treats the buy down payment as cash that could have stayed invested or in savings. That is why it estimates a lost-yield cost instead of pretending the upfront cash was free.
Why can lease mileage matter so much?
Because the advertised payment only looks cheap if your driving actually fits the mileage cap. Repeated overage penalties can erase the benefit quickly.
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