Vehicle EconomicsAuto Loan Calculator
Calculate your monthly payment and see how much of it is interest.
Why this comes up
"What's my payment going to be" is usually the first question anyone asks before buying a car, whether they're pricing a new purchase or sanity-checking a dealer's number. The payment is a fair first answer, but by itself it hides how much of that payment is interest versus principal, which is exactly what makes term and rate shopping worth the effort.
How we calculated this
Payment equals P × r / (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ), where P is the loan amount, r is the monthly rate (APR ÷ 1200), and n is the term in months. We run the full monthly schedule to also report total interest and payoff timing, not just the payment.
Worked example, using this page's own defaults ($20,000 at 4.75% APR, 60 months): the payment comes out to approximately $375.00, with about$2,500 in total interest over the loan. Run the calculator above to check your own numbers.
What this means
- Two loans with the same payment can have very different total costs if the term or APR differs, always check total interest, not just the monthly number.
- Adding even a small extra monthly payment compounds over the life of the loan, see Extra Car Payment Savings for the exact dollar impact of a specific amount.
- If this payment is tighter than you'd like, Maximum Car Price From Monthly Budget solves the reverse question: what price a target payment actually supports.
Limitations
This is a planning model, not a lender's payoff quote. Daily simple-interest accrual, exact payment timing, and lender-specific rounding can shift the real figure slightly. See Methodology.
Methodology
This engine is built on Vehicle Economics' fixed-rate amortization model: the standard loan-payment formula run out as a full month-by-month schedule. See Methodology for the full detail.