Vehicle EconomicsCar Lease Calculator
Your lease payment, and exactly what it's made of.
Why this comes up
A lease quote arrives as one number, but that payment is built from several separate levers: negotiated price, residual, money factor, and cap reductions. Two leases with the same payment can be very different deals underneath, which only becomes visible once you see the components separately.
How we calculated this
Depreciation charge is (adjusted cap cost minus residual) divided by term. Rent charge is (adjusted cap cost plus residual) times the money factor. The two sum to your base payment, plus any monthly taxes and fees you enter.
Worked example, using this page's own defaults ($30,000 price, $18,000 residual, .002 money factor, 36 months, no reductions): the payment comes to approximately$429.33/month. Run the calculator above with your own quote.
What this means
- A low payment can come from a high residual, which just means the lessor expects the car to hold value well, not that you negotiated a better price.
- The approximate money-factor APR lets you compare the financing cost directly against a loan, see Money Factor to APR Converter for that conversion alone.
- Once you have a payment figure, Lease vs Buy Calculator compares the full net cost of leasing against buying the same vehicle.
Limitations
Mileage allowance, disposition fee, and end-of-lease charges follow your actual signed contract, not this estimate. See Methodology.
Methodology
This engine is built on Vehicle Economics' lease payment and buyout model: cap cost, residual, and money factor split into a depreciation charge and a rent charge. See Methodology for the full detail.