Auto Affordability Calculator

What auto price should I be looking for?

Before you go shopping for a new car, use this calculator to help you determine the sticker price you should be looking for. Enter the maximum monthly payment you can afford, the sales tax percentage you will pay on the new vehicle, and other charges that will be financed, like tags and registration, or dealer prep and delivery charges. Then enter any cash, trade-in, and dealer rebates that you will use as a down payment and the interest rate and length of the loan you are considering. This calculator will then show you the maximum vehicle price and the loan amount that will keep your payments close to what you entered.

Field Help

Input Fields

Title: A title for these calculator results that will help you identify it if you have printed out several versions of the calculator.

Maximum Monthly Payment: The maximum auto loan payment you can make each month.

Sales Tax: The sales tax percentage you will pay on this purchase.

Other Financed Charges: Sticker price add-on charges to be financed with your auto loan. These may include license plates, vehicle registration, luxury tax, extended warranty policy, dealer prep charges, or destination charges, etc.

Cash Down Payment: Any cash amount you plan to apply as a down payment to reduce your loan or lease amount.

Trade-In Value: Any vehicle trade-in amount you plan to apply as a down payment to reduce your loan or lease amount.

Dealer Rebate: Any dealer (or manufacturer) rebate or matching down payment amount you plan to apply as a down payment to reduce your loan or lease amount.

Interest Rate: The annual percentage rate you will pay for this loan.

Length of Loan: How long you will pay on this loan. Also choose whether ‘Length of Loan’ is years or months.

Output Fields

Total Down Payments: The total down payment amount you plan to apply to your purchase to reduce the loan amount.

Maximum Vehicle Price: You should be looking at vehicles priced this amount or less to keep payments at or below ‘Maximum Monthly Payment’.

Loan Amount: Your total auto loan amount once ‘Sales Tax’ and ‘Other Financed Charges’ are added and ‘Total Down Payments’ is subtracted.

Sales Tax Amount: The amount of sales tax you will pay on this purchase.

Number of Payments: The number of payments you will make to pay off the loan.

Annual Cost: The amount of money you will pay each year for this loan.