Taxi vs Car Calculator
What a car costs per journey against taxis and ride-hailing for the same trips.
Owning a car and paying for each journey are two different ways to buy the same thing: movement. The car is paid for whether or not you use it, and a taxi is paid for only when you do.
Enter your annual mileage, the full cost of the car and what a typical journey costs by taxi, and this calculator shows which is cheaper at your usage and the number of journeys where they break even.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Miles driven per year, Running cost per mile, Annual fixed car costs, Average taxi or ride fare, Journeys per month, Taxi subscription or pass per year
- What you get
- Car cost per year, Taxi cost per year, Difference per year, Car cost per journey, Journeys a year to break even
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Taxi vs Car Calculator
- 1 Enter Miles driven per year (miles)
- 2 Enter Running cost per mile - Fuel, tyres, servicing and repairs for each mile.
- 3 Enter Annual fixed car costs - Insurance, road tax, parking permits, breakdown cover and the depreciation you attribute to a year.
- 4 Enter Average taxi or ride fare
- 5 Enter Journeys per month (journeys)
- 6 Enter Taxi subscription or pass per year
- 7 Press Calculate. You get Car cost per year, Taxi cost per year, Difference per year, Car cost per journey, Journeys a year to break even, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 8 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
A heavy driver making 720 journeys a year
Someone who uses the car constantly and compares the same trips with taxis.
You enter
- Miles driven per year
- 8,000 miles
- Running cost per mile
- $0.18
- Annual fixed car costs
- $3,000.00
- Average taxi or ride fare
- $14.00
- Journeys per month
- 60 journeys
- Taxi subscription or pass per year
- $0.00
You get
- Car cost per year
- $4,440.00
- Taxi cost per year
- $10,080.00
- Difference per year
- $5,640.00
- Car cost per journey
- $6.17
- Journeys a year to break even
- 317
The car costs $4,440.00 a year, which is $1,440.00 of running costs plus $3,000.00 of fixed costs. The same 720 journeys by taxi come to $10,080.00, so the car is $5,640.00 cheaper over the year. It breaks even at 317 journeys, each journey costs $6.17 against the $14.00 fare, and 67.6% of the car cost is fixed. That is $7.83 less for every journey made by car.
A light driver with a taxi pass
Someone making 14 journeys a month, with a $600 a year subscription for the taxi service.
You enter
- Miles driven per year
- 3,000 miles
- Running cost per mile
- $0.20
- Annual fixed car costs
- $3,200.00
- Average taxi or ride fare
- $18.00
- Journeys per month
- 14 journeys
- Taxi subscription or pass per year
- $600.00
You get
- Car cost per year
- $3,800.00
- Taxi cost per year
- $3,624.00
- Difference per year
- $176.00
- Car cost per journey
- $22.62
- Journeys a year to break even
- 211
The car costs $3,800.00 a year and the taxis $3,624.00 including the $600.00 pass, so the two are only $176.00 apart and the taxi is marginally cheaper. The car breaks even at 211 journeys and only 168 are made, each costing $22.62 against the $18.00 fare. Fixed costs are 84.2% of the car, and matching the taxi bill would take 2,120 miles of driving a year.
Guides that go with it
What Happens If You Pay $100 Extra on Your Loan Every Month?
A $100 extra payment sounds small next to a mortgage or a car loan. It isn't. On a typical loan, that extra hundred quietly changes how the interest math works, and the result is usually more dramatic…
What Will $100,000 Be Worth in 10 Years?
I was sitting in my car in a grocery store parking lot last spring, engine off, phone in hand, when I typed "100000" into a compound interest calculator and stared at the result. My grandmother had le…
How Much Should I Spend on a Car Based on My Income?
You can work out a realistic car budget in about 20 minutes with a pen, a calculator, and three or four numbers you probably already know. By the end of this guide you will have a monthly car payment…
Frequently asked questions
Does the car figure include the cost of buying it?
The car cost is the running cost per mile multiplied by the annual mileage, plus the fixed costs you enter. Depreciation is not added separately: it counts only if you have put it in the fixed costs field, together with insurance, road tax, parking permits and breakdown cover. Leave it out and the car looks cheaper than it is.
What the total also leaves out is the money tied up in the car itself and any loan interest on it. A car bought outright for $20,000 is $20,000 that is not earning anything anywhere else, and a car bought on finance costs interest that never appears on a fuel receipt.
How is the break-even number of journeys worked out?
It is the whole annual cost of the car divided by the average fare. On $4,440 a year and a $14 fare that is 317 journeys, in a year when you make 720 of them, so the car is the cheaper way of making those trips. Below that number the taxi bill is the smaller of the two.
The comparison assumes a taxi journey and a car journey are the same trip, which is not always true. A journey with a parking problem, or one where you would not drive at all, cannot be compared this way, so read the break-even as a rough guide rather than a rule.
Why does the cost per journey look so much higher than the running cost per mile?
Because the fixed costs are spread across the journeys you make. The running cost per mile covers fuel, tyres, servicing and repairs; the cost per journey also carries the insurance, tax, parking and depreciation that you pay whether or not you drive that day. In the first example the running cost is $1,440 a year and the fixed costs are $3,000, so two thirds of the car is paid for before the first mile.
The share of the car cost that is fixed line shows this directly. The higher it is, the more journeys the car has to make before it earns its place.
What is the mileage to match the taxi cost?
It is the distance at which driving costs the same as taking taxis: the taxi bill minus the fixed car costs, divided by the running cost per mile. In the second example the taxis come to $3,624 a year, the fixed costs are $3,200, so only $424 of the taxi bill is left to buy miles, which at $0.20 a mile is 2,120 miles.
The figure holds the taxi bill still while the mileage changes, which is not quite how life works, because driving more usually means making more journeys. Treat it as a measure of how much of the taxi bill the fixed costs already consume.