Total Cost of Ownership Calculator
Everything a car costs: depreciation, finance, fuel, insurance, tax, servicing and repairs.
Two cars with the same payment are rarely the same cost. One may depreciate faster, insure for more, use more fuel and need more repairs, and the difference over five years is often larger than the price difference between them.
Enter every cost, including the depreciation you expect, and this calculator gives the true monthly cost of the car, its cost per mile and the share each line takes.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Purchase price, Expected value when you sell, Years owned, Finance payment per month, Miles driven per year, Fuel or charging cost per mile, Insurance per year, Road tax and fees per year, Servicing per year, Repairs per year, Tyres per year, Other annual costs
- What you get
- Total cost of ownership, Cost per month, Cost per mile, Depreciation
- 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 Total Cost of Ownership Calculator
- 1 Enter Purchase price
- 2 Enter Expected value when you sell
- 3 Enter Years owned (years)
- 4 Enter Finance payment per month - Enter 0 if the car is paid for.
- 5 Enter Miles driven per year
- 6 Enter Fuel or charging cost per mile
- 7 Enter Insurance per year
- 8 Enter Road tax and fees per year
- 9 Enter Servicing per year
- 10 Enter Repairs per year
- 11 Enter Tyres per year
- 12 Enter Other annual costs - Parking permits, breakdown cover, cleaning, MOT or inspection.
- 13 Press Calculate. You get Total cost of ownership, Cost per month, Cost per mile, Depreciation, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 14 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 $30,000 car financed over five years
A 12,000 mile year at $0.13 a mile, with a $14,000 resale value at the end.
You enter
- Purchase price
- $30,000.00
- Expected value when you sell
- $14,000.00
- Years owned
- 5 years
- Finance payment per month
- $380.00
- Miles driven per year
- 12,000
- Fuel or charging cost per mile
- $0.13
- Insurance per year
- $1,500.00
- Road tax and fees per year
- $300.00
- Servicing per year
- $550.00
- Repairs per year
- $450.00
- Tyres per year
- $220.00
- Other annual costs
- $180.00
You get
- Total cost of ownership
- $62,600.00
- Cost per month
- $1,043.33
- Cost per mile
- 1.04 per mile
- Depreciation
- $16,000.00
Depreciation of $16,000 is 25.6% of the total and is the largest single line. Finance adds $22,800 over 60 months, fuel $7,800, insurance and tax $9,000, servicing, repairs and tyres $6,100 and other costs $900, so the five years cost $62,600 in total. That is $1,043.33 a month and $1.04 a mile across 60,000 miles. Fuel is only 12.5% of the cost, and the three biggest lines are all decided when the car is bought.
A $15,000 car bought outright and kept for three years
A lower purchase price, no finance, 8,000 miles a year and a $6,000 resale value.
You enter
- Purchase price
- $15,000.00
- Expected value when you sell
- $6,000.00
- Years owned
- 3 years
- Finance payment per month
- $0.00
- Miles driven per year
- 8,000
- Fuel or charging cost per mile
- $0.11
- Insurance per year
- $900.00
- Road tax and fees per year
- $180.00
- Servicing per year
- $400.00
- Repairs per year
- $350.00
- Tyres per year
- $150.00
- Other annual costs
- $100.00
You get
- Total cost of ownership
- $17,880.00
- Cost per month
- $496.67
- Cost per mile
- 0.75 per mile
- Depreciation
- $9,000.00
With no finance the total is $17,880 over three years, or $496.67 a month across 24,000 miles. Depreciation of $9,000 is 50.3% of the whole cost, which is what happens when a car is bought outright and kept for only three years. Fuel is $2,640, insurance and tax $3,240 and servicing, repairs and tyres $2,700. The cost per mile of $0.75 is lower than the financed car because there is no interest to pay and fewer miles are driven.
Guides that go with it
How Much Does It Cost to Drive 100 Miles?
A hundred miles is a nice round trip to price out: one weekend outing, one leg of a longer journey, one week of commuting. By the end of this guide you will be able to work out your own cost for that…
How Much Money Should You Budget Per Day While Traveling?
You can read this in about ten minutes, and by the end you will have a daily travel number you actually trust: one built from your destination, your style, and your fixed costs, not from a generic blo…
How Much Will Your Money Grow in 20 Years?
Twenty years is long enough for small, boring decisions to turn into real money. It is also long enough for small mistakes to cost you a fortune. By the end of this guide you will be able to estimate…
Frequently asked questions
Does this count depreciation and the finance payment twice?
No. They are two different costs. Depreciation is the fall in the car value, which happens whether you borrow or pay cash. Finance is the interest and the arrangement of the borrowing, which exists only because the money was borrowed. A cash buyer has depreciation and no finance; a borrower has both.
A large deposit reduces the finance line and changes nothing about the depreciation line, which is why a bigger deposit lowers the total without making the car cheaper to own. The two are shown separately so you can see how much of the cost is the car and how much is the borrowing.
How do I set the resale value honestly?
Look up what examples of the same model, year, mileage and condition actually sell for, and use that. It is the input the whole calculation rests on: depreciation is the purchase price minus this figure, and it is usually the largest single line, so a guess here swings the monthly cost more than any other field.
It also matters that resale value and annual mileage agree. A car driven 15,000 miles a year is worth less after five years than one driven 8,000, so the resale value should be lower for the higher mileage rather than the same figure in both cases.
What does the cost per mile include?
Everything, divided by the miles you drive. It is not a fuel cost or a running cost, it is the whole cost of the car spread across the distance. Depreciation, finance, fuel, insurance, tax, servicing, repairs, tyres and the other annual costs all go into the numerator, and the total mileage over the period goes into the denominator.
That makes it the best single number for comparing two cars, because it accounts for the fact that a cheaper car with heavy depreciation and repairs can cost more per mile than a dearer one. It is also the number to compare against a mileage rate if you are ever reimbursed for driving.
Which line should I try to reduce first?
Read the shares before deciding. Depreciation and finance are usually the two largest, and both are decided at the moment of purchase rather than by anything you do afterwards. Insurance and tax are the next biggest for many drivers, and shopping for them annually is the easiest saving available.
Servicing, repairs and tyres rise as a car ages, so the shares shift over a long holding period. If you want to see the effect of keeping the car longer, raise the years and lower the resale value at the same time, because a car that is held for eight years is not worth the same after five.
Terms used here
Short, plain-language definitions of the words this calculator uses.