Debt & Loans
Auto Loan Calculator
Price minus down payment and trade-in, financed — the monthly payment and what the car really costs by the last payment.
Fixed APR, standard amortization. Excludes sales tax, title and doc fees, insurance, and depreciation — the drive-home total runs higher than the sticker. Dates count from July 2026.
How it works
The amount you actually finance is the price minus your down payment minus whatever the dealer gives you for your trade-in. At the defaults, that's $35,000 − $5,000 − $0 = $30,000. That loan amortizes like any fixed loan: each month, one-twelfth of the APR lands on the remaining balance as interest, and your payment covers that interest plus a slice of principal. Early on the interest slice is biggest; by the end, almost the whole payment is principal — which is why the balance curve above sags rather than falling in a straight line.
At 7% over 60 months, the $30,000 loan costs $594 a month and $5,642 in interest, so the $35,000 car really costs $40,642 by the last payment in Jul 2031. That last number is the one dealerships never print, and it's the most useful one on this page: the payment tells you whether you can afford the loan this month; the total tells you what the car cost you.
The term chips are the main lever. Stretching from 60 to 72 months drops the payment — and raises the total, because you're renting the same money for a year longer. Try each chip and watch the total-cost number instead of the payment. ClariFi does the same trick with your real accounts: the loan shows up as a liability in your net worth, so the balance line on this chart becomes a line you actually watch go down.
The formula
loan = price − down payment − trade-in
payment = loan × r / (1 − (1 + r)^−n) r = APR/1200 · n = months
total cost of the car = price + total interest
Example: $35,000 − $5,000 − $0 = $30,000 at 7% for 60 months
→ $594/mo · $5,642 interest · $40,642 all-in · paid off Jul 2031
Honest assumptions
- Sales tax, title, registration, doc fees, and insurance are excluded — your drive-home total is higher than the sticker price this page starts from.
- The trade-in is treated as a straight price cut. Negative equity rolled in from a previous loan, or the sales-tax credit some states give on trade-ins, isn't modeled.
- 7% is an example rate in a typical recent range for good credit — not an offer, and not a prediction of yours. Type the rate you were actually quoted.
- Depreciation isn't modeled. The balance line falls, but the car's value falls too — usually fastest in the first years, which is how loans end up underwater.
- This page is arithmetic, not underwriting.
Questions people ask
60 or 72 months — does the longer term really cost that much more?
At the defaults, moving from 60 to 72 months drops the payment from $594 to roughly $511 — and raises total interest from $5,642 to about $6,800. So the extra year of breathing room costs around $1,200, and it keeps you underwater longer, since the car depreciates on its own schedule regardless of yours. Tap the chips and read the "total cost of the car" number for your own inputs — that's the honest comparison.
How much car can I afford?
Flip the math: pick the monthly payment your budget can carry first, then work backwards to a price — this calculator makes that fast, since every input updates the payment instantly. The payment also has to coexist with everything else you owe; the DTI calculator shows how a car payment sits inside your overall debt-to-income picture, which is the ratio that determines how much room you actually have.
Does a bigger down payment actually matter?
Yes, twice. Every $1,000 more down is $1,000 not financed — at the default rate and term that's roughly $20 a month off the payment and about $190 less interest over the loan. And it builds a cushion against depreciation, so a fender-bender total-loss or an early trade-in is less likely to leave you owing more than the car is worth. Move the down-payment field and watch both the payment and the total respond.
Are rates different for new and used cars?
Usually — used-car loans tend to price higher than new-car loans, and the gap varies by lender, the car's age, and your credit. This page can't know your rate; nobody's website can, including the ones that claim to. The honest workflow is to get a real quote (a bank or credit union pre-quote works), type it into the rate field, and judge the payment and total from your actual number instead of an advertised one.
Related calculators
ClariFi makes tools, not advice. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to buy, sell, or sign anything.
In the app
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