Lease Deal Analyzer

Effective monthly spreads every dollar you actually spend - all monthly payments plus due-at-signing, minus refundable security deposits - evenly across the lease term. A $0-down deal at $469/mo and a $4,000-down deal at $339/mo can have nearly identical effective monthlies. It is the only fair way to compare lease quotes, because a big down payment just hides a weak discount and is unprotected if the car is totaled.

Several captive lenders (BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Honda/Acura, Toyota/Lexus) let you place multiple refundable deposits - each rounded up to the next $50 of the base payment - in exchange for a money-factor reduction of roughly 0.00007 per deposit (about 0.17% APR each). The deposits are returned at lease-end, so MSDs cut your interest cost with essentially no risk. The calculator shows the adjusted money factor and total refundable cash.

Most states tax each monthly payment. Some tax the total of all payments up front; a few (Texas-style) tax the full selling price as if you bought the car, which makes leasing much costlier; others tax only the cap-cost reduction. The same deal can swing hundreds of dollars in effective monthly depending on the method, so select the one your state uses before comparing quotes.

The score is MSRP divided by twelve times the effective monthly payment - essentially how many years of that effective payment equal one MSRP (higher is better), the same idea as the well-known Leasehackr Score. As a rough guide, under ~5 is below average, ~6 is good, ~7 is great, and 8.5+ is an excellent deal. It is most useful for comparing similar vehicles; always sanity-check against the percent off MSRP and the money factor versus the manufacturer buy rate.