Dealers size the loan to the biggest payment you will accept. This calculator works the other way: it starts from your take-home pay, keeps the payment at a livable 10%, and tells you the sticker price that fits, taxes and fees included. Enter your numbers; adjust anything.
Your Budget
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Prefilled with the estimated average for this page. Your quote may differ; use it if you have one.
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Comfortable car budget (sticker price, keeping the payment at 10% of take-home)
How the calculator decides
The anchor is your monthly payment, not the car price. We cap it at 10% of take-home pay for the headline number (a level most budgets absorb without strain) and show 15% as the stretch ceiling. From the payment, the term, and the rate, we compute the loan the payment supports, add your down payment and trade-in, and reserve about 9% for sales tax, title, and fees. What is left is the sticker price to shop with.
Insurance, fuel, and maintenance sit on top of the payment, and they are not small: budget several hundred dollars a month for them before deciding the payment feels comfortable.
Your rate depends on your credit score
Credit tier
Avg new-car APR
Avg used-car APR
Super prime (781-850)
4.6%
6.8%
Prime (661-780)
6.3%
9.4%
Near prime (601-660)
9.6%
14.2%
Subprime (501-600)
13.3%
19.4%
Deep subprime (300-500)
16.0%
21.8%
Source: Experian State of the Automotive Finance Market tier averages (latest published quarters). Tier averages flatten a wide range; within a tier, higher scores price better than lower ones, which is what the per-score estimate above reflects.
The difference is not cosmetic. The same $450 payment that buys about $24,000 of car at prime rates buys about $19,700 at deep-subprime rates. Pick your score for the exact numbers, the rates to expect, and what improving would buy you:
A durable rule: keep the loan payment at or below 10% of your monthly take-home pay, with 15% as a hard ceiling. On $4,500 a month take-home, that is a $450 payment, which supports roughly a $23,900 car at average new-car rates with $3,000 down over 60 months. The calculator above runs your exact numbers.
What is the 20/4/10 rule for buying a car?
Put at least 20% down, finance for no more than 4 years, and keep total transportation costs (payment plus insurance and fuel) under 10% of gross income. It is stricter than most people manage; treat it as the conservative benchmark and our 10%-of-take-home rule as the practical one.
What credit score do I need to buy a car?
There is no minimum; auto lending approves nearly every score at some price. What changes is the rate: super-prime borrowers (781+) average about 4.6% on new cars while deep-subprime borrowers pay around 16%. Pick your score below to see what that means for your budget.
Should I buy new or used with my credit score?
Used-car loans carry meaningfully higher rates at every credit tier (roughly 2 to 6 points more), but the car costs less to begin with. The lower your score, the more the rate gap matters; at subprime rates, a cheaper used car with a short loan usually beats a longer loan on a new one.
How do taxes and fees affect what I can afford?
Sales tax, title, registration, and doc fees typically add about 8 to 10% on top of the sticker price. The calculator reserves 9% for them, which is why the out-the-door budget is higher than the sticker budget it reports.
Does a longer loan term let me afford more car?
Barely, and it costs you twice: total interest climbs steeply, and you spend more of the loan underwater (owing more than the car is worth). Going from 60 to 72 months on a typical loan adds only a few thousand dollars of car but adds most of a year of payments that are mostly interest.
Estimates for educational purposes only, not financial advice. Rates are tier averages; your quote depends on the lender, the vehicle, and your full credit file.