Car Affordability Calculator

Everyone else asks what the car costs. Start from the payment you can live with, and work backwards — through your state's actual tax rules — to the sticker price you can walk in already knowing.

How to use it: enter your budget, pick your state, tune the loan — your max sticker price updates live in The Math.

Example numbers so you can see how it works — swap in yours.

1 · The budget

Monthly payment budgetwhat you can truly live with
State of registration

Texas: Doc fee cap is an OCCC 'safe harbor,' not a hard legal ceiling. Private-party sales are taxed on the greater of price or 80% of the vehicle's Standard Presumptive Value — this estimate assumes a dealer purchase.

How Texas taxes a car deal — rates, rules, and fee caps →

2 · The loan

APRyour approved rate
Term
Cash down
Trade-in value0 if none
Trade payoffwhat you still owe

3 · Tax & fees

Local tax add-oncity/county
Dealer doc feecapped at $225
Title & registrationestimate

State base rate applied: 6.25% · trade-in reduces taxable amount

Estimates only. Uses the same state tax rules as our out-the-door calculator, and assumes tax and fees are financed into the loan (the usual dealer structure). Rates, credit rules, and fee caps change by locality and year — verify with your state DMV and dealer paperwork.

Shop the payment backwards

The finance office plays this in the other direction: start from the car, stretch the term until the payment "fits," and hope you never multiply it out. Running it backwards — payment first, sticker last — puts the number you actually control at the top. And because tax rules differ by state (trade-in credit or not, capped local rates, flat fees), the same $450 a month buys a different amount of car in Virginia than it does next door in North Carolina. This calculator does that math with your state's real rules, the same ones behind our out-the-door calculator.