True Cost of Ownership Calculator

A 20,000 car with 3,000 annual running costs kept for 8 years totals 44,000 — a monthly average of 458. Running costs equal 120% of the purchase over the ownership period, which is typical: for cars, housing, boats, hobbies with equipment, lifetime running often exceeds the headline sticker.

How to use it

Enter purchase price, annual running costs (insurance, fuel, tax, servicing, depreciation, storage, consumables — everything you pay because you own it), and the years you expect to keep it.

What the result means

Primary is total lifetime cost. Secondary rows show monthly average, running cost over the whole period, and the ratio of running to purchase. The ratio is a useful check — if it's above 1, you'll spend more keeping it than buying it.

When to use this

Before any major purchase where ongoing costs matter: cars, property, boats, motorbikes, gym memberships, subscription services, premium tools. Also useful retrospectively to see what something has actually cost you.

A worked example

Try the defaults: purchase price of 20,000, annual running cost of 3,000, years of ownership of 8 years. The tool returns 44,000.00. You can adjust any input and the result updates as you type — no submit button, no reload. That's the real power here: seeing how sensitive the output is to one or two assumptions.

What moves the number most

The result responds to Purchase Price, Annual Running Cost, and Years of Ownership.

The formula behind this

Total cost equals purchase price plus annual running cost times years of ownership. Does not include resale value — subtract expected resale from purchase if you want a net-of-resale figure. Does not model inflation in running costs; for long horizons, uprate the annual running figure accordingly. Everything the calculator does is shown in the formula box below, so you can check the math against your own spreadsheet if you want.

What the bill doesn't show

Standing charges, discounts, and usage tiers all blur the effective rate. The calculation here backs out the total so you're comparing apples to apples across providers, regardless of how each one packages the price.

What this doesn't capture

Usage varies month-to-month; tariffs change; discounts come and go. The figure here is a clean baseline — your actual annual bill will fluctuate around it. Use the calculation to benchmark providers, not as a prediction of a specific bill.