Depreciation calculators tend to do one of two things badly: they either pretend to know your exact car’s resale value, or they bury the math so deep you can’t tell what curve they’re even using.
Our car depreciation calculator does neither:
- Transparent — it applies one commonly-cited general pattern (a bigger drop in year one, smaller drops after) and says so plainly, in formula form, right on the page.
- Instant — enter a purchase price and a number of years, and the estimate, dollar loss, and percent loss update as you type.
- Shareable — your inputs live in the link, so you can send a pre-filled projection to whoever’s helping you budget.
- Honest about limits — real depreciation varies a lot by brand, model, mileage, and condition, and we say that directly instead of implying false precision.
Try it with your own numbers, and if you write about car ownership costs, the calculator is embeddable on your own site with one iframe.