The full Veercal calculator compares five ways of paying for the same car — cash, personal loan, dealer finance, finance lease, and novated lease — and ranks them by what each truly costs you. The output is dense by design, because a fair comparison has to be. This walkthrough explains what to enter, how to read the insight cards and the comparison table column by column, and what the numbers do and don't tell you.
The full calculator models five finance structures simultaneously for the same vehicle and hold period:
It then ranks them by true total cost so you can see, for your specific situation, which is cheapest and by how much. You can switch individual options on or off to focus the comparison.
The results are only as good as the inputs. The sidebar groups them into tabs; these are the ones that move the answer most:
The novated lease needs your gross salary to work out your tax saving. Enter it in the Novated tab and make sure the option is switched on — without a salary, the calculator can't rank it.
Above the table, a few summary cards surface the headline takeaways. They are a quick read, but each answers a different question — so don't treat them as one verdict:
The cards can flip to show the reasoning behind each figure — worth reading, because "lowest monthly" and "lowest total cost" are often two different options, and knowing why is the whole point.
The table lists every active option ranked cheapest to dearest by true total cost. Each column header has a tooltip; here is what each one means and how to weigh it.
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total Cost | The single most honest comparison number — everything you pay over your hold period (repayments, interest, fees, stamp duty, running costs, balloon/residual), less the car's exit value. For cash it includes opportunity cost; for novated it includes the tax saving. Lead with this. |
| Eff. Monthly | True total cost divided by the number of months in your hold period. Normalises options with different term lengths so they're genuinely comparable. |
| Upfront | Cash needed on day one: deposit plus stamp duty. It does not include ongoing payments. Matters when liquidity is tight. |
| Monthly Payment | The finance repayment only — it excludes running costs. Use it to check cash flow, not to judge which option is cheapest. |
| Total Interest | All interest paid over the term. For cash this is $0 (but opportunity cost applies instead). For a novated lease, the income tax saving offsets it. |
| Exit Value | The car's estimated market value at the end of your hold period, based on the depreciation you set. It's deducted from total cost — a higher exit value lowers the true cost of owning. |
Start with Total Cost to see the ranking. Check Eff. Monthly to compare across different terms. Then look at Upfront and Monthly Payment to confirm the cheapest option also fits your cash flow. The cheapest total cost is only the right choice if you can comfortably fund the upfront and monthly figures.
Beneath the headline figures, each option can be expanded into a line-by-line breakdown showing how its total cost is built up — for example, deposit, repayments, running costs, opportunity cost, balloon or residual, and the exit value subtracted at the end. For a novated lease, the breakdown shows the pre-tax sacrifice, the income tax saving, any FBT or post-tax contribution, GST treatment, and the residual.
This is where you can see why one option beats another rather than just that it does — and where you can sanity-check that the inputs (rate, term, running costs, residual) reflect a real quote you've been given. For the deepest novated breakdown, including the fortnightly take-home pay impact and the full FBT working, the dedicated novated calculator goes further, and how to read a novated lease quote maps those figures to a real provider quote.
The calculator is an educational model. It applies current government rates (tax brackets, Medicare, FBT, stamp duty, statutory residuals) and your inputs to estimate and compare costs. The rates it uses are reviewed and dated at the foot of the results.
What it is not is a quote or financial advice. Real loan terms, FBT obligations, stamp duty assessments, and resale values can differ from the estimates, and the model uses simplifying assumptions. Treat the output as a well-grounded starting point for a conversation with a lender, leasing provider, or licensed adviser — not as the final word. Our how to make an informed decision on car finance guide explains how to turn these numbers into a decision.