Check your numbers, free
Enter what the dealer quoted and watch the real cost fall out. Nothing leaves your browser. Upload the full quote when you want the fees, add-ons, and money factor checked too.
What the full teardown reveals
The free calculators surface the math. The paid upload reads the actual quote — every line, every fee, every add-on.
The real effective monthly
We spread every dollar due at signing across the term, so a low advertised payment with a fat drive-off can’t hide the true cost.
The money factor, decoded
The lease’s interest rate is buried as a tiny decimal. We surface it and convert it to an APR you recognize, so you can hold it against the lender’s published base rate.
Every fee, sorted
Genuine government and registration charges separated from dealer add-ons like paint sealant, nitrogen, and etch — with what’s standard and what’s negotiable.
The payment sanity check
For a financed purchase we recompute the payment from the amount financed, APR, and term, and tell you if the quoted number doesn’t add up.
Negotiation leverage
A copyable, specific response you can send the dealer — the exact lines and numbers to push back on, not vague advice.
Market context, when it exists
A local market price comparison is included when enough matching inventory is available.
How the upload works
Upload the quote
Snap a photo or drop the PDF of the dealer’s purchase order, finance worksheet, or lease sheet. We check it’s readable before you pay.
We tear it down
Every figure is transcribed and run through the same deterministic math behind this page — no guesswork, no invented numbers.
Get your report
A clear teardown with the effective cost, fees, money factor or APR, negotiation lines, and market context when inventory allows.
What a report looks like
Two illustrations, computed live by the same math on this page. Your real report also itemizes fees, add-ons, and the money factor from the uploaded quote.
Sample: financed purchase
A $32,000 amount financed at 7.20% APR over 72 months — does the quoted payment add up?
Sample: 36-month lease
A $429/mo advertised lease with $2,995 due at signing — what does it really cost per month?
- Full itemized teardown of your exact quote
- Money factor decoded into the APR you recognize
- Fees and add-ons sorted: standard vs. negotiable
- Copyable negotiation response for the dealer
- Refunded in full if we can’t read the document
The Deal Checker analyzes new-car purchase, finance, and lease quotes. Used, certified pre-owned, and private-party deals are not supported yet — their fee structures and pricing benchmarks work differently, and we would rather do new-car quotes well than both badly. We ask you to confirm the car is new before analyzing, and stop there if it is not — before you pay.
Frequently asked questions
- What does the Car Deal Checker do?
- It reads a dealer’s written quote — a purchase order, finance worksheet, or lease worksheet — and turns it into a plain-English teardown. For a lease it spreads the upfront cost across the term to show the real effective monthly, checks the implied money factor, and itemizes fees and add-ons. For a financed purchase it checks whether the quoted payment matches the amount financed, APR, and term, and separates genuine government or registration charges from dealer products. You can also use the free calculators on this page without uploading anything.
- What is an effective monthly lease payment?
- The advertised monthly payment ignores the money due at signing. If you pay several thousand dollars up front, that money is really part of the cost of the lease — spreading it across the term gives the effective monthly, which is the honest number to compare two leases by. Our free lease calculator computes it from the payment, term, amount due at signing, and whether the first payment is included in that amount.
- Can the free calculators tell me if a deal is bad?
- They surface the numbers — the effective monthly, the fee total as a percentage of the price, whether a quoted finance payment is internally consistent — but they do not pass judgment on a price without data to back it up. Whether a rate is high depends on the money factor (a lease’s interest rate, written as a small decimal like 0.00210) or the lender benchmark you were offered, which the free form does not collect. The paid upload checks the money factor and, when enough matching local inventory exists, compares the price to the market.
- What files can I upload?
- A PDF, or a clear photo (JPEG, PNG, or WebP) of the dealer’s quote — up to 10 MB, single or multi-page. The document is checked before you pay, so you never pay for a file we already know we cannot read.
- Does it work for used cars?
- The Deal Checker analyzes new-car purchase, finance, and lease quotes. Used, certified pre-owned, and private-party deals are not supported yet — their fee structures and pricing benchmarks work differently, and we would rather do new-car quotes well than both badly. We ask you to confirm the car is new before analyzing, and stop there if it is not — before you pay.
- What happens to my document if I don’t buy the report?
- We read your quote before asking for payment, so you can see what we found before deciding. If you don’t buy, nothing is kept: the uploaded file and everything we pulled out of it are deleted automatically within 24 hours, and sooner if you never get as far as reviewing the numbers. We don’t sell your data, we don’t pass it to a dealer, and personal details are stripped from what we store.
Learn the terms first
Free explainers for every number this tool checks — read them before you walk in, or alongside your report.
- What should I pay for a new car?Invoice, holdback, and setting a target price
- MSRP vs out-the-door priceWhat the sticker leaves out
- How to read a dealer quoteSort every line into four buckets
- Which dealer fees are negotiable?What's fixed, what moves, what to refuse
- How to evaluate a car leaseMoney factor, residual, effective monthly cost