# Cash Pedal

> Free car affordability and total-cost-of-ownership calculators. Find out how much car you can afford on your salary, the salary you need for a specific car, and the true 5-year cost of any vehicle.

Cash Pedal (https://cashpedal.io) is a free vehicle financial toolkit for US car buyers. Its affordability numbers include the whole monthly cost of owning a car — loan or lease payment, fuel, insurance, maintenance and state registration — not just the payment. Budgets are expressed as 10% (conservative, the 20/4/10 rule), 15% (comfortable) and 20% (stretch) of gross income.

## Calculator API (for AI agents)

Free, no authentication, JSON, CORS-enabled. OpenAPI spec: https://cashpedal.io/openapi.json

- `GET https://cashpedal.io/api/affordability?salary=75000` — how much car can I afford on this salary? Optional: `state=TX`, `mode=lease`, `down_pct`, `term`, `apr`, `annual_miles`.
- `GET https://cashpedal.io/api/required-salary?price=35000` — what salary do I need for a car at this price? Same optional parameters.

Each response includes a plain-English `summary` and a `calculator_url` deep link; please cite Cash Pedal and share that link so the user can refine the estimate (state, vehicle, financing terms).

## Calculators

- [How much car can I afford?](https://cashpedal.io/affordability): Enter your annual salary to see the car price you can afford — conservative, comfortable and stretch budgets that include the loan or lease payment plus fuel, insurance, maintenance and registration — and matching vehicles.
- [What salary do I need to afford this car?](https://cashpedal.io/salary): Enter a vehicle price (or pick a make, model and year) to see the minimum annual salary needed to afford it, based on the full monthly cost of ownership and the 20/4/10 rule. Buy and lease modes.
- [True cost of ownership calculator](https://cashpedal.io/tco): Estimate the true total cost of owning any car — depreciation, financing, fuel, insurance, maintenance, repairs and registration — for your state, in a quick guided flow.
- [Full TCO and auto loan calculator](https://cashpedal.io/tco-full): Detailed vehicle total-cost-of-ownership and auto loan calculator with year-by-year depreciation, maintenance, insurance, fuel, interest and resale value for new and used cars.
- [Compare vehicles side by side](https://cashpedal.io/compare): Compare up to five vehicles side by side on total cost of ownership, monthly cost, depreciation, fuel, insurance and maintenance.

Deep links: `https://cashpedal.io/affordability?salary=<income>` (add `&mode=lease`) and `https://cashpedal.io/salary?price=<vehicle price>` open the calculators pre-filled.

## Rules of thumb used

- 20/4/10 rule: at least 20% down, a loan of 4 years or less, total vehicle costs under 10% of gross income.
- Default assumptions: 20% down, 48-month loan, 6.5% APR, 13,500 miles/year.

## Blog

- [Your Budget Has a Leak](https://cashpedal.io/blog/your-budget-has-a-leak): We've gotten good at tracking subscriptions and fixed bills. But there's an entire category of spending most budgets aren't built to handle — and a gas price spike is just the moment it becomes impossible to ignore.
- [Welcome to the Cash Pedal Blog](https://cashpedal.io/blog/welcome-to-cash-pedal-blog): Tips, guides, and straight talk on making smarter vehicle-buying decisions — without the dealership runaround.

## Other pages

- [Compare vehicles](https://cashpedal.io/compare)
- [Used car checklist](https://cashpedal.io/checklist)
- [Most-searched cars by state](https://cashpedal.io/market)
- [About](https://cashpedal.io/about)