Transport estimator
Own vs Hire Vehicle Calculator
Enter what it costs you to own and run a vehicle, and a market hire rate, to see which is cheaper at your usage and the break-even kilometres per month. Your entered values stay out of analytics.
Formula and assumptions
Cost to own works out exactly as the Cost per Kilometre Calculator does: fixed costs spread over kilometres run, plus fuel, tyres, maintenance and toll per km. Cost to hire is the hire rate times kilometres run. Break-even kilometres per month = fixed cost per month ÷ (hire rate − running cost per km).
- Cost to own is your full cost of ownership, exactly as the Cost per Kilometre Calculator works it out: fixed costs spread over kilometres run, plus fuel, tyres, maintenance and toll per km.
- Cost to hire is the market hire rate you enter, times the kilometres run per month. Hiring has no fixed cost of its own — you pay only for what you use.
- The break-even point is the kilometres per month where owning and hiring cost the same. Below it, hiring is cheaper; above it, owning is cheaper.
- It does not include depreciation, the vehicle's resale value, or the price to charge a customer.
- Money is rounded to 2 decimal places (half up). Break-even kilometres is not rounded; display it to the nearest whole kilometre.
Formula version 1.0, last reviewed Reviewed and released by the owner, 8 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Does this include depreciation or resale value?
No. It compares running cost against a hire rate; it does not estimate what the vehicle will be worth later.
What if the hire rate is cheaper than my running cost alone?
Then hiring is cheaper no matter how much you run the vehicle — there is no break-even point, because even ignoring your fixed costs, the running cost per km already exceeds the hire rate.
How is this different from the Break-even Calculator?
The Break-even Calculator is a generic units-and-revenue tool. This one is specific to owning versus hiring a vehicle, in kilometres per month.