Fleconomy

Turo calculator: is this vehicle worth buying?

Plug in a real car's purchase price, expected revenue, and your W-2 income. The calculator projects your Year-1 after-tax return: host payout plus the tax savings from 100% bonus depreciation at your bracket. Then it compares that to putting the same dollars in an S&P 500 index fund.

Vehicle
Revenue Projection
Tax Context drives the savings number
💎 Year-1 After-Tax Return on Payout
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Host Payout / Yr
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Year-1 Tax Savings
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Year-1 ROI
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Payback (on payout)
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Host payout is what Turo wires you — gross bookings minus Turo's cut. It is not profit. Insurance, financing, maintenance, cleaning, and registration still come out of it, and this calculator does not ask for them. Subtract your own running costs to get the real number.
vs. Passive S&P 500 (same dollars invested)
This Turo vehicle (payout + tax savings)—
S&P 500 baseline (~7% avg)—
Difference—
These are first-year totals only. The car side is payout + tax savings before insurance, financing, maintenance, and cleaning. Subtract yours before you call this a win. The S&P side is money you buy and hold, with no work. Turo takes real work. So just beating the index isn't enough. Your return has to pay you for the work too.

📩 Email me my results + the Year-1 Tax Playbook

Get this scenario in your inbox, plus a short playbook. It covers Year-1 bonus depreciation, Section 179, and the mistakes that cost hosts thousands.

Like the math? See the full picture.

Fleconomy takes this one-car estimate and runs it live on every car you own. It shows what each one really earns after depreciation, maintenance and downtime. Start a 14-day Fleet trial — no card required to start. Or explore the full app in the no-login demo.

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Multi-vehicle ladderCompare 5 cars you might buy, side by side, ranked by after-tax return.
Steady-state Year 2+Plus the MACRS schedule, and the best mix of Section 179 and bonus.
P&L + Schedule CTax-ready bookkeeping. CSV import from Turo earnings.
Quarterly Tax AutopilotWhat to pay each quarter, and whether you are in the safe harbor.

What does this calculator assume by default?

You can change every field. These are only the starting values. The two that move the answer most are utilization and vehicle price.
InputDefaultWhat it means
Vehicle price$13,500What you paid for the car. It is the depreciable basis, before rent-ready costs.
Rent-ready costs$800Detailing, brakes, tires, photos. Added to basis, not deducted right away (capitalized per IRC §263(a)).
Annual running costs$1,625Insurance, maintenance, cleaning and registration for the year.
Business use100%At 50% or less a vehicle gets no bonus and no §179 and must use ADS straight-line — IRC §280F(b)(1).
Daily rate$80What the vehicle commands on a booked day. Sets the ceiling, not the outcome.
Host share83%Your share of each trip after Turo's cut. Varies by protection plan — read yours off your earnings statement.
Utilization65%Optimistic. A measured 17-vehicle fleet averaged 49.0% occupancy across 2024. Lower this to your own number before you trust the result — see is Turo worth it.
Days available30Days in the month the car is listed and rentable.
W-2 income$185,000Sets the tax bracket (marginal bracket) the car deduction lands in. That is most of what the deduction is worth.
State rate9.3%State marginal rate applied on top of federal.

The first-year depreciation math follows IRC §168(k) bonus depreciation, §179 expensing and the §280F passenger-automobile cap. The IRS sets out those rules in Publication 946, How To Depreciate Property. Read it before you rely on any calculator, this one too.

Turo calculator questions, answered

How much is a Turo car worth per year?

Three things drive the revenue side, and the calculator above asks for all three. The first is the daily rate the car can get. The second is how many days a month it really books (utilization). The third is the share of each trip you keep after Turo's cut. At the default settings — $80/day, 20 booked days a month, an 83% host share — that is $1,600 in gross bookings and about $1,328 paid out to you.

That payout is not profit. Insurance, financing, maintenance, cleaning, and registration all come out of it, and this calculator does not ask for them. It stops at the payout so you can subtract your own running costs. Those vary a lot by market, car and protection plan.

What percentage does Turo take?

Turo's cut depends on which host protection plan you choose. Plans that give you more insurance coverage take a larger share of each trip. Plans with less coverage leave you more, but put more of the risk on you.

That is why the Avg Host Share field is one you can change, not a fixed number. Set it to the share your own plan pays. You can read it right off your Turo earnings statement.

Is this Turo calculator free?

Yes. There is no signup, no account, and no paywall. Enter your numbers and the results show up right away.

If you want, you can enter an email and we will send you the scenario and a tax playbook. But the math itself is free, and you see the results without giving anything up.

What is a good Year-1 ROI on a Turo vehicle?

There is no one number for everyone. The honest test is what else you would do with the money. So the calculator shows your Year-1 after-tax return next to a roughly 7% S&P 500 baseline.

A Turo car also takes your time, carries claims risk and loses value (depreciates). If it returns less than the index, it is not a good deal, no matter how big the raw dollar figure looks.

Why not just use a Turo calculator spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet handles the revenue side fine. Where most of them break down is tax.

A few tax rules decide whether a car is worth buying: bonus depreciation, Section 179, business-use percentage, and how the car deduction hits your top (marginal) W-2 bracket. They are slow to work out by hand, and easy to get wrong. This calculator runs that math for you, using your own income and filing status.