If you know how much car payment you can afford each month, a reverse auto loan calculator can tell you how that translates into the total amount you can borrow. But, of course, there are variables: the length of the loan and the interest rate you get.
Say you have decided that you can afford to spend $500 a month on a car. How far that goes depends on your interest rate. At 5% APR, a $500 payment will buy you a loan of about $26,500 for 60 months. At 9.5%, you could finance a loan of around $23,800. The loan length has an even more dramatic effect; that 9.5% loan stretched out to 84 months would finance about $30,500.
Below you can see how your loan amount changes by moving the sliders for payment and loan term. We've provided average rates by credit tier as determined by Experian Information Solutions for the 2nd quarter of 2026.
Try our other auto loan calculators
Our main auto loan calculator lets you enter information like vehicle price, interest rate, loan term and down payment to see monthly payment amount and total loan cost. It's helpful for running different auto financing scenarios.
Our auto loan refinance calculator compares your current auto loan with a lower-rate one. You can see how much a lower rate might reduce your monthly car payment.
Article sources
- 1.Experian. State of the Automotive Finance Market Report. Accessed Sep 17, 2026.
