The Deal Checker is free, and it's worth knowing exactly what "free" gets you versus what needs real market data behind it.
What's calculated instantly, for free, no signup
The estimated out-the-door price and estimated monthly payment are pure arithmetic on the numbers you type in — asking price, fees, add-ons, trade-in value, APR, and loan term run through a standard amortization formula. No market data is needed for this part, so it's always available, for any vehicle, immediately.
What requires a free signup to unlock
The Deal Score, MSRP comparison, and any warning flags are built from the same scoring engine behind the paid Vehicle Intelligence Report — see the full methodology here. Unlocking these requires a name and email (no payment), because generating them means pulling real comparable-listing data, not just running your own numbers back at you.
Why you sometimes get a disclaimer instead of a score
There are three possible outcomes when you unlock a result, and the Deal Checker tells you honestly which one you got:
- Live market data: enough real comparable listings exist for this vehicle to generate a genuine Deal Score.
- Pricing analytics only: not enough live local comps yet, so the estimate falls back to MSRP-gap and fee/rate threshold analysis instead — a reasonable read, but explicitly labeled as not the same thing as live market comps.
- Insufficient data: not enough information to responsibly estimate anything. Adding an MSRP if you have one often resolves this.
A tool that always shows a confident-looking number regardless of whether it actually knows anything isn't more useful — it's just less honest. The Deal Checker is built to say "we don't know yet" when that's the truth.
Want a definitive answer instead of an estimate?
The $49 Vehicle Intelligence Report always uses live comparable listings for your exact vehicle, reviewed by a person.
Try the tool itself: Deal Checker.