Asset Finance Calculator
The monthly cost on a flat-rate hire purchase, and how many lenders fund your asset
Asset finance calculator
A quick, illustrative idea of the monthly cost on a flat-rate hire purchase. Slide the figures to suit.
Estimated monthly payment
£1,238
- Amount financed
- £45,000
- Cost of finance
- £14,400
- Total payable
- £64,400
Illustration only, not a quote or an offer of finance. It uses a simple flat-rate hire purchase calculation and a rate you choose, which is why the flat rate looks lower than the equivalent APR. Your actual rate, deposit and payments depend on the lender, the asset and your business. VAT, fees and balloon payments are not included.
Read the flat rate for what it is
Asset finance is almost always quoted as a flat rate, and a flat rate is not an APR. The interest is worked out on the whole amount financed for the whole term, so you carry on paying interest on capital you repaid months ago. As a rough guide, the APR equivalent of a flat rate over a multi-year term is close to double the flat number. That is not a trick; it is simply a different convention, and it matters only when you try to compare an asset finance quote against a term loan quoted the other way.
The comparison that does work is total payable. Ask every lender for the full amount you will hand over across the agreement, including the documentation fee at the start and the option-to-purchase fee at the end, and put those side by side. Two offers with the same headline rate can differ by several hundred pounds once the fees are in, and on a short agreement the fees are a larger share of the cost than the rate is.
One structural choice sits behind all of it. Under hire purchase you pay instalments and own the asset at the end, which suits kit you intend to keep. Under a lease you pay for use and hand it back or re-lease, which suits assets you replace on a cycle. The monthly figures can look similar; what differs is who carries the residual value risk and how the agreement appears in your accounts.
The harder question: will anyone fund it?
Asset finance is underwritten on the asset as much as the business, because a lender that has to repossess needs a market to sell into. That produces a wide spread of appetite across the 38 asset finance lenders on our panel, counted at September 2026. It is the number most worth knowing before you approach anybody, and nobody else publishes it.
The line running through that table is resale depth. A digger has an auction price and a serial number, so a lender can model recovery. A gym fit-out has neither. Assets at the bottom of the list are not unfundable, but they attract larger deposits and shorter terms rather than simply a higher rate, which is why the deposit slider above moves the answer more than the rate slider does on that kind of purchase.
Three further details shorten the list, and all three are worth saying at the first conversation rather than discovering in sequence. 10 lenders will fund a purchase from a private seller rather than a dealer, 15 will consider machinery past the usual age bands, and 25 offer some form of VAT deferral. On the accounts side, 14 lenders will look at business adverse credit and 19 at a loss-making year. Outside England the panel thins to 33 lenders in Scotland and 13 in Northern Ireland.
Common questions
How does this asset finance calculator work?▼
It models a flat-rate hire purchase, which is how most equipment and vehicle finance in the UK is quoted. The rate is applied to the amount financed for the whole term rather than to a reducing balance, so the total cost is the amount financed plus rate times years, spread evenly across the months. That is deliberately the same arithmetic a broker would scribble on a pad, and it is why a flat rate always looks lower than the equivalent APR: on a flat rate you keep paying interest on capital you have already repaid.
Why does the deposit change the monthly figure so much?▼
Because it reduces the amount financed before any interest is applied, and on a flat rate the interest is calculated on that starting figure for the full term. Putting in ten per cent rather than nothing takes ten per cent off the capital and ten per cent off the interest at the same time. It is also the lever lenders reach for on a harder case: where the asset has a thin resale market, a larger deposit is usually what makes the deal possible rather than a higher rate.
Is the figure this gives me a quote?▼
No, and it should not be treated as one. It is an illustration using a rate you choose, not a rate anyone has offered you. Real pricing depends on the asset, its age, the seller, your accounts and the lender, and none of that is in this arithmetic. Use it to sanity-check a monthly figure you have been quoted, or to see what changing the deposit or term would do, then get real numbers before you commit to anything.
What is not included in the total?▼
Documentation and option-to-purchase fees, which are common on hire purchase and often a fixed amount at the start and end of the agreement. VAT is also outside the calculation: the figures assume an ex-VAT asset cost, because VAT on the asset is usually paid up front and reclaimed rather than financed, though some lenders will fund it. Ask any lender for the total payable including every fee, and compare that rather than the monthly figure.
Will a lender fund the asset I have in mind?▼
That is the question the arithmetic cannot answer, and it decides more cases than pricing does. On our panel at September 2026, appetite runs from 33 lenders for construction plant down to 6 for marine, with soft assets like gym equipment and shop fit-out toward the bottom. Two transaction details narrow it further: 10 lenders will fund a purchase from a private seller and 15 will consider older machinery.
The full picture on types, tax treatment and criteria is in our asset finance guide, which names every lender on the panel. If you would rather have someone work the shortlist for you, the broker page sets out what that changes and what it costs.
Tell us the asset, the seller and the price. Enquiring does not affect your credit score.
Sources
The lender counts are ours, from the platform extract dated above, and are not published anywhere else. The references below cover the market context and the tax treatment, and let you check any firm you end up dealing with.
CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). We are a credit broker, not a lender. We do not provide financial advice.