Does flexible car ownership make good financial sense?

Canvas
Canvas
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read

There are certain advantages to owning your own car. Spill a latte on the passenger seat? You won’t have to pay a cleanup fee. Want to install a better radio? That’s totally your call. You can also hold onto your ride after you’ve paid off the balance of your loan and minimize your transportation costs. Still, there are advantages to remaining a bit more flexible when it comes to your vehicle.

Buying a car can be a downright budget buster. You have to scrape together a down payment, which could mean tightening your belt. And that’s before your monthly loan or lease payment, insurance, and regular maintenance and repairs. While you get to enjoy the freedom of having your own ride, the bottom line is that your car is a depreciating asset.

So, where does Canvas come in? Convenience. We know that a traditional car ownership isn’t for everyone, and there’s no one right way to get around. As they say, “Different strokes for different folks.” If you’re not ready to take the leap into buying a car or a leasing just yet, you should check us out. When you use Canvas, you enjoy a seamless access to a car without sacrificing your good financial sense in the process.

Benefits of Leasing vs. Canvas

You may recognize many of our benefits if you’ve ever leased a car. Canvas offers the benefits beloved by those that lease cars, plus a few more.

Leasing: When you sign your name on a multiyear lease, you’re bound by certain terms. These usually include:

  • A lease term of at least 2 years.
  • Penalties for ending your lease term early. These can include an early termination fee, paying the remaining payments on your lease, costs related to prepping the vehicle for sale, and several other costs.
  • A mileage allotment of 10,000–15,000 miles/year.
  • One vehicle for the duration of your lease agreement.
  • The requirement to carry your own insurance. While the leasing company owns the car, you are still responsible for carrying your own liability and collision insurance.

While leasing your Ford or Lincoln can be the right choice once you’re ready for a long term arrangement, we like to think Canvas has its own unique benefits (ok, we know it does). When you get a Ford through Canvas, the terms include:

  • A commitment for as short as one month or as long as 12 months. Yes, really. You can pretty much pick your subscription length depending on your needs. Of course, many of our drivers want to keep it after 12 months — at which point you will go month-to-month.
  • Car swapping. You can change a car for the season — if you like.
  • No down payment.
  • One payment that includes insurance, use of the car, a mileage allowance, and maintenance.
  • The ability to rollover your unused miles, and upgrade and downgrade mileage packages as desired (including unlimited miles!).

The verdict:

When you get a car with Canvas, you can consolidate your car costs into one, easy-to-deal-with payment. You won’t find any tricky fees, add-on costs, or cancellation fees. Yep, you can leave when you want and come back if you want, all without the stress of a long-term leasing commitment. We do this because we know life changes, and we don’t want you to get strapped with painful fees for exiting a lease early or hoping that you can swap it using a service like Swapalease. When you’ve got a lease, you can feel pretty limited by your miles. Canvas addresses that by offering customizable mileage packages (including rollover miles). It’s a pretty good financial choice for people who need a car somewhere between a few months and less than two years.

Benefits of Buying vs. Canvas

Traditional car ownership is still appealing to lots of drivers. For some folks, there is just nothing like the feeling of pride when you drive off the lot with a set of wheels you saved long and hard for. And to those folks: we salute you. But Canvas can be a great option for someone who isn’t ready to take that step for any number of reasons.

Buying: Unless you’ve got $20,000 in cash laying around, you will probably finance a car. When you do that, you’re agreeing to assume the debt of the vehicle with a promise to pay it back in a pre-specified term. Generally, there are many financial considerations (and sometimes surprise costs) to consider, such as:

  • A down payment: auto lenders often require an upfront sum of up to thousands of dollars in order to finance a car.
  • Insurance costs.
  • Any maintenance and repairs not covered by a warranty.
  • DMV registration fees.

And ultimately, you bear the risk of depreciation. In a lease, you can get rid of the car at the end of your term, but when financing a purchase you are now taking on the depreciation risk of keeping your car. If you finance it over 5 years, and you want to sell in 2 years, you might be left paying thousands of dollars out of pocket to cover the difference in what your car was worth vs. what you owe your lender.

Canvas: When you sign up for Canvas, your costs are much more predictable.

  • No down payment.
  • One monthly payment that includes your subscription fee, vehicle fee, insurance, regular maintenance, and mileage price.
  • Ability to stay in your first car, swap to a new one, or skip a few months when you need to.

The verdict:

At the end of the day, Canvas has less risk and more convenience. When you finance a car, you commit to a long-term financial plan. To get out of that commitment, you either have to sell the vehicle (and potentially lose money on depreciation) or try to walk away from your loan. The latter is very difficult, and the former is not fun at all. Getting a car through Canvas ensures your ability to walk-away from it when you need to.

Assuming you are confident that you can finance for next several years, the good news is: you can stay in both a financed car and with Canvas for the long term. But, only one has a predictable, bundled payment schedule: Canvas. With us, you’ll never be surprised with unexpected repairs or a spike in insurance costs (that’s just not how we do things), or a sale of your car at a big loss. On the contrary, our pricing goes down every month for the first twelve months. We pride ourselves on affordable, convenient, and clear-cut pricing.

In the end, leasing or financing a car is a great decision for many people, but Canvas offers a new way to get a car for those people who can’t or don’t want to commit to a multiyear lease or loan. It’s an alternative to car ownership that offers peace of mind above all else, and we think it makes sense for all types of people.

Canvas

Written by

Canvas

A simple alternative to car ownership — www.drivecanvas.com

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