A car costs money whether it moves or not; a ride costs money only when you take one. So the answer depends almost entirely on how many trips you make. Set your trips, your trip length and the kind of car you'd own, and see where the lines cross.
A car's biggest costs — depreciation or a loan payment, insurance, registration — arrive every month whether you drive 50 miles or 1,500. AAA's 2025 numbers put those fixed costs at roughly $664 a month for a new car, with only about 24¢ a mile on top for fuel, maintenance and tires.
A rideshare trip has no fixed cost at all, but every trip is expensive: around $15 for five miles and $25 for ten at average prices. So the comparison tips at a trip count. Below it, you're paying for a car that mostly sits. Above it, every ride is overpaying for transportation you'd get cheaper by owning.
| Car you'd own | Fixed per month | Break-even (5-mile trips, average city) |
|---|---|---|
| Newer car with a loan | ~$664 | ~44 trips a month |
| Paid-off used car | ~$260 | ~15 trips a month |
Both assume two rental days a month for longer trips. The paid-off car is the hard one to beat: once the depreciation has mostly happened and the loan is gone, a car that costs $260 a month to keep is cheaper than rideshare at anything beyond a few trips a week. The new financed car is where going car-free can genuinely pay — but only if you really do make fewer than about ten round trips a week.
And who usually doesn't: anyone with a daily car commute, kids to ferry, or a home far from the places they go. Forty-four commute trips a month at $15 each is $660 before anything else.
Waiting times, surge pricing at the exact hours you need a ride, and the trips you'd quietly stop taking without a car all matter, and none of them are easy to price. If the numbers are close, try a month of living as if you didn't have the car before you sell it.