Estimate a year of profit after Turo's cut, running costs and lost value, then divide by the cash you put in. Here's the formula with a worked example.
To estimate ROI on a Turo car before you buy it, work out one year of profit and divide it by all the cash you put into the car. Profit here means what you keep after Turo's cut, minus running costs, minus the value the car loses while you own it. Most hosts skip that last part, and it's usually the biggest cost on the list.
ROI = yearly profit ÷ cash you put in. For the example car in this post, an $18,000 used car bought with cash and booked 18 days a month, that comes out to about 12% a year. Book it 12 days a month instead and the same car loses money. The rest of this post shows the math step by step so you can run it on the car you're looking at.
What goes into the ROI formula?
Five numbers, all estimated before you buy:
- Cash you put in: price, plus taxes, title, first registration and setup.
- What you keep from trips: daily rate × booked days × your host share.
- Running costs: insurance, registration, parking and tracking, plus per-trip costs like cleaning and wear.
- Lost value: what you paid, minus what you expect to sell it for, spread over the years you'll own it.
- How long you'll keep it: Turo's age and mileage limits put a ceiling on this.
Every number below is a made-up round number to show the math, not an average or market data. Swap in your own.
Step 1: How much cash are you putting in?
| Example car | Amount |
|---|---|
| Purchase price | $18,000 |
| Sales tax, title, registration and setup | $1,500 |
| Cash in | $19,500 |
Step 2: What will you keep from trips?
Say the car rents at $55 a day and books 18 days a month. That's 216 booked days a year.
Turo's US earnings plans set your share of the trip price. As of today, Turo's help center lists:
| Plan | Host share | Damage responsibility per claim |
|---|---|---|
| More peace of mind | 70% | $250 |
| Balanced | 80% | $1,500 |
| More earnings | 90% | $2,750 |
On Balanced, the example car keeps $55 × 80% = $44 per booked day, or $44 × 216 = $9,504 a year.
Base the rate and booked days on what similar cars near you charge and how full their calendars look. If you host in one of the nine variable host share cities, your share depends on how far ahead guests book; see Turo variable host share.
Step 3: What will it cost to run?
Split costs into the ones you pay every month and the ones that only happen when the car is rented.
Every month, rented or not:
- Your own insurance: $140 a month = $1,680 a year
- Registration, parking and tracking, set aside: $40 a month = $480 a year
Only when it's rented:
- Cleaning: $20 per turnover. With 3-day trips, that's 72 trips a year × $20 = $1,440.
- Wear: tires, brakes and oil at $0.08 a mile. At 40 miles a booked day, that's 8,640 miles × $0.08 = $691.20.
Total running costs: $1,680 + $480 + $1,440 + $691.20 = $4,291.20 a year.
That leaves cash profit of $9,504 − $4,291.20 = $5,212.80 a year. That's the number most hosts stop at. Don't.
Step 4: How much value will the car lose?
You don't get a bill for depreciation, but you pay it when you sell. Say you plan to keep the car 3 years and expect to sell it for $11,000.
Lost value per year = (cash in − resale price) ÷ years owned
($19,500 − $11,000) ÷ 3 = $2,833.33 a year
Your setup costs go in here too, since you don't get them back when you sell. Be conservative: a car with a lot of rental miles is worth less than the average one its age.
Step 5: Put it together
| Example car, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| What you keep from trips (80%) | $9,504.00 |
| Running costs | -$4,291.20 |
| Lost value | -$2,833.33 |
| Profit | $2,379.47 |
ROI = $2,379.47 ÷ $19,500 = 12.2% a year.
Check it over the full three years: $5,212.80 × 3 = $15,638.40 in cash profit, plus $11,000 from the sale, minus $19,500 in. That's $7,138.40 ahead, which is $2,379.47 a year. Same answer.
If you only looked at cash profit, you'd have called this a 26.7% return ($5,212.80 ÷ $19,500). Lost value cuts that by more than half.
How booked days change the answer
Booked days move ROI more than anything else. Here's the same example car. Each booked day leaves $34.13 after Turo's cut, cleaning and wear ($44 − $6.67 − $3.20). Fixed costs plus lost value come to $4,993.33 a year.
| Booked days a month | Booked days a year | Kept after per-day costs | Profit per year | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 | 144 | $4,915.20 | -$78.13 | -0.4% |
| 15 | 180 | $6,144.00 | $1,150.67 | 5.9% |
| 18 | 216 | $7,372.80 | $2,379.47 | 12.2% |
| 21 | 252 | $8,601.60 | $3,608.27 | 18.5% |
Going from 18 to 12 booked days takes this car from a decent return to a small loss. The real question before you buy is how many days it will book in your market. We go deeper on that in how many days a Turo car needs to be booked to break even.
How your earnings plan changes the answer
Same example car at 18 booked days a month:
| Plan | Kept per booked day after costs | Profit per year | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|
| 70% | $28.63 | $1,191.47 | 6.1% |
| 80% | $34.13 | $2,379.47 | 12.2% |
| 90% | $39.63 | $3,567.47 | 18.3% |
The 90% plan looks best on paper, but none of these numbers include damage claims. On More earnings, one claim can cost you up to $2,750, which is more than a whole year's ROI gap between plans for this car. If you expect a claim a year, budget for it as a running cost. Turo earnings plans explained walks through that trade-off.
How long can you keep it on Turo?
Turo's US vehicle eligibility rules say a car can't be more than 12 years old (classic and specialty cars aside) and must have under 130,000 miles to be listed. Turo says a car that passes 130,000 miles after listing may stay if it's in excellent condition and meets legal, safety and mechanical standards, but don't count on that when you plan.
So check how much room the car has left. Example: a 7-year-old car with 80,000 miles has 5 years before the age limit. At 8,640 rental miles a year, plus whatever you drive it yourself, it has about 50,000 ÷ 8,640 = 5.8 years before the mileage limit. Age runs out first. If you planned to hold it 3 years, you're fine. If your plan needs 6, it isn't.
The same rules list other deal-breakers: the title has to be clean, not branded or salvage, and the car can never have been declared a total loss. Turo puts it on hosts to know the title history and suggests a report like Carfax.
Before you buy: a short checklist
- Check comps for daily rate and how often similar cars book near you.
- Check the title and history against Turo's eligibility rules.
- Look up open recalls by VIN on NHTSA's recall site. A recall you didn't know about can keep a car off the road.
- Decide your holding period and make sure Turo's age and mileage limits allow it.
If you're financing instead of paying cash, the math changes: cash in becomes your down payment, and interest becomes a running cost. That's a post of its own.
The bottom line
- ROI = yearly profit ÷ cash you put in.
- Profit is what you keep after Turo's cut, minus running costs, minus lost value per year.
- Lost value is usually the biggest cost you can't see. Leave it out and ROI can look twice as good as it is.
- Booked days move the answer more than anything else. Estimate them from real comps.
Once the car is running, the estimate only helps if you check it against what really happens. FleetEarnings reads your Turo earnings CSV and puts each car's income next to its expenses, with net profit and ROI per car. Its market comps can also help you sanity-check a daily rate. To test a car before you buy, start with the Turo profit calculator.
Sources: Turo help center pages on earnings plans for US hosts and US vehicle eligibility; NHTSA's recall lookup. Terms checked October 18, 2026. FleetEarnings is not affiliated with Turo, Inc.