Keep Above
New or used motorbike
Two ways to own the next bike. Each side takes its price, what it would sell for after the years you'd keep it, its running costs, and — if it's financed — the loan's interest, and lands on a cost per year. The sale values start from commonly cited motorbike depreciation figures, marked EST.; every one is an estimate you can overwrite, and no winner is ever declared.
Not counted while this is $0
Sets where it enters the depreciation curve
Not counted while this is $0
Put in what each one would cost. Nothing here is read from your budgets, and nothing is saved.
| New | Used | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid up front | — | — |
| Value lost | — | — |
| Loan interest | — | — |
| Running costs | — | — |
| Total over 5 years | — | — |
| Cost a year | — | — |
| Cost a month | — | — |
Does a motorbike still cost money over the months it is not ridden?
A bike is often ridden for part of the year and stood for the rest, but the running-costs box takes a single yearly figure, so a season in the garage has to be averaged into it. Standing still is not free: registration and insurance would run whether the bike moves or not, and a machine brought back after months idle can need work before it is ridden again. Put the whole year in, riding months and storage months together, or the cost per year would describe only the season it was used.
A bike's consumables wear by distance rather than by date — chain, sprockets, pads and tyres — so two bikes the same age can sit at very different points in their service life, and the age field cannot see that. Riding kit, a cover and somewhere dry to keep it arrive with the bike and have no field of their own, though they are part of what the first year would take.
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
New against used resolves into a cost per year across the years something is kept — which budgeting apps forecast your balance, and how far ahead.
About this calculator
How is each side counted?
One formula for both, cash or loan: the price, plus any loan interest, plus running costs over the years you'd keep it, minus what it would sell for at the end. Selling mid-loan settles the remaining balance, and if the sale wouldn't cover it the shortfall is stated as a fact.
Where do the motorbike sale estimates come from?
Picking the motorbike category seeds both sale fields from commonly cited published depreciation ranges — broad averages, marked EST., never a valuation of any particular bike. A commuter and a tourer sit inside the same average, and so do a bike ridden year-round and one stood through every winter, so the seeded figure describes bikes of that age and nothing narrower. Type your own figure and the estimate steps aside; "Use estimate" brings it back.
Why does the used bike have an age field?
Because a used bike joins the depreciation curve partway along: how much value the next few years would take off depends on how old it already is. Nothing else feeds it. How the bike was stored and how far it has been ridden are differences only you can put in, and typing over the estimate is the way to do it.
How do you enter a bike that is only ridden part of the year?
As a yearly figure, with the quiet months included. The box has no seasonal setting, so a cost that only lands over the riding months still goes in at what it would come to across the whole year, and the costs that keep running while the bike is stood go in beside it. Entering the riding season alone would leave the cost per year under what the bike would take, on both sides equally.
Why is no winner shown?
Because the figures that decide it — what a particular one would really sell for, what it would really cost to run — are estimates only you can make. The page states both results identically and leaves the call with you. Nothing is read from anywhere, nothing is saved, and nothing here is financial advice.