One number from 0 to 100 that tells you, at a glance, how good a lease is by the 1% rule, payment vs MSRP. So you stop guessing and choose with confidence.
The Hunter Score is a 0 to 100 rating that Hunter Lease puts on a lease or finance deal, so you can see how strong it is without decoding the money factor, residual and cap cost yourself. On a lease it is the 1% rule made precise: the monthly payment as a percent of MSRP, and the lower that share, the higher the score. On a car up to $30,000 MSRP, a payment near 0.8% of MSRP a month reaches the top of the scale and 2.4% scores 0; for pricier cars the scale shifts up by 0.04 of a percentage point for every $10,000 of MSRP above $30,000, so a car is not marked down for its sticker alone. The highest score we show is 98. A score of 85 and above is a Hunter Verified Steal, 65 to 84 a Strong Deal, 50 to 64 a Fair Deal, and below 50 Above Market. A finance offer gets the same bands from its own rule, described below. A car with no MSRP, no payment from a real bank program or an implausibly low payment gets no score at all, and the base formula is published below.
Top-tier: payment near or below 1% of MSRP per month. Wholesale, not retail. Lock it.
A genuinely good deal: payment around the 1% rule, a healthy payment-to-MSRP ratio.
Around the typical payment-to-MSRP for this car. Fine, not a standout. Compare with higher-scored cars.
Payment is high relative to MSRP for this car. Keep looking.
LCR = monthly payment as a percent of MSRP. The rule of thumb: a great lease is about 1% of MSRP per month, and lower is better. A $40,000 car near $400/mo (1.0%) is the ideal; at $336/mo (0.84%) or less it reaches the ceiling of 98, and at about 2.44% it scores 0. It is an absolute yardstick that does not depend on anyone's opinion of "the market".
It is an absolute measure: the same car earns the same score anywhere, with no "market" assumptions.
Finance uses a different rule: the score is the discount off MSRP plus the APR against the average for your credit tier (Experian data).
If a car has no MSRP or no payment from a real bank program, there is nothing to compute the 1% rule from. Its card then says "Score in progress", which is not a number that could be mistaken for one. We prefer a blank to an invented grade: one untruth cancels every other figure on the site.
The "Strong deals only" filter drops those cars as well: with no score yet, a deal cannot claim to be strong.
An ideal deal (98, the ceiling of the scale, "Hunter Verified Steal") is a payment near 0.8% of MSRP per month or lower, with no markups; on cars above $30,000 the bar sits slightly higher. Example: a $40,000 car at $336/mo or less. That is wholesale, not retail.
The payment-to-MSRP ratio is mapped to 0-100.
LCR% = monthly_payment / MSRP * 100 // the 1% rule best = 0.8 + 0.04 * max(0, MSRP - 30000) / 10000 worst = best + 1.6 Hunter Score = min( 98, round( clamp( (worst - LCR%) / (worst - best) * 100 , 0..100 ) ) ) Bands: >=85 Steal | 65-84 Strong | 50-64 Fair | <50 Above Market
If data is incomplete or the payment is implausibly low (below 0.6% of MSRP, almost always a data error), we show "Pending" instead of a made-up number. Better nothing than a fake 100.
It is our own metric, not a market standard. Use it as a filter to shortlist quickly, then decide on the full breakdown: money factor, residual, fees, and the effective monthly cost.
It has edge cases. A pricey car with a strong factory subsidy can score high against a large MSRP, while an honest deal on a cheaper car can look plainer. The score answers "payment vs MSRP" honestly, but it does not tell you which of two different cars is right for you.
Today the lease score measures one thing: the payment against MSRP (a finance offer uses its discount off MSRP and its rate, as described above). Next we add anti-markup factors: the dealer’s money-factor markup, the share of available incentives captured, and fee cleanliness (doc fee within California’s cap, no junk add-ons). The more data, the harder it is to game.