By Austin D., Lease Solutions
Exactly two ways: a flat $695 processing fee you see before you apply, and a commission the lender pays us for arranging the loan. Neither is a markup — your buyout price and payoff pass through to you untouched, and the lender's commission comes from the lender's side of the deal, not yours. Lease Solutions is not a lender; your final rate and payment come from the lender after a credit application.
When a company offers to handle a five-figure transaction for you, “how do you get paid?” is the first question worth asking — and the answer should never be vague. Ours isn't. Lease Solutions makes money in exactly two ways, and both are on the table before you apply for anything. (The short version lives at how we get paid; this article is the long one.)
Way #1: A Flat $695 Processing Fee
Every buyout we process carries one flat $695 processing fee. You see it on this site before you ever apply, you see it again at the point of application, and it's typically rolled into your financing rather than paid out of pocket. It doesn't scale with the size of your loan and it doesn't change based on your credit.
What the fee buys is the labor of the buyout itself:
- Payoff coordination. Your leasing company has an exact payoff number, and getting it — correctly, in writing, before it expires — means phone calls, hold music, and follow-up. Your specialist does that.
- Title and registration. After the loan funds, the title has to move from the leasing company to you, correctly, in your state. We handle that paperwork and the DMV legwork.
- Document prep. The loan package arrives ready to sign, not as a stack of forms for you to decode.
- One specialist, start to finish. The person who runs your numbers is the person who sees your title through. That continuity is most of what people are actually paying for.
What the fee is not: a markup. Your buyout price is set by your lease contract. Your payoff comes from your leasing company. Both pass through to you untouched — the fee is the only dollar we add, and it's the one with our name on it.
Way #2: A Commission From the Lender
When a buyout loan closes, the lender pays us for arranging it. Lenders do this because a loan that arrives through us is finished: exact payoff confirmed with the leasing company, vehicle valued against the same book values they use, application organized the way that lender wants it, title work already moving. A lender would otherwise pay their own staff to do that assembly. Paying the company that brings it to them done is how this entire industry works.
The part that matters for you: that commission comes from the lender's side of the deal. It is not added to your buyout, your payoff, or your fee. And because we work with multiple partner lenders rather than being owned by one, the specialist choosing a lender with you is choosing on fit — your credit profile, your term, your state — not on a house quota.
One boundary worth stating plainly: Lease Solutions is not a lender. We don't make credit decisions, and your final rate and payment come from the lender after a credit application — never from an advertisement. Any rate you see on our site is a clearly-labeled estimate. How that application moment works — and why there's exactly one of them — is covered in will a lease buyout hurt my credit?
“But the Other Companies Say It's Free”
They're describing the same business model with the fee hidden. Every company that arranges lease buyout financing is paid through the lending side — that's the industry's economics, ours included. When a service advertises itself as free, it isn't running on air; it's running on the same commissions we just described, sometimes plus charges that surface later in the paperwork. We'd rather disclose our number up front and let you judge it. The full argument is in why “free” lease buyout help isn't free.
What We Never Charge For
- Seeing your numbers. Your car's value, your equity, and your estimated Keep-It payment cost nothing and involve no credit pull. Try it on the calculator right now.
- Being told no. If the math says a buyout isn't your best move, we'll tell you that for free, and you keep the number to use however you like.
- Protection products you didn't choose. Service contracts and GAP coverage are optional, and we always show you the no-protection option.
The Test That Matters
Ask any company in this business the question at the top of this page. A trustworthy answer names a number, says who pays it, and says it before you apply. That standard is the whole reason this article exists — and if you want to hold us to it in person, call (208) 825-3090 and ask the person who picks up.