Renting
₹28,000 rent. That's not what it costs.
Deposit, brokerage and commute, spread over how long you'll stay.
- ₹4,122
- ₹1,40,000
The link carries your numbers, so whoever opens it sees this exact result. Nothing is saved on our side.
Your numbers, your assumptions. Not advice. We can't see the rest of your life. What that means.
The number in the listing
Metro, auto, fuel, whatever this address actually costs you
What this assumes
All editable. Change one and the answer changes with it.
Two months is common in Delhi and Mumbai. Bengaluru routinely asks six to ten.
Usually one month where there's a broker, nothing where there isn't.
One-off costs are spread across this. Leave after six months and the brokerage hurts four times as much.
Your deposit comes back, so it isn't lost, it just sits somewhere earning nothing. Pick a rate to measure that against. It is your comparison, not a forecast, and nothing here predicts what any account would pay.
How this works, and where the numbers come from
Your deposit isn't lost, but it isn't free
You get the deposit back, so counting it as an expense would be wrong. What it genuinely costs you is what it would have earned sitting somewhere else. Ten months' deposit on a Bengaluru flat is a serious amount of capital doing nothing for two years, and that is the part nobody puts a number on.
Brokerage is different: that one is simply gone. It stings more the shorter you stay, which is why the length of your stay is an input here, a month's brokerage across two years is background noise, across six months it is real money.
The cheaper flat that costs more
A flat ₹3,000 cheaper but forty minutes further out is usually the more expensive one once the commute is counted, and that is before the hours. Put both addresses through this and compare the real monthly figure rather than the listed one.
Where these defaults come from
Deposit and brokerage norms are market practice, not regulation, and they vary enormously, two months is common in much of Delhi and Mumbai, six to ten is routine in Bengaluru. There is no national figure to quote, which is exactly why every one of them here is an assumption you can see and change rather than a number buried in the code.
Educational, not advice. Your numbers under assumptions you set.
Questions people ask
How many months of deposit is normal in India?
It varies enormously by city. Two months is common across much of Delhi and Mumbai; six to ten months is routine in Bengaluru. There is no national norm, which is why it is an input here rather than a fixed assumption.
If I get my deposit back, why does it cost me anything?
Because it sits with your landlord earning nothing. Ten months of deposit on a ₹28,000 flat is ₹2.8 lakh of your capital doing no work for the length of the tenancy. The deposit itself is not lost; what it could have been doing instead is the cost, measured against whatever rate you choose above.
Should I count my commute as part of the rent?
It changes the comparison. A flat that is ₹3,000 cheaper but forty minutes further out is often the more expensive one once travel is counted, and that is before the hours. Both flats through this tool, with each address’s real travel cost, is the like-for-like number.
Is there a rule for how much rent to pay?
No, and any single figure someone quotes is a guess about a life they cannot see. What this page gives you instead is the true monthly cost and what share of your take-home it is, the two numbers the judgement needs, with the judgement left where it belongs.
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Can I afford it?
Now put that real figure against what actually lands each month.
CTC → in-hand
Not sure what your take-home actually is? Start there.