There’s been tremendous excitement about the 2020 Jeep Gladiator, Jeep’s first truck in decades. The original Gladiator truck was available from 1963 through 1971. It was replaced by the J-Series until 1987, when Jeep stopped making pickup trucks. The new 2020 Jeep Gladiator made its appearance earlier this year in April. How much will it cost you to put one of these in your driveway, and could leasing be the best choice for you?

Jeep Gladiator

This new midsize Jeep truck has the best-in-class towing capacity, off-road capabilities, and lightweight and high-strength body-on-frame construction. Plus, it comes with Jeep’s convertible design. Top options include the soft top, the matching color hardtop, or the black hardtop. To get even more air outdoors, the front windshield folds down.

Sticker prices

The Jeep Gladiator has four trim levels available: Sport, Sport S, Overland, and Rubicon. While the base price is $33,545 for the Sport trim, the cost only goes up from there. The other starting prices (without extra options or delivery costs) are $36,940 for the Sport S, $40,590 for the Overland, and $43,740 for the Rubicon. Of course, with financing, you’ll pay interest on top of those prices. 

A fully loaded version sells for close to $65,000. When the Gladiator first released, there were also reports of dealer markups up to $20,000. One other potential cost to note: a manual transmission is standard on all trims, so an automatic transmission is a $2,000 upgrade option.

The Jeep website estimates what the costs might be. Assuming a down payment of $3,504 and an interest rate of 3.75% for 60 months, here’s what the monthly payments might look like: Sport: $578, Sport S: $634, Overland: $694, and Rubicon: $746. For many people, that’s quite a lot of money.

Lease prices

The Jeep website also lays out what the lease rates might look like. Again, a $3,504 down payment is assumed. The interest rate here is 5.328%, but it’s for 36 months. The monthly payments are much lower than when buying the Gladiator. Here’s what they might be for each trim level: Sport: $274, Sport S: $340, Overland: $403, and Rubicon: $433.

Another plus for the lease, which keeps the monthly price down, is that residual values are very high for the Gladiator Sport. It’s expected to have retained up to 89% of its value at the end of the lease. Residual values are just slightly lower for the other trim levels.

For comparison, this means that the Gladiator Sport can be leased for a similar cost per month than the lower-priced Wrangler Sport. The Wrangler Sport has a base price of $31,990, and currently, lease estimates would be $242 a month.

Previous deals

In April when the Gladiator was first available, there was an awesome leasing deal. It was possible to lease the six-speed manual Gladiator Sport for $143 a month for 24 months. 

The Sport with the eight-speed automatic transmission Sport could be leased from $151. It did limit drivers to 10,000 miles per year though. At that time, the Overland started leasing at $336 a month, and the Rubicon was $361.

By May, this super low lease two-year price wasn’t listed online anymore, but Jeep dealers still had it available. Keep in mind that it can also be hard to find a base model. Dealers sometimes prefer to sell the higher trim levels.

Deciding whether or not to lease involves questions about how long you prefer to keep vehicles and how much you drive, but these low lease prices for the Jeep Gladiator are certainly worth considering.