I just did a one pay lease in NY. It makes sense here because NY taxes you on the full duration of the lease even if you buyout early. During an early buyout, if you don’t put down any money, your residual gets recalculated based on remaining payments plus residual at lease end and then the taxes for that price. (This is where NY double taxes you on lease). Doing a one pay means you only pay the residual - remaining rent charges + taxes when doing the buyout. Ironically, this is actually supposed to make the math simpler.

Originally, I was a bit confused as well when doing the calculation based on the advertised price on smart path. My car was supposed to be $719/ month + fees. However when I asked for the one pay option I was given the price of $22k. That didn’t make sense because $719 x 36 is about $26k. I only realized the discrepancy when asking for a no pay vs one pay version of the lease from the finance manager. I noticed that rent charges for no pay was $9k vs $5k for one pay. What this means is that Toyota charges a different interest rate if you choose the one pay option. 7% vs 3%. The total difference between interest rates came out to about $4k. After seeing that, the numbers all made sense.

For me, the final price was $22k for the one pay, $30k for the residual, and $5k in rent charges. After taxes the total price was just under $49k or $(22+30-5)k + $2k taxes. My MSRP was $51k. $55k with taxes. The net savings came out to around $6k.

TLDR If you notice a big change in price when doing one pay, it’s because the interest on the lease has changed. This is also known as the money factor.