2021 RAM 1500 Pricing

[BNeal]

Enjoying reading all the info in these forums. I'm considering doing a "build your own" 2021 BigHorn via the Ramtrucks website that's tailored to towing a medium size travel trailer. Did you start with your Laramie order on that site or sit down with the dealer and go from there? What was the process you used to get to the $53,190 amount?
Thanks.

I built mine from the Ram website and sent the build sheet to my dealer. I am so glad I spec'd out my own truck. I got everything I wanted - it was stupid expensive, but I plan on keeping this one a while.

 

[GreggF]

That's a great looking truck. White is our color of choice too. Did your dealer work with you on the price quoted on the Ram build site? When I've done a sample build and compared that to the NADA invoice price numbers on the same truck/options there's still 1500-2000 difference; seems like there should be some room for negotiating.

 

[GreggF]

Good to hear a success story Arvid. What was the approach you used to get to that $52000 level?

 

[Arvid]

Good to hear a success story Arvid. What was the approach you used to get to that $52000 level?

I pretty much just informed that that it had to be that number or it’s not happening. They didn’t fuss too much. They said they would do it even though they claimed it was a risk as they didn’t know what the incentives would be at upon arrival of the truck. But they honored it come arrival time. Remember you’re holding all the money and you can walk out the door anytime. Don’t be afraid to walk away.

 

[BNeal]

That's a great looking truck. White is our color of choice too. Did your dealer work with you on the price quoted on the Ram build site? When I've done a sample build and compared that to the NADA invoice price numbers on the same truck/options there's still 1500-2000 difference; seems like there should be some room for negotiating.

Yes. I got the truck at invoice, plus $500 incentive and 0%/60.

 

[HAL9001]

I'm currently in the market for a 2021 1500 built to my spec. Here's what I see going on right now.

If you read the other RAM forum, you find a 500+ page thread on incredible deals people have reported ranging from 10-20% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. I compiled a spreadsheet based upon deals being reported there for 2021 1500's and the average deal is around 14% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. However, this is somewhat misleading and I'll explain why.

I took my build to all the RAM dealers within a 100-mile radius of where I live and started negotiating. I quickly found out that you can fairly easily get invoice price (or close to it) before incentives/rebates from many dealers, but anything lower than that and you'll need to fight like hell. The prices posted as "Invoice" on various sites like Edmunds appear to be genuine and it does appear to be the actual price that most dealers actually pay. However, the manufacturer then gives the dealer a "holdback" after a sale. For a $60K truck, this is around $1400 or so. So, many dealers are content to let you have the truck at invoice minus the mfgr incentives/rebates, which doesn't cost them anything, and then keep the $1,400 holdback as their profit. Plus, they can also make as much as several thousand on a trade-in if that's part of the deal. This keeps their business healthy. Some dealers may ask for a bit more than invoice giving them more profit or at least some room to negotiate down, while some others may give a bit off of invoice to be more competitive. But none want to give up much, if any, of their holdbacks.

So, for example, for my build with an MSRP of $61,850, the invoice was $57,025, and the price most dealers offered upfront with no negotiations. This is ~7.8% off of MSRP. Currently, there is around $2-2.5K in incentives/rebates depending upon where you live and what you qualify for. If you include that in this example, the price goes down to $55,025 with $2k in incentives/rebates. This is around 11% off of MSRP total and the price you can expect to pay before TTL and any dealer add-on fees.

So, figure around 11% or so off of MSRP after incentives/rebates as what you should generally expect. This is not great, but it's not too bad either. It's all a numbers game. After all, no one pays MSRP and you might feel great thinking you're getting an 11% discount, but in fact, this is actually the typical going price of the truck unless some dealer is trying to price gouge you.

So what about those incredible deals where people are reporting 14-20% off of MSRP? Well, those are real and there are a few ways you can do better than the standard 11%, but it's not always easy or practical.

The first is to find a high-volume dealer. They can sell trucks for thousands less. I imagine they can do this by getting better holdbacks or other such considerations from RAM for selling many more trucks than typical dealers. There's not a lot of them nationwide though, and if you're not lucky enough to live near one, you may need to travel many hundreds and sometimes over a thousand miles away to find one. Some buyers make a deal with them and then drive or fly down to pick up the truck. This is a good option if you don't mind buying remotely and traveling. Your local dealer will still service the truck, although you may lose any preferential treatment that they may offer to customers who purchase from them.

The second option is to try to hard negotiate with a local dealer for lower than the invoice price. This will eat into their holdback profit, which they abhor, and it'll be a tough battle. They'll often refuse to go any lower and give you the typical heave-ho, sending you away as a scare tactic. You'll then need to wait them out, but they'll usually contact you again to see if you're still interested. You may need to pit one local dealer against another or try to find a time when they're motivated enough to make a less profitable, a break-even, or a loss sale for some other reason such as during a slump or making their sales quota. This option is the most difficult, it requires a lot of work, good timing, good negotiation skills, a lot of patience, and some luck.

So, this is the situation as I see it. I hope this sheds some light on the purchasing process.

 

[NWhunt]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[runamuck]

I have been able to buy my last 2 trucks almost entirely online and got pretty good deals. to the earlier poster who was happy to get that 61000$ msrp truck for 55000, that would not work for me..my current laramie was 56776$ and I bought it for 43000$. right now I am shopping for a 2020 laramie 2500 and and am looking at picks that are in the 62000$ range and dont plan to settle till I find a dealer that will go for around 50000$. my son bought a 2020 laramie 2500 dsl. last week that listed for 70 and he paid 60..even while people were saying there arent any deals to be had on the diesels. you just have to hold out till you get their best offer. it helps that I live in a metro area where I can pit one dealer against another to get a good price..I will shop dealers within an hour's drive of DFW

 

[SecuRAM]

I'm currently in the market for a 2021 1500 built to my spec. Here's what I see going on right now.

If you read the other RAM forum, you find a 500+ page thread on incredible deals people have reported ranging from 10-20% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. I compiled a spreadsheet based upon deals being reported there for 2021 1500's and the average deal is around 14% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. However, this is somewhat misleading and I'll explain why.

I took my build to all the RAM dealers within a 100-mile radius of where I live and started negotiating. I quickly found out that you can fairly easily get invoice price (or close to it) before incentives/rebates from many dealers, but anything lower than that and you'll need to fight like hell. The prices posted as "Invoice" on various sites like Edmunds appear to be genuine and it does appear to be the actual price that most dealers actually pay. However, the manufacturer then gives the dealer a "holdback" after a sale. For a $60K truck, this is around $1400 or so. So, many dealers are content to let you have the truck at invoice minus the mfgr incentives/rebates, which doesn't cost them anything, and then keep the $1,400 holdback as their profit. Plus, they can also make as much as several thousand on a trade-in if that's part of the deal. This keeps their business healthy. Some dealers may ask for a bit more than invoice giving them more profit or at least some room to negotiate down, while some others may give a bit off of invoice to be more competitive. But none want to give up much, if any, of their holdbacks.

So, for example, for my build with an MSRP of $61,850, the invoice was $57,025, and the price most dealers offered upfront with no negotiations. This is ~7.8% off of MSRP. Currently, there is around $2-2.5K in incentives/rebates depending upon where you live and what you qualify for. If you include that in this example, the price goes down to $55,025 with $2k in incentives/rebates. This is around 11% off of MSRP total and the price you can expect to pay before TTL and any dealer add-on fees.

So, figure around 11% or so off of MSRP after incentives/rebates as what you should generally expect. This is not great, but it's not too bad either. It's all a numbers game. After all, no one pays MSRP and you might feel great thinking you're getting an 11% discount, but in fact, this is actually the typical going price of the truck unless some dealer is trying to price gouge you.

So what about those incredible deals where people are reporting 14-20% off of MSRP? Well, those are real and there are a few ways you can do better than the standard 11%, but it's not always easy or practical.

The first is to find a high-volume dealer. They can sell trucks for thousands less. I imagine they can do this by getting better holdbacks or other such considerations from RAM for selling many more trucks than typical dealers. There's not a lot of them nationwide though, and if you're not lucky enough to live near one, you may need to travel many hundreds and sometimes over a thousand miles away to find one. Some buyers make a deal with them and then drive or fly down to pick up the truck. This is a good option if you don't mind buying remotely and traveling. Your local dealer will still service the truck, although you may lose any preferential treatment that they may offer to customers who purchase from them.

The second option is to try to hard negotiate with a local dealer for lower than the invoice price. This will eat into their holdback profit, which they abhor, and it'll be a tough battle. They'll often refuse to go any lower and give you the typical heave-ho, sending you away as a scare tactic. You'll then need to wait them out, but they'll usually contact you again to see if you're still interested. You may need to pit one local dealer against another or try to find a time when they're motivated enough to make a less profitable, a break-even, or a loss sale for some other reason such as during a slump or making their sales quota. This option is the most difficult, it requires a lot of work, good timing, good negotiation skills, a lot of patience, and some luck.

So, this is the situation as I see it. I hope this sheds some light on the purchasing process.

This is helpful and I'm in a situation right now where I want to build my own truck on the website and take advantage of the current Employee Pricing promotion.

The dealer says they cannot hold Employee Pricing for the 2 months+ it would take for my truck to arrive if it were built and they have no way of knowing what the incentives will be like.

The employee price seems to be about $2000 below the Friend and Family Price and I'm thinking I should settle for something in stock to get a better deal than without it.

What is the process for negotiating a build your own truck price?

 

[London Boy]

I'm currently in the market for a 2021 1500 built to my spec. Here's what I see going on right now.

If you read the other RAM forum, you find a 500+ page thread on incredible deals people have reported ranging from 10-20% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. I compiled a spreadsheet based upon deals being reported there for 2021 1500's and the average deal is around 14% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. However, this is somewhat misleading and I'll explain why.

I took my build to all the RAM dealers within a 100-mile radius of where I live and started negotiating. I quickly found out that you can fairly easily get invoice price (or close to it) before incentives/rebates from many dealers, but anything lower than that and you'll need to fight like hell. The prices posted as "Invoice" on various sites like Edmunds appear to be genuine and it does appear to be the actual price that most dealers actually pay. However, the manufacturer then gives the dealer a "holdback" after a sale. For a $60K truck, this is around $1400 or so. So, many dealers are content to let you have the truck at invoice minus the mfgr incentives/rebates, which doesn't cost them anything, and then keep the $1,400 holdback as their profit. Plus, they can also make as much as several thousand on a trade-in if that's part of the deal. This keeps their business healthy. Some dealers may ask for a bit more than invoice giving them more profit or at least some room to negotiate down, while some others may give a bit off of invoice to be more competitive. But none want to give up much, if any, of their holdbacks.

So, for example, for my build with an MSRP of $61,850, the invoice was $57,025, and the price most dealers offered upfront with no negotiations. This is ~7.8% off of MSRP. Currently, there is around $2-2.5K in incentives/rebates depending upon where you live and what you qualify for. If you include that in this example, the price goes down to $55,025 with $2k in incentives/rebates. This is around 11% off of MSRP total and the price you can expect to pay before TTL and any dealer add-on fees.

So, figure around 11% or so off of MSRP after incentives/rebates as what you should generally expect. This is not great, but it's not too bad either. It's all a numbers game. After all, no one pays MSRP and you might feel great thinking you're getting an 11% discount, but in fact, this is actually the typical going price of the truck unless some dealer is trying to price gouge you.

So what about those incredible deals where people are reporting 14-20% off of MSRP? Well, those are real and there are a few ways you can do better than the standard 11%, but it's not always easy or practical.

The first is to find a high-volume dealer. They can sell trucks for thousands less. I imagine they can do this by getting better holdbacks or other such considerations from RAM for selling many more trucks than typical dealers. There's not a lot of them nationwide though, and if you're not lucky enough to live near one, you may need to travel many hundreds and sometimes over a thousand miles away to find one. Some buyers make a deal with them and then drive or fly down to pick up the truck. This is a good option if you don't mind buying remotely and traveling. Your local dealer will still service the truck, although you may lose any preferential treatment that they may offer to customers who purchase from them.

The second option is to try to hard negotiate with a local dealer for lower than the invoice price. This will eat into their holdback profit, which they abhor, and it'll be a tough battle. They'll often refuse to go any lower and give you the typical heave-ho, sending you away as a scare tactic. You'll then need to wait them out, but they'll usually contact you again to see if you're still interested. You may need to pit one local dealer against another or try to find a time when they're motivated enough to make a less profitable, a break-even, or a loss sale for some other reason such as during a slump or making their sales quota. This option is the most difficult, it requires a lot of work, good timing, good negotiation skills, a lot of patience, and some luck.

So, this is the situation as I see it. I hope this sheds some light on the purchasing process.

 

[London Boy]

I just joined this Forum today (about 20 minutes ago!). My first ever forum. Thank you for your break down. So clear and concise. I'm hooked.

 

[Wags 1775]

I bought a 2021 Rebel this past weekend. I negotiated 14.3% off of MSRP along with approximately $300 above Edmunds's value for my trade-in considered "above average" condition by the dealer. 1st - my truck was delivered to the dealership during the employee pricing sales event so the dealership was still offering this truck under that incentive. Trucks that arrived after the sales event were not offered under the same incentive. 2nd - I went to a "volume" dealership. This dealership's best offer was significantly under the other two smaller dealerships that I searched. 3rd - The "volume" dealership also paid their salesman via salary and not commission. The salesmen were incentivized to sell in order to maintain employment (performance) and receive bonuses (reviews) but their pay was not linked to the vehicle's sale price. 4th - I may have gotten lucky on this one because I arrived at the dealership after dark, but I detailed the exterior and interior of my trade-in as best as possible. The "volume" dealer was also volume trade-in so they did not look at my trade-in very closely after being "impressed" by its appearance (basically walked the exterior, looked at the interior, and drove it less than a 1/4 mile). Based on some of the issues with my 14-year-old truck, I may have gotten significantly more for my trade-in than I would have at a dealership that would have done a detailed mechanical inspection.

One other new point I learned. Many dealerships now sell trade-ins to CARMAX. The dealer will send detailed pictures to CARMAX and then CARMAX sends the dealer an offer. You can do a similar process privately - this may help give you a leg up if negotiating a trade-in.

I researched pricing for Rams for near two months before pulling the trigger. Although I didn't get what I considered the best possible rock bottom price, I did get pretty darn close. For anyone in the eastern Virginia region, send me a DM and I'll provide details on the dealership and salesman I used.

 

[dieseldave]

I'm currently in the market for a 2021 1500 built to my spec. Here's what I see going on right now.

If you read the other RAM forum, you find a 500+ page thread on incredible deals people have reported ranging from 10-20% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. I compiled a spreadsheet based upon deals being reported there for 2021 1500's and the average deal is around 14% off of MSRP after incentives/rebates. However, this is somewhat misleading and I'll explain why.

I took my build to all the RAM dealers within a 100-mile radius of where I live and started negotiating. I quickly found out that you can fairly easily get invoice price (or close to it) before incentives/rebates from many dealers, but anything lower than that and you'll need to fight like hell. The prices posted as "Invoice" on various sites like Edmunds appear to be genuine and it does appear to be the actual price that most dealers actually pay. However, the manufacturer then gives the dealer a "holdback" after a sale. For a $60K truck, this is around $1400 or so. So, many dealers are content to let you have the truck at invoice minus the mfgr incentives/rebates, which doesn't cost them anything, and then keep the $1,400 holdback as their profit. Plus, they can also make as much as several thousand on a trade-in if that's part of the deal. This keeps their business healthy. Some dealers may ask for a bit more than invoice giving them more profit or at least some room to negotiate down, while some others may give a bit off of invoice to be more competitive. But none want to give up much, if any, of their holdbacks.

So, for example, for my build with an MSRP of $61,850, the invoice was $57,025, and the price most dealers offered upfront with no negotiations. This is ~7.8% off of MSRP. Currently, there is around $2-2.5K in incentives/rebates depending upon where you live and what you qualify for. If you include that in this example, the price goes down to $55,025 with $2k in incentives/rebates. This is around 11% off of MSRP total and the price you can expect to pay before TTL and any dealer add-on fees.

So, figure around 11% or so off of MSRP after incentives/rebates as what you should generally expect. This is not great, but it's not too bad either. It's all a numbers game. After all, no one pays MSRP and you might feel great thinking you're getting an 11% discount, but in fact, this is actually the typical going price of the truck unless some dealer is trying to price gouge you.

So what about those incredible deals where people are reporting 14-20% off of MSRP? Well, those are real and there are a few ways you can do better than the standard 11%, but it's not always easy or practical.

The first is to find a high-volume dealer. They can sell trucks for thousands less. I imagine they can do this by getting better holdbacks or other such considerations from RAM for selling many more trucks than typical dealers. There's not a lot of them nationwide though, and if you're not lucky enough to live near one, you may need to travel many hundreds and sometimes over a thousand miles away to find one. Some buyers make a deal with them and then drive or fly down to pick up the truck. This is a good option if you don't mind buying remotely and traveling. Your local dealer will still service the truck, although you may lose any preferential treatment that they may offer to customers who purchase from them.

The second option is to try to hard negotiate with a local dealer for lower than the invoice price. This will eat into their holdback profit, which they abhor, and it'll be a tough battle. They'll often refuse to go any lower and give you the typical heave-ho, sending you away as a scare tactic. You'll then need to wait them out, but they'll usually contact you again to see if you're still interested. You may need to pit one local dealer against another or try to find a time when they're motivated enough to make a less profitable, a break-even, or a loss sale for some other reason such as during a slump or making their sales quota. This option is the most difficult, it requires a lot of work, good timing, good negotiation skills, a lot of patience, and some luck.

So, this is the situation as I see it. I hope this sheds some light on the purchasing process.

You nailed it

 

[HAL9001]

You nailed it

Let me just add more experience onto that. I never had much luck negotiating with every RAM dealer in my state and a few in a neighboring state. The best price I ever got from them for a build-to-order truck was $1,000 off of invoice and I had to fight like hell to get that. I did get a better deal from Koons but buying from them would have been no cakewalk and would have entailed a great deal of hassle.

I was about to give up but then RAM announced an Employee Price for All sale event out of the blue. This sale lowers the price of select models considerably at RAM's expense, so the dealers love it. They can then sell you a truck for much less without it costing them a penny in their profit. The catch is that the sale is on for usually only less than a month and you can't have a truck built in that timeframe. So, you're limited to existing stock.

This sale was too good to pass up so I did a deep-dive search for all available trucks close to my build. I wasn't able to find one but I did find a fully-loaded 2021 Limited which had far more features than I was going to order. The bottom line is that I was able to buy this fully loaded Limited for almost the same price as the Laramie I was going to order. It was over $10K off of invoice. Way too good to pass up.

I know this advice won't work for everyone, but if you can, try to be flexible in what you want for options and colors and try to wait for a sale. You'll either save many thousands or you'll get a much more loaded truck for the same money.

If this doesn't work for you, then the next best option is to go with one of the high-volume/high-discount sellers, if you can make that work. Just be very aware that the local dealer you take it to for service is probably not going to treat you as a preferred customer. For example, I get free rentals from my local dealer whenever my truck needs servicing. My truck was delivered with a significant issue and after the dealer fixed it, they went to bat for me and they got me a free 8 year/100,000 powertrain warranty from RAM. There's no way that would have happened if I bought the truck from Koons and brought it to the local dealer with the same problem.

So, for a lot of people, these are your options. Be flexible and be patient and you can get a great deal.

 

[RDSnj2021]

I just got my spec ordered bighorn today ordered in august. Msrp sticker was $62,430 and got it for 52,500

New to Forum. Are any of members who purchased 2021 Ram 1500 buys able to post the names of the dealers who got the best deal from? Just reading through this thread now. rdsnj

 

[JoeCo]

New to Forum. Are any of members who purchased 2021 Ram 1500 buys able to post the names of the dealers who got the best deal from? Just reading through this thread now. rdsnj

Welcome to the forum!

On another ram forum that's more 5th gen specific, many of us have bought from Aaron (sales manager) at Mark Dodge in Lake Charles Louisiana. Pretty far from us up here in the northeast but the reason I ordered from him was the aggressive pricing he offered and the lack of outrageous fees that I saw at many other dealerships (such as $900 doc fee, or double dipping on the $1695 destination charge).

I ordered my truck on 3/6 and it just got to the dealership in Louisiana this week, and am now eagerly awaiting it to be shipped up to me here in NY.

 

[RDSnj2021]

Welcome to the forum!

On another ram forum that's more 5th gen specific, many of us have bought from Aaron (sales manager) at Mark Dodge in Lake Charles Louisiana. Pretty far from us up here in the northeast but the reason I ordered from him was the aggressive pricing he offered and the lack of outrageous fees that I saw at many other dealerships (such as $900 doc fee, or double dipping on the $1695 destination charge).

I ordered my truck on 3/6 and it just got to the dealership in Louisiana this week, and am now eagerly awaiting it to be shipped up to me here in NY.

Joe: Thanks for taking the time to post. Very Helpful. Based upon delivery time from order date, I'm thinking of ordering (waiting) a 2022. Also, I want a specific configuration and no dealer stocks it. I don't want to pay for a higher msrp just to get the truck asap. Thanks again. Can you link to other more specific Ram thread or name it here? Appreciate your time. Doug

 

[sandawilliams]

Joe: Thanks for taking the time to post. Very Helpful. Based upon delivery time from order date, I'm thinking of ordering (waiting) a 2022. Also, I want a specific configuration and no dealer stocks it. I don't want to pay for a higher msrp just to get the truck asap. Thanks again. Can you link to other more specific Ram thread or name it here? Appreciate your time. Doug

At our age I wouldnt wait too long.

 

[JoeCo]

Joe: Thanks for taking the time to post. Very Helpful. Based upon delivery time from order date, I'm thinking of ordering (waiting) a 2022. Also, I want a specific configuration and no dealer stocks it. I don't want to pay for a higher msrp just to get the truck asap. Thanks again. Can you link to other more specific Ram thread or name it here? Appreciate your time. Doug

Hey Doug,

No problem at all, happy to help out if I can. From what I know right now I believe orders for 21s are cutoff and early 22 orders are being taken but without pricing or full options break down. With that being said, I agree that if you want to get the exact truck you want, you would be better off waiting and ordering a 22 at some point.

And I will send you a private message to discuss where you can research all of this a little further.

 

[RDSnj2021]

Joe: Working through the threads. Likely will call Aaron at Mark. See what's happening with 21/22 orders. Looking at a nice Laramie optioned the way I want. Just sold my 2018 GMC Canyon an hour ago. so i'm ready to go. Told my wife, I'm getting a new truck when I bought the gmc as it could "be my last one". Now on to the Ram. The big issue is whether any of the good discounts like you got are still available either on 21 or 22 models. You did great. Doug.