F-150 vs. Silverado 1500: Which Truck Costs Less to Own, Not Just to Buy

The Ford F-Series was America's best-selling vehicle again in the first half of 2026, at 357,801 trucks; the Chevrolet Silverado came second at 276,074. That much never changes. What has changed is the math around actually buying one. Both trucks are in their final model year before all-new 2027 replacements, the average new vehicle now lists above $50,000, and import tariffs are quietly working their way into window stickers. So the useful question isn't which truck wins a spec-sheet fight. It's which one costs less to put in your driveway — and to keep there.

Sticker prices: Chevy starts lower, Ford undercuts where most people shop

At the bottom of each range, the Silverado WT lists at $39,695 with destination against $42,125 for an F-150 XL — about a $2,400 head start for Chevrolet on a bare work truck. Flip to the volume family trims and the order reverses: an F-150 XLT starts at $47,690, roughly $3,000 under a Silverado LT at $50,695. Both brands charge the same $2,795 destination fee, and both have nudged MSRPs upward during 2026, so any price quote more than a few months old is stale.

The hybrid is Ford's structural advantage

Ford's PowerBoost hybrid is the F-150's strongest ownership-cost card. It's the most powerful non-Raptor engine in the truck at 430 hp and 570 lb-ft, it carries an EPA rating of 24 mpg combined in 2WD form, and it doubles as a generator through Pro Power Onboard. Chevrolet simply has no answer in the Silverado 1500 — the lineup runs gas fours, gas V8s, and one diesel. That Duramax diesel is a genuinely good counterpunch for highway drivers, with an EPA-rated 28 mpg highway and 495 lb-ft of torque, but it costs extra to buy and drinks pricier fuel. The all-electric F-150 Lightning and Silverado EV exist as separate trucks with separate economics; neither belongs in this comparison's core.

September discounts: GM is clearing its lot harder

Chevrolet is running what it openly calls the Silverado Selldown: 0% APR for 60 months through GM Financial plus 90 days with no payments, valid through September 30, with cash allowances that can reach $7,000 depending on powertrain and an eligible trade-in. Ford's national F-150 offer is 2.9% APR for 60 months plus $1,500 bonus cash, with $4,500 cash back on the STX in some regions. The gap is real money: on a $50,000 note over 60 months, 0% instead of 2.9% saves roughly $3,800 in interest alone.

Ford's famous employee-pricing program — "American Value. For American Values." — ran from May 1 to July 6 and has not returned as of mid-September. It matters because employee pricing works differently from a rebate: it resets the transaction price itself rather than stacking on top of it. If Ford revives it for the F-150's own runout, the math above changes overnight.

Tariffs and birthplaces

Every F-150 sold in the U.S. is built in Michigan or Missouri. Silverado 1500 production is split between Fort Wayne, Indiana; Silao, Mexico; and Oshawa, Ontario — and GM is ending light-duty Silverado output in Canada with the 2026 model year. That geography matters more than it used to: the average duty on an imported vehicle has jumped from about $360 in 2024 to roughly $3,700 in 2026, with Mexico-built vehicles carrying around $3,100, according to CarGurus data. Neither automaker itemizes tariff cost on the sticker, so we can't tell you what your specific truck absorbed — but the door-jamb label will tell you where it was built. One more thing we don't know: neither company publishes days' supply by nameplate, so the honest proxy for who's more overstocked is the shape of the incentives, and right now that arrow points at Chevrolet.

What they're worth later

At the far end of ownership, the two trucks converge. CarGurus mid-year data shows the F-150, Silverado 1500, and Ram 1500 all averaging about $20,000 on the used market even past 120,000 miles, propped up by buyers priced out of $50,000-plus new trucks. In other words, resale at high mileage is not a tiebreaker: configuration, condition, and service history will move the needle more than the badge does.

Which one should you buy?

If you need a work truck on the tightest budget, the Silverado wins on arithmetic: the WT undercuts the XL by about $2,400, and 0% financing over five years is the single biggest cost lever either brand is offering this month. If you tow long highway miles, the Duramax's 28-mpg highway rating and 13,300-lb capability make a strong diesel case.

For the buyer most of this segment is actually made of — one truck for family, occasional towing, and daily commuting — we'd take the F-150 XLT with the PowerBoost. It starts about $3,000 below the equivalent LT, its hybrid delivers the best no-diesel fuel economy in the class plus onboard power, it's built entirely in the U.S. and thus insulated from tariff math, and its IIHS crash results edge out the Silverado's, even though both trucks — like every Detroit half-ton — score Poor in the updated moderate overlap test. The counterargument is legitimate: Chevrolet's 0% deal can claw back most of Ford's price advantage for a financed buyer with strong credit.

And if you're not in a hurry at all, remember that both replacements arrive for 2027 — new trucks that will not be discounted the way these runout models are right now. Chevrolet has already published 2027 Silverado pricing, and it moves in one direction: the new Work Truck lists at $38,600 before destination, $1,700 above today's truck, the High Country jumps $8,800, and the volume LT is renamed simply Silverado at $47,900. Ford has not priced the 2027 F-150 yet. The runout trucks on the lot this month are the cheap ones.