There are lots of calculators out there that show you the payoff time for points. Plug in your principal, interest rates with points, and without points, and it calculates how long it takes to break even on the points.
That gives you an idea of how long you need to stay in that loan and at what point the points put you ahead of the game.
If you are more worried about size of the payment, just use one of the gazillion calculators that take your loan amount, term, and interest rate – you can see what your P/I payments will be with the smaller principal/higher interest vs the bigger principal/lower interest.
It’s all math. Do the calcs and see what makes sense for your circumstances.
