Debt Payoff Calculator: See What Each Payment Really Costs

Enter a balance, an interest rate and a monthly payment, and this tells you two things: how many months until it is gone, and how much of what you pay is interest. The second number is the one that changes behavior. The two orders you can pay in, and what each one costs: snowball vs avalanche.

If you would rather not enter anything, the tables below give you the answer directly.

$20,000 at 24.99% APR — four payment levels

Going from the minimum to $750 a month saves $30,570. Going from $500 to $750 saves $13,926. This is the single most useful comparison on this site, and it is why the payment amount matters more than the payoff method.

$10,000 at 24.99% APR

Minimum payments only, by balance, at 24.99%

The calculator opens at 24.99% because it is a round card rate to start from, not because it was measured. The rate this site measured is 22.15%, it is the one used in the grid below, and it is the one to type in if you want the site’s own figures. How we calculate and source this.

Every one of those rows pays more in interest than the original balance. The reason sits in the formula above the first table: a minimum set at 1% of the balance plus interest falls as the balance falls, so the payment shrinks in step with the debt and the term stretches instead of ending. A fixed payment does the opposite — the same dollar amount retires more principal every month as the interest portion drops, which is why holding the payment flat is what shortens the payoff.

Why two calculators disagree about the same debt

Because “minimum payment” is not one formula. The two common ones:

• Interest plus 1% of the balance, with a floor of around $35. This is the more common structure today, and it is the one used in the tables above.
• A flat percentage of the balance, often quoted as 2%, with the interest included inside it.

On $20,000 at 24.99%, the first gives 28.4 years and $40,062 in interest. The second does something worse than slow, and it is the more useful fact on this page: at 24.99% APR a 2%-of-balance minimum never pays the debt off at all. The monthly interest rate is 24.99% ÷ 12 = 2.0825% of the balance, so a payment set at 2% of the balance is smaller than the interest charged that month. Month one is $400 paid against $416.50 of interest. The balance goes up, not down, and it keeps going up: after ten years of paying every minimum on time, the $20,000 has become about $22,080. There is no payoff date to quote, because there is no payoff. The worked example on that balance: paying off $20,000 in credit card debt.

A flat-percentage minimum only retires principal when the percentage clears the monthly rate — 2% covers the interest only below 24% APR. At 4% of the balance, with the same $35 floor used in the tables above, the $20,000 does clear: 16.5 years and $21,144 in interest. That figure moves with the floor, so the floor is stated rather than assumed. Both formulas are correct arithmetic; they are different products, and one of them is a trap at this rate. Your card’s formula is in your cardholder agreement, and if you want an accurate projection you need to know which one you have.

This is also why the “minimum payment warning” box on your statement may not match an online calculator. It is using your actual formula.

How to use this to make a decision

Three comparisons worth running:

1. Your current payment vs. your current payment plus $100. Most people underestimate this by a wide margin. On $20,000 at 24.99%, $100 more a month is worth years and thousands. Where to find that $100 without new income: the full payoff plan.

2. Your card vs. a consolidation offer. Run the card at the payment you can actually make, then run the loan at its APR and term. The rule of thumb, which the tables demonstrate: a loan at a rate near your card rate saves nothing. See whether consolidating would beat this.

3. Your rate vs. your rate after a hardship program. A call to your issuer can change the input, which is often a bigger lever than anything else on this page.

What the calculator assumes

Being explicit, because these assumptions are why real results differ:

• No new charges on the account. Any new spending changes everything, and it is the most common reason a real payoff runs longer than projected.
• A fixed APR. Variable rates move, and a missed payment can trigger a penalty rate.
• Interest compounded monthly, payments applied at the end of each period.
• No fees. Annual fees, late fees and balance transfer fees are not included.
• Payments applied to the balance shown. If you carry both a purchase balance and a promotional balance, real payment allocation rules apply and are more complex.

The grid behind the calculator, at the measured rate

The calculator above takes any rate you type. This is what it returns at one particular rate: 22.15 percent, the average the Federal Reserve measured in May 2026 on card accounts that are being charged interest. Six balances, eleven fixed monthly payments, and the term in whole months for every combination that has one. Nothing here is a rule of thumb or an approximation of a schedule; each cell is one run of the same loop the calculator runs.

Read down a column and the grid says something the individual rows do not. The same payment does not do the same kind of work at different balances. Five hundred dollars a month clears two thousand dollars in five months and five thousand in twelve; at ten thousand it takes 26 months, at fifteen thousand 45, at twenty thousand 74 — and at thirty thousand it does nothing at all, because one month of interest on that balance is $553.75 and the payment never reaches it.

That is why the chart below has five bars and not six. There is no term to plot for thirty thousand dollars at five hundred a month, and the honest thing is a missing bar rather than a very tall one. The same absence runs diagonally through the grid: the higher the balance, the more of the payment column has no answer.

Twenty-three of the sixty-six cells have no answer

Count the dashes: twenty-three of the sixty-six payment and balance combinations in that grid produce no payoff date. That is not missing data and it is not a limitation of the engine. It is the result. If a payment does not exceed the month’s interest, the balance is flat or rising and there is no month at which it reaches zero, so the loop has nothing to return.

Most online payoff tools handle this badly. Asked for a payment below the line, some report a term in the hundreds of years, some report the balance being cleared anyway, and some silently raise the payment to the minimum they think you meant. All three are worse than an empty cell, because all three answer a question that has no answer. If you type a payment into the calculator above and get nothing sensible back, check it against one month of interest first: your rate, divided by twelve, times your balance. Under that figure, no payment plan exists at that rate and the lever is the rate itself.

Five months of the loop, written out by hand

Everything above comes from three lines repeated: add one twelfth of the annual rate to the balance, subtract the payment, repeat. Here are the first five months of one cell — ten thousand dollars at 22.15 percent with a 500 dollar payment — so that the grid can be checked rather than trusted. Continue the same five lines and the balance reaches zero in the 26th month, which is what that cell says.

The five assumptions in the box below are the whole model, and two of them matter more than the rest for anyone comparing this against a real statement. Interest here compounds monthly at the annual rate over twelve; a real issuer computes it daily on an average daily balance, which shifts the total by a few dollars and the term by a fraction of a month. And no new charge is ever added, which is the single most common reason a real payoff runs longer than any grid predicts.

What this does not say.

• Twenty-three cells of the grid have no term because the payment never exceeds the month’s interest. That is a result rather than a gap, and it is why the chart carries five bars instead of six.
• The grid reports terms, not total interest. What a fixed-payment schedule costs in total depends on how the final, smaller payment is accounted for, and our treatment of that last month is not one we will stand behind to the dollar yet, so the column is absent rather than approximate.
• Interest compounds monthly at the annual rate divided by twelve. Real card interest is charged on an average daily balance, so a statement can differ by a few dollars in either direction and a long term by a fraction of a month.
• One rate, one observation, one month: an average measured in May 2026 across accounts being charged interest. Type your own rate into the calculator above and every cell moves.
• Terms are whole months. A cell reading 26 means the balance is cleared during the twenty-sixth payment, and that payment is smaller than the eleven that came before it.
• No fees, no promotional balances and no payment allocation rules are modelled. A card carrying both a purchase balance and a transferred balance is governed by allocation rules that a single-balance grid cannot represent.

Frequently asked questions

How long will it take me to pay off my debt? It depends on the balance, the rate and the payment, and the grid on this page gives the answer for sixty-six combinations at 22.15%. At $500 a month: five months on $2,000, twelve on $5,000, 26 on $10,000, 45 on $15,000 and 74 on $20,000.

Why does the calculator give no answer for my payment? Because a payment at or below one month of interest never reduces the balance, so no payoff month exists. Multiply your balance by your rate and divide by twelve: if your payment is under that figure, there is no term to compute and the rate is the lever rather than the payment.

Why does my card’s payoff estimate differ from this calculator? Your statement uses your card’s own minimum payment formula and charges interest on an average daily balance, while this grid uses a fixed payment and monthly compounding. The formula difference is the larger of the two: the two minimum-payment formulas in common use disagree by hundreds of months on the same balance.

What is a good monthly payment to aim for? Enough to clear the balance within about three years if your budget allows it. On the grid above that is $400 a month at $10,000 and $750 at $20,000. Beyond five years on high-rate revolving debt the total interest starts to rival the balance and other tools deserve consideration.

Results are estimates based on the figures you enter, assume no additional charges and a fixed rate, and exclude fees. Not individual financial advice.