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Credit card · payoff
Enter your balance, APR and what you pay each month. See exactly when the card is gone, how much interest it costs you — and how much faster you'd be free for a little more a month.
Pay more, save more
What an extra $50 or $100 a month does to your payoff
| Monthly payment | Time to payoff | Total interest | You save |
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Credit cards don’t charge interest the way a fixed loan does. Your card has an APR — an annual percentage rate — but it’s applied monthly. Divide the APR by twelve and you get the rate charged on your balance each month. At 22% APR that’s about 1.83% a month, so a $6,000 balance racks up roughly $110 of interest in the first month alone. If you don’t pay at least that much, the unpaid interest is added to what you owe and you start paying interest on your interest. That’s compounding working against you, and it’s why card debt feels like running up a down escalator.
The key number is how your payment splits between interest and principal. Only the part that goes to principal actually shrinks the balance. Early on, a big slice of every payment is eaten by interest, so progress feels painfully slow. As the balance falls, the monthly interest falls with it, and more of each payment finally bites into the principal — which is why the last stretch of a payoff goes far faster than the first.
Card issuers set the minimum payment low on purpose — often around 1–2% of the balance plus that month’s interest. It keeps your account current, but it’s engineered to keep you in debt. Because the minimum shrinks as your balance shrinks, you’re always paying a little less, stretching the payoff over a decade or more and quietly multiplying the total interest. Paying the minimum on a $6,000 balance at a typical APR can take well over fifteen years and cost more in interest than the original balance itself.
The fix is to pay a fixed amount every month instead of the falling minimum. That’s exactly what this calculator models. By holding your payment level, every reduction in interest is redirected into principal, so the balance falls faster and faster. A steady $250 a month does far more than a minimum that starts near $250 and drifts down to $80.
The single most valuable thing this tool shows is what a small increase does. Because the extra goes entirely to principal, the savings compound: you cut the balance faster, which cuts future interest, which clears the card even sooner. The comparison table puts your current payment beside $50 and $100 more and highlights the months and the dollars you’d save. For most high-APR balances the result is dramatic — an extra $100 a month routinely turns a five- or six-year slog into something closer to two or three years, saving a four-figure interest bill in the process. Seeing those numbers side by side is usually the nudge people need to find the extra in their budget.
If you’re carrying more than one card, the order you attack them in matters. The avalanche method throws every spare dollar at your highest-APR card first while paying minimums on the rest — mathematically the cheapest route. The snowball method targets your smallest balance first for a fast, motivating win. Our debt payoff planner lets you compare both across all your debts at once.
A balance transfer is the other big lever. A card offering 0% on transfers for a promotional period lets you pause interest entirely, so every payment attacks principal — powerful if you can clear most of the balance before the promo ends. Just weigh the transfer fee (typically 3–5%) and the go-to rate afterward against the interest you’d otherwise pay, which this calculator makes easy to see. Whatever route you choose, paying down balances also lowers your credit utilization, so it’s worth checking how that could lift your score with our credit score estimator. And if the debt already feels unmanageable, our guide on how to escape debt and get rid of credit cards walks through your options. This page is general information, not financial advice.
The calculator takes your balance and divides your APR by 12 to get a monthly interest rate. Each month it adds that interest to your balance, subtracts your fixed payment, and repeats until the balance hits zero — counting the months as it goes. The payoff date is simply that many months from today, using your device’s clock. Because it amortizes month by month rather than using a rough formula, the number reflects how interest really compounds on a revolving balance.
If your monthly payment is smaller than the interest charged that month, the unpaid interest is added back to the balance and it actually grows — or holds flat. On a $6,000 balance at 22% APR, the first month’s interest alone is about $110, so a payment near that does almost nothing to the principal. The calculator flags this trap directly: if your payment can’t cover the interest, it tells you to raise it rather than showing a fake payoff date.
A lot more than most people expect, because every extra dollar goes straight to principal — the part interest is charged on. That’s why the “pay more, save more” table is the heart of this tool: it puts your current payment next to $50 and $100 more and shows the months and interest each one saves. On a typical high-APR card, an extra $100 a month can cut years off the payoff and save hundreds or even thousands in interest.
They’re strategies for paying off several cards at once. The avalanche method attacks your highest-APR card first, which saves the most money. The snowball method attacks your smallest balance first, which clears a whole card quickly and builds momentum. This calculator focuses on a single card; if you’re juggling several, use the debt payoff planner to compare both methods across all of them.
A 0% balance-transfer card can pause interest for a promotional window — often 12 to 21 months — so every dollar you pay goes to principal. It can be powerful if you’ll clear most of the balance before the promo ends, but watch the transfer fee (usually 3–5%) and the rate it jumps to afterward. Use this calculator to see your current interest cost, then weigh it against the transfer fee to know whether the move actually pays off.
No. The entire calculation runs in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded, logged or saved. Refresh the page and it resets. You can use it as often as you like, with no account and no tracking of the figures you enter.
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