Credit Card Payoff
How long the minimum payment really takes — and what paying a fixed amount instead would save you, in months and in money.
Runs on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhereWhichever is larger. Both are on your statement, and they vary a lot between issuers.
Paying your amount
—Paying only the minimum
—Minimum payment rules differ by issuer and by country. The percentage and floor used here are adjustable — put in the ones on your own statement.
How it works
Three steps, no account, and nothing you type leaves your computer.
Put in the balance and the rate
Both are on your statement. The APR is the yearly rate — cards usually show it prominently because they are required to.
Set what you actually pay
And check the minimum rule beside it against your own statement, since issuers differ.
Compare the two columns
The same debt, two ways of paying it. The difference between them is usually the reason people look this up.
Why people run this
Working out whether the minimum is enough
It clears the card eventually on most cards, and "eventually" is measured in decades rather than months.
Deciding how much extra to put in
Raising the payment by a modest amount usually cuts years off, and the calculator shows exactly how many.
Understanding a balance that will not move
When most of a payment is interest, the balance barely falls. Seeing the split explains a year of payments that seemed to achieve nothing.
Comparing a card against a loan
Card rates are typically far above loan rates, which is what makes consolidation worth checking with the loan calculator.
Why the minimum payment takes so long
Everyone knows paying the minimum is expensive. The scale of it still surprises people, and the reason is a design detail most cardholders never have explained to them.
The minimum shrinks as the balance does
A card's minimum payment is usually a percentage of the balance — often around 2% — with a floor of twenty or thirty units so it never becomes trivial.
That percentage is the trap. On a 5,000 balance the minimum is around 100. Once you have got the balance down to 2,500, the minimum falls to about 50. The payment shrinks at exactly the same rate as the debt, so the debt spends years in the part of the curve where barely anything comes off it.
A fixed payment does the opposite. Pay the same amount every month and, as the interest falls, an ever larger share of it goes to clearing the balance. The card gets paid off in a fraction of the time — and the difference is usually years, not months.
Where the first payment actually goes
On a 5,000 balance at 22%, the interest for one month is about 92. Pay 200 and roughly 108 comes off the debt. Pay the minimum of 100 and only about 8 does.
That is the whole story in one line. The same card, the same rate, and one payment reduces the debt thirteen times faster than the other.
It also explains something that feels unfair: a year of minimum payments on a card that is still being used can leave the balance almost exactly where it started. Nothing has gone wrong. The payment was covering the interest and very little else.
When the minimum never clears it at all
There is a threshold beyond which minimum payments do not eventually work. If the rate is high enough that the monthly interest exceeds the minimum being asked for, the balance grows every month no matter how faithfully it is paid.
With a 2% minimum, that happens once the APR passes roughly 24% — because 2% of the balance is no longer enough to cover 2% a month of interest. Rates above that are not rare on store cards and cash advances. The calculator says so explicitly when your numbers land there, rather than reporting a payoff decades away that would never actually arrive.
What actually helps
Three things, in rough order of effect:
- Pay a fixed amount, not a percentage. Even the current minimum, frozen at today's figure instead of falling with the balance, dramatically shortens the term. It costs nothing extra this month.
- Stop adding to it. The arithmetic here assumes no new spending. New purchases on the same card usually reset the calculation entirely, and on many cards are charged interest from day one.
- Attack the highest rate first. With several debts, the one with the highest rate is costing the most per unit owed, whatever the balances are.
If the rate is the problem rather than the balance, a fixed-rate loan at a lower rate is worth comparing — the loan calculator will give you the schedule to hold up against this one.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere
Balances, rates and payments are all worked out in your browser. There is no server, no account and no logging.
That matters more here than on most pages. What someone owes on a card is among the more private things about their finances, and it should not need to travel to a stranger's server to be divided by twelve.
Common questions
Is anything I type sent anywhere?
No. The calculation runs in your browser. There is no server, no account and nothing logged — which for a page where people type what they owe seems like the least it should do.
Why does the minimum payment take so long?
Because it is a percentage of the balance, so it falls as the balance falls. The payment shrinks at the same rate as the debt, and the debt spends years in the stretch where almost nothing comes off it. A fixed payment does the reverse: as interest falls, more of the same amount clears the balance.
Can the minimum payment ever fail to clear the card?
Yes. If the monthly interest is larger than the minimum being asked for, the balance grows every month however faithfully it is paid. With a 2% minimum that happens once the rate passes roughly 24%. The calculator says so outright when your figures land there.
What minimum percentage should I put in?
Whatever your statement says — issuers and countries differ, and the floor amount matters as much as the percentage on small balances. Around 2% with a floor of 25 is a common shape, which is why it is the default here.
Does this account for new purchases?
No. It assumes nothing further is added. New spending on the same card changes the arithmetic completely, and on many cards purchases made while a balance is carried are charged interest from the day they are made.
I have several cards. Which should I pay down first?
The one with the highest rate, since it costs the most for every unit owed regardless of its balance. Run each card here and compare the interest figures rather than the balances.
Is this financial advice?
No. It is arithmetic showing what a set of numbers implies. Whether consolidating, refinancing or anything else suits your situation is a separate question for somebody qualified to answer it.
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Every one of them runs on your device. No uploads, no accounts.