Enter your balance, APR and monthly payment. Get the months to payoff, total interest you will pay, and the date you will be debt-free.
Estimates only. Not financial advice.
To pay off a credit card, divide your balance by the payment that keeps pace with interest, then use the formula: months = -log(1 - (balance * monthly_rate / payment)) / log(1 + monthly_rate). A $5,000 balance at 22% APR paid at $150/month takes about 50 months and costs roughly $2,420 in interest.
Each month, interest accrues on whatever balance remains. Your payment goes in, covers the interest first, and then chips away at the principal. Because the balance drops a little each month, the interest charge drops too. That compounding in reverse is what makes extra payments so effective early on, when the balance is highest and each dollar saved on interest has the most impact.
Minimum payments are set by issuers at roughly 1% to 2% of the outstanding balance. That sounds manageable, but it shrinks as the balance shrinks, which means your actual dollars going to principal stay small for a very long time. A $5,000 balance with a 2% minimum and 20% APR can take more than 20 years to clear and cost over $6,000 in interest. The math is not in your favor if you follow the statement minimum.
The APR on your statement is an annual rate. Divide it by 12 to get the monthly rate the calculator uses. At 22% APR, the monthly rate is about 1.83%. That fraction of your balance is what disappears to interest before a single dollar touches your principal.
Even $25 extra per month moves the needle. On a $3,000 balance at 22% APR with a $90 minimum, raising your payment to $115 cuts roughly 14 months off the timeline. Raise it to $150 and you save more than $700 in total interest. Small, consistent additions compound just as powerfully as the debt does.
If you carry balances on more than one card, the debt avalanche method says to put extra money toward the card with the highest APR first, while making minimums on everything else. Once that card is cleared, roll its payment into the next highest rate. This minimizes total interest paid. The debt snowball vs. debt avalanche comparison walks through both strategies in detail. You can also run the full picture through the debt payoff calculator to see a month-by-month schedule across multiple accounts.
Divide your balance by your payment, adjusted for interest. The formula is: months = -log(1 - (balance x monthly rate / payment)) / log(1 + monthly rate). For most people, entering the balance, APR and monthly payment into a calculator is the fastest route to the answer.
Minimum payments are typically 1% to 2% of the balance. At 20% APR, paying just the minimum on a $5,000 balance can take over 20 years and cost more than $6,000 in interest. Paying even $50 more per month cuts the timeline dramatically.
Yes, substantially. On a $3,000 balance at 22% APR, raising your payment from $90 to $150 cuts payoff time from over 4 years to under 2 and saves roughly $700 in interest.
A payment that covers at least 3% to 4% of the current balance keeps the payoff timeline reasonable. The best payment is whatever you can sustain that keeps total interest paid under the value of what you charged.
APR sets how much of each payment goes to interest vs. principal. At 10% APR, most of your payment chips away at the balance. At 25% APR, a larger share covers interest first, slowing payoff significantly. Lowering your rate through a balance transfer can be worth investigating.