Debt Consolidation Calculator

This calculator answers the question lenders' marketing skips: does rolling your debts into one loan actually save money, or does it just feel simpler? It simulates each of your current debts to payoff at its own rate and payment, totals the interest, and puts that against the full cost of a new loan — interest plus any origination or transfer fees — covering the same balances.

You get both halves of the trade-off explicitly: the monthly difference (one fixed payment versus your current combined total) and the lifetime difference (total interest saved or lost). The two frequently point in opposite directions — a longer-term loan can shrink your monthly payment while quietly increasing what you pay overall — and seeing both numbers side by side is the only honest way to decide.

Each current debt is run month by month at its own APR and payment until it clears, and the interest across all of them is summed — that's your cost of staying the course. The consolidation side takes your combined balances plus fees as one principal, applies the standard fixed-payment loan formula at the new APR and term, and totals everything you'd pay beyond the original balances.

The total-savings figure is simply current-path interest minus new-loan cost. Positive means consolidation wins; negative means it costs more, no matter how much lighter the monthly payment feels.

Current debts accrue interest at APR ÷ 12 on the remaining balance each month, with your stated payment treated as fixed — the same convention issuers' payoff estimates use. The new loan's payment comes from the amortization formula: payment = principal × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ), where r is the monthly rate and n the term in months, with fees financed into the principal so their interest cost is counted too. The weighted APR is your balances' average rate, weighted by size, so a big high-rate balance moves it more than a small one.

Assumptions worth knowing: your current payments stay constant rather than shrinking like issuer minimums (which flatters the current path — real card minimums would cost more, so consolidation often looks slightly better in reality than shown here); no new charging on the cleared cards; and the new loan's quoted APR includes no fees beyond what you enter. If any current payment doesn't cover its own interest, that debt never pays off and the calculator says so instead of inventing a number.

A strong consolidation cuts your weighted APR by five or more percentage points with fees under about 3% of the balance — in that zone the total savings are typically thousands of dollars and the monthly payment usually drops too. A rate cut of one or two points is marginal: fees eat much of the benefit, and a slightly longer term can erase the rest. As a rough rule, the new APR needs to sit clearly below your weighted APR after accounting for fees before the deal is worth the paperwork.

If total savings shows negative, the usual culprit is the term: a 72-month loan at a lower rate often charges more total interest than four years of your current higher-rate payments, because you're renting the money for longer. Before walking away, try a shorter term — the monthly payment rises, but if it's still at or below your current combined total, you keep the simplicity and the savings. And if the calculator warns your current payments never clear the debts at all, consolidation stops being an optimization and becomes an escape route: a fixed term guarantees an end date your current path doesn't have.