Enter your debts, pick your strategy, and see exactly when you'll be debt-free and how much you'll save.
Enter each of your debts — name, current balance, annual interest rate, and minimum monthly payment. Add up to 5 debts using the "+ Add Debt" button. If you can afford to pay more than the minimums, enter that amount in the Extra Monthly Payment field. Choose your strategy — Avalanche (highest rate first) or Snowball (smallest balance first) — and click Calculate Payoff Plan.
You'll instantly see your debt-free date, total interest, total paid, interest saved versus paying only minimums, and the exact order your debts will fall.
The avalanche method is mathematically optimal. By targeting the debt with the highest interest rate first, you minimize the total interest paid over the life of all your debts. For anyone carrying high-rate credit card debt alongside a lower-rate car loan, avalanche will consistently save more money than snowball. The tradeoff is patience — if your highest-rate debt also has a large balance, it may take many months before you see your first complete payoff.
The snowball method prioritizes the smallest balance regardless of interest rate, producing quick wins — paid-off accounts — that build momentum and motivation. Research shows that psychological progress is a major factor in debt payoff success, and the snowball method's early wins help many people stay committed longer. If the rate differences between your debts are modest, the extra interest cost of snowball over avalanche is often small.
Run both strategies in this calculator and compare the results. If avalanche saves you $200 over snowball, that's real money — but only if you complete the plan. If snowball's quick wins keep you on track, that may be worth far more than the $200 difference. Most financial planners recommend avalanche for disciplined savers and snowball for anyone who has struggled to maintain debt payoff momentum in the past.
Extra payments have a compounding effect on debt payoff. Every extra dollar applied to your target debt reduces the principal balance, which reduces the interest charged next month, which means more of every future payment goes to principal. This acceleration is why even small extra payments shorten payoff timelines significantly.
On $15,000 of credit card debt at 20% APR with $350/month minimum, paying $100 extra per month can shave years off the payoff timeline and save thousands in interest. Use the extra payment field to model different scenarios and see the impact.
When the calculator says "rollover," it means that when a debt is fully paid off, its minimum payment is redirected to the next target debt instead of going back into your spending budget. This rollover effect is what makes structured payoff plans so powerful — as each debt falls, the payments snowball (or avalanche) onto the remaining balances, accelerating payoff exponentially. The key is actually redirecting those freed payments rather than absorbing them into your lifestyle.