Debt consolidation loan calculator
A lender's own calculator compares the loan to a flat-interest guess. This compares it to the payoff you could actually run today on the same balances, at the same budget, in the order that costs the least, then prices the offer twice so a longer term never gets credited as a lower rate.
Worked example — Interest saved by consolidating, term-matched to your current payoff: $28,595. $18,000 across 3 cards vs a 5 year loan at 12% with a 3% fee
Price your own offer against your own payoff
List your debts once, the way you would already pay them down at your own best pace. Enter the loan you were offered. The comparison runs at the term the lender quoted, and again forced onto the exact month count your current payoff would take, so a longer loan cannot pass itself off as a lower rate.
$18,000, three cards, 5yr loan: $9,000 at 24.99%, $6,000 at 21.99%, $3,000 at 26.99%, paid at the combined $375 minimum, against a 5 year loan at 12% with a 3% origination fee.
Advanced: your current monthly budget 1
Defaults to the sum of your minimums, $375. Raise it to see how paying extra above the minimums, before ever consolidating, changes the baseline this offer has to beat.
The gold line is the consolidated loan's own balance, closed-form off its payment. Your current payoff would still be paying at month 183, well past where this loan has already cleared.
Whether a consolidation loan is worth it on your balances
On $18,000 across 3 cards paid at their combined $375 minimum, a 5 year loan at 12% with a 3% origination fee saves $28,595 in interest once matched back to the 183 months (15.3 years) the same debts would take to pay off on their own, avalanche-ordered. It is worth it here because the rate drop from paying 26.99% down to 12% on the highest-cost balance outweighs the $540 fee financed into the new principal.
The answer flips on two things: a fee large enough to eat the rate saving, or a rate that is not actually lower than the balance-weighted average of the cards being replaced. Run your own numbers in the calculator above rather than trusting either direction as a rule.
Consolidation vs the avalanche payoff of the same debts
Same 3 cards, same $375 monthly budget, priced two ways against the loan offer.
| Path | Term | Monthly payment | Total interest | Total paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stay, avalanche order | 183 months (15.3 years) | $375 | $50,536 | $68,536 |
| Consolidate, offered term | 60 months (5.0 years) | $412 | $6,205 | $24,745 |
| Consolidate, term-matched | 183 months (15.3 years) | $221 | $21,941 | $40,481 |
Term-matched forces the loan onto the same 183-month term the avalanche payoff itself takes, so its payment is higher than the lender's offered $412 a month but the comparison is honest: the offered term (60 months (5.0 years)) is shorter than the avalanche payoff here, which is why the direct and term-matched interest figures differ.
Why a longer term at a lower rate can still cost more
Take the identical $18,000 offer above and stretch its term from 5 years to 7 years. The monthly payment drops from $412 to $327, which is what gets advertised. Total interest rises from $6,205 to $8,952, because the same rate is now being paid for longer. Matched back to the 183 months (15.3 years) the avalanche payoff would take either way, the 7 year offer only saves $28,595, not the $28,595 the shorter offer above saves, because term-matching does not change with the term the lender quotes, only the direct comparison does.
A second offer makes the same point from the no-fee side: $9,500 across 2 cards, consolidated at 9% over 3 years with no fee, saves $7,733 against a 105 months (8.8 years) avalanche payoff. A lower rate and a shorter term both help; a lower rate and a longer term fight each other, and only the term-matched column tells you which one won.
The next question after this one
Debt snowball vs avalanche calculatorCalculatorThe baseline this page's savings figure is built from. Run your own balances through it directly if you would rather skip the loan and self-fund the discipline.Open nextOther questions
- Balance transfer break-even calculatorCalculatorA 0% transfer skips the new loan entirely. Compare its break-even fee against this consolidation loan's own fee before picking either.
- Extra payment loan payoff calculatorCalculatorOnce consolidated, this prices what paying above the new loan's minimum does to the months and interest left on it.
All 130 calculatorsHow JMM sources and checks its numbersWhat stays free, and what early access would add
More calculators for the same question
The snowball vs avalanche calculator prices the same balances without borrowing anything new, and the extra payment calculator shows what paying above the minimum does to a single loan once you have consolidated.