Debt snowball vs avalanche calculator
Enter your own balances, rates and minimum payments once. Both orders run at the identical fixed monthly budget, so the only thing that changes is which debt gets attacked first, and the gap between them is stated before you touch a single input.
Worked example — What avalanche saves over snowball on 4 balances totaling $22,900: $608. $680 paid every month in total, avalanche finishes 1 month sooner than snowball
Run your balances through both orders
List every balance with its APR and minimum payment, set what you can pay above the minimums, and both orders run at the same fixed total every month. The number that decides which method to use is the gap between them, not either total on its own.
Four balances, $200 extra: Four balances paid at their minimums, plus $200 extra every month. Order genuinely diverges here.
Fixed total monthly budget: $680, held constant for the whole payoff.
Snowball pays the smallest balance first, avalanche the highest APR
The snowball method orders the debts smallest balance first, pays the minimum on all of them, and puts every dollar above the minimums against the smallest until it is gone; each cleared debt rolls its payment into the next one, which is the snowball. The avalanche method runs the identical monthly budget in a different order: highest APR first, regardless of balance size.
On the default balances above the two methods even attack the same $900 debt first, because the smallest balance happens to carry the highest rate. The $608 gap between them comes entirely from where each order sends the extra payment after that first debt clears.
Whether snowball or avalanche saves more on your balances
On $22,900 across 4 balances at $680 a month, avalanche saves $608 in interest and reaches zero 1 month sooner than snowball. Avalanche wins on the math for the same reason every time: it puts every extra dollar against the highest-rate balance first, which is the balance accruing the most interest for every month it stays open, and the fixed budget means avalanche and snowball never differ in how much gets paid overall, only in which balance that money reduces first.
The gap can be small. When the highest-rate debt already happens to be the smallest balance, snowball targets it first too and the two orders tie exactly. The gap grows with how far the highest-rate balance sits from the smallest one, which is the case the calculator above is built to price for your own numbers rather than a generic rule of thumb.
Payoff order, month cleared, and interest paid under each method
Same 4 balances, same $680 monthly budget, two different orders.
| Balance | APR | Avalanche order | Avalanche cleared | Avalanche interest | Snowball order | Snowball cleared | Snowball interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $900 | 28% | 1 | Month 5 | $55 | 1 | Month 5 | $55 |
| $4,000 | 22% | 2 | Month 18 | $833 | 2 | Month 18 | $833 |
| $12,000 | 19% | 3 | Month 43 | $5,783 | 4 | Month 47 | $6,831 |
| $6,000 | 9% | 4 | Month 46 | $1,317 | 3 | Month 28 | $877 |
| Total | n/a | n/a | 46 months (3.8 years) | $7,989 | n/a | 47 months (3.9 years) | $8,597 |
Order is the sequence each method targets a balance in: avalanche by APR from highest to lowest, snowball by balance from smallest to largest. Every balance not currently the target still gets its own minimum every month; only the order the extra payment attacks them in changes.
When you will be debt free
At $680 a month on these balances, avalanche reaches zero in 46 months (3.8 years), around June 2030. Snowball reaches zero in 47 months (3.9 years), around July 2030. Both dates assume the full $680 keeps being paid every month without a missed payment or a new balance added, and both move earlier the moment the extra payment goes up.
What the snowball costs in dollars, and when it is still the right choice
Avalanche is never worse than snowball in total interest, because it is the order that always attacks the balance costing the most per month first. On the default balances above that discipline is worth $608 and 1 month. Run your own numbers through the calculator: the price snowball charges scales with how far your highest-rate balance sits from your smallest one, and on some real debt loads it is a few dollars, not a few hundred.
Snowball's argument was never that it is cheaper. It clears an entire balance faster, on paper a small one, which is a real event a spreadsheet does not have: one fewer bill, one fewer minimum payment to track, one piece of proof the plan is working before the largest balance has moved much at all. Whether that is worth the number above is a question only you can answer about yourself, not a number the calculator can settle. What the calculator can do is stop that trade from being made blind: know the price before you pay it, and pay avalanche's price on purpose if a missed payment from losing motivation partway through would cost more than the interest gap does.
The next question after this one
Debt consolidation loan calculatorCalculatorSame balances, one payment instead of an order. Compares against the avalanche payoff this page computes, not a flat-interest baseline.Open nextOther questions
- Extra payment loan payoff calculatorCalculatorThe single-debt version of the same rolled-forward budget: what an extra payment does to one fixed-rate loan instead of several at once.
- Credit card minimum payment calculatorCalculatorBefore adding extra, see what paying only the minimum on one of these cards actually costs and how long it takes.
All 130 calculatorsHow JMM sources and checks its numbersWhat stays free, and what early access would add
More calculators for the same question
A consolidation loan is the same balances collapsed into one payment; a fixed-rate loan run through the same rolled-forward budget shows what an extra payment does to a single debt rather than several at once.