Debt consolidation · Calculator

Debt consolidation calculator

Also searched as: debt consolidation loan rates · loan to pay off credit card debt · credit card consolidation calculator

Enter up to six debts and one loan offer. This tool grosses the loan up for the origination fee, solves the APR the lender must disclose, and prices the result against two things: paying today’s minimums, and putting the same monthly dollars on the cards you already have. The second comparison is the one that decides it.

Runs in your browser — no account, no email, nothing stored or sent

Not a lender, broker, or lead generator — estimates only, never an offer

Every figure below is computed in your browser. Nothing you type is stored, sent anywhere, or attached to analytics. Refreshing the page clears it. This is illustrative math, not an offer, a quote, or advice.

The fields start filled with the worked example from this page — type over them with the figures from your own statements and offer.

Step 1 of 3 · The debts you would pay off

Up to 6 debts. Take the balance, the purchase APR, and the minimum payment from each card’s latest statement. Promotional 0% balances distort the comparison — enter the rate that applies after the promotion ends, or leave that balance out.

Debt 1

Balance ($)APR (%)Minimum payment ($)

Debt 2

Balance ($)APR (%)Minimum payment ($)

Debt 3

Balance ($)APR (%)Minimum payment ($)

Total balance $14,850 · balance-weighted APR 24.65% · minimums add up to $375 a month. The weighted APR — not the highest single rate — is the number an offer has to beat.

Step 2 of 3 · The loan you were offered

Enter the interest rate from the offer, not the APR. The tool computes the disclosed APR itself, so entering the APR here would count the origination fee twice.

Pay off everything above ($14,850 to the creditors)A specific amount reaching the creditors

Interest rate, not APR (%)Term (months)Origination fee (%)

This is the money that actually pays creditors. Lenders that charge an origination fee deduct it from the proceeds, so the loan is written for more than this figure.

Some lenders charge none. Enter 0 if the offer has no origination, administration, or “platform” fee deducted from proceeds.

Terms that disqualify an offer regardless of price

A fee is due before the loan fundsThe lender will not put the APR in writing before signingThere is a prepayment penaltyInsurance or "debt protection" is required to close

Step 3 of 3 · What to compare it against

The comparison that decides the question is the same monthly dollars put on the cards you already have. Anything less than that flatters the loan.

The same money the loan path costs each month ($380.05)A monthly amount I choose

Whatever you enter is applied as the minimum on every debt first, then the rest goes to the highest-APR debt until it clears — the allocation that retires the most interest per dollar. The default never drops below the total of your minimums, because no issuer accepts less than that.

Based on the figures you entered

This offer would cost $8,122.64 less than paying the same money on the cards.

Loan path: $7,952.79 in interest and fees over 60 months (5 yr). Same $380.05 a month on the cards you already have: $16,075.43 in interest over 82 months (6 yr 10 mo). No new charges assumed on either path.

What each path costs above the balances it retires, with the monthly payment and the number of months each takes
Path (no new charges on any of them)	Per month	Months	Interest + fees
The loan15.99% rate, 5% fee, 60 months	$380.05	60	$7,952.79
Same money on the cardsThe honest comparison — the one this page leads with	$380.05	82	$16,075.43
Today’s minimumsThe flattering comparison — the one most calculators show alone	$375	104	$18,188.67

Against today’s minimums the same offer looks like a $10,235.88 saving — a $2,113.24 difference from the line above. That gap is what two free things are worth: sending the money to the highest-APR balance first instead of spreading it across minimums, and paying more than the minimums each month. Neither is something the loan did, and neither requires borrowing.

What the loan itself costs

Reaches your creditors: $14,850
Origination fee: $781.58
Loan actually written for: $15,631.58
Monthly payment: $380.05
Total repaid over the term: $22,802.79
Interest: $7,171.22
Interest + fee: $7,952.79

Note rate 15.99% → disclosed APR 18.36%. They differ because the origination fee is a finance charge. Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026.18) requires the APR to be figured against the money you actually receive, not against the larger amount the note is written for. The 18.36% is the number to compare between offers, and the number to hold against the 24.65% weighted APR of the debts being replaced.

The rate this offer would have to beat

At 5% in fees over 60 months, an interest rate at or below 22% — a disclosed APR of about 24.52% — costs no more, in total dollars, than putting the same money on the cards. Above that line the offer is buying convenience, not saving money. The rate you entered is 15.99%.

Two fixed public lines sit above this arithmetic: 36% APR (the Military Lending Act cap, 10 U.S.C. §987 and 32 CFR 232) and a 8% origination fee. An offer past either is disqualified here whatever the break-even says.

What this calculator does not model

These are estimates. Seven things sit outside the arithmetic, and any one of them can change which path is cheaper:

Re-running the cards. The single most common way consolidation fails is new spending on the paid-off cards, which leaves a person with the loan and the balances. Every path here assumes no new charges at all.
Variable rates. Card APRs are usually variable and move with the prime rate; the arithmetic holds each rate you enter flat for the whole payoff.
Late fees, over-limit fees, penalty APRs, and returned-payment fees. None of them are modelled, and a penalty APR alone can change which path is cheaper.
Declining minimum payments. Issuers recompute the minimum as a percentage of a falling balance, which stretches a minimums-only payoff well beyond what this shows. Holding the minimum flat is the optimistic assumption for the cards, so it never overstates what a loan saves.
Credit-score effects. A hard inquiry, a new account, and a change in utilization all move a score, in directions that depend on the rest of the file. None of that is priced here.
Taxes, insurance, and any add-on product. Cancelled or forgiven debt can be taxable; that is a different question from this one, and a tax professional answers it.
Approval. Nothing here predicts whether any lender would make this loan, or at what rate. Advertised minimum rates go to the strongest applicants only.

How do I know if consolidating actually saves money?

Short answer

By comparing the loan against the same monthly dollars on the cards you already have. A consolidation payment is almost always bigger than the minimums it replaces, and a bigger payment retires debt faster with or without a loan. Comparing against minimums credits the loan with something free, which is why most calculators do it.

The number the offer has to beat is the balance-weighted APR of the debts, not the highest single card rate. In the example loaded into the tool above, three cards at 26.99%, 22.49%, and 19.99% work out to a weighted 24.65% — well below the top rate. An offer priced between those two figures beats one card and loses to another, and only the weighted average tells you which way the whole thing lands.

The second condition is behavioural, and no calculator can price it: the paid-off cards have to stay near zero. The CFPB’s own summary of consolidating card debt is that many people do not succeed in paying off debt by taking on more debt unless the spending changes first. A loan taken on top of cards that get re-run leaves both.

What does that look like on real numbers?

The figures below are the example loaded into the tool: $8,400 at 26.99% ($210 minimum), $4,150 at 22.49% ($105), and $2,300 at 19.99% ($60) — $14,850 at a weighted 24.65%, with $375 a month of minimums — against a 60-month loan at 15.99% with a 5% origination fee. Because the fee comes out of the proceeds, the loan has to be written for $15,631.58 for $14,850 to reach the cards.

Three paths for the same $14,850 of card debt: the consolidation loan, the same monthly amount paid on the cards, and today’s minimum payments
Path (no new charges on any of them)	Per month	Months	Interest + fees
Consolidation loan at 15.99% with a 5% fee	$380.05	60	$7,952.79
The same $380.05 a month on the cards	$380.05	82	$16,075.43
Today’s minimums, each card on its own	$375	104	$18,188.67

On these figures the loan comes out $8,122.64 ahead of the same money on the cards, over 82 months instead of 60. Against today’s minimums the identical offer looks $10,235.88 ahead — a $2,113.24 difference the loan has nothing to do with.

That gap is two separate things, and the arithmetic separates them. $1,322.19 of it comes from sending the same $375 a month to the 26.99% card first instead of spreading it across three minimums — the whole balance clears in 85 months instead of 104, on identical dollars. The other $791.05 comes from paying $5.05 more a month than the minimums require. Neither needs a loan, a hard inquiry, or a $781.58 fee. A calculator that shows only the minimums line reports all $2,113.24 of it as a benefit of borrowing.

Math: standard amortization, origination fee deducted from proceeds, disclosed APR solved on the net amount financed per 12 CFR 1026.18, fixed-payment path allocated minimums-first then highest-APR-first. Computed at build time by src/lib/loans/consolidation.ts and pinned to the cent by its test — see how we verify what we publish.

Why does the origination fee change the answer?

Short answer

Because the fee is not paid, it is borrowed. Lenders deduct it from the proceeds, so the note is written for more than the debt it clears and interest runs on the fee for the whole term. In the worked example a $781.58 fee costs $1,140.13 over five years.

Run the same loan with the fee set to zero and the difference is visible in three places at once. The payment falls from $380.05 to $361.04. The all-in cost falls from $7,952.79 to $6,812.66. And the disclosed APR falls from 18.36% to the note rate itself, 15.99%, because with no fee there is nothing extra for Regulation Z to fold in.

This is why offers are only comparable on the disclosed APR. A 15.99% rate with a 5% fee is a 18.36% APR; a 15.99% rate with no fee is a 15.99% APR, and the second is the cheaper loan even though its quoted rate is identical. For closed-end consumer credit, 12 CFR 1026.18 requires the lender to put the APR, the finance charge, the amount financed, and the total of payments in writing before you are bound. If an offer will not produce that page, there is nothing to compare.

A fee large enough to end the question

A fee is not just a worse price; past a point it is a disqualifier no rate can rescue. Enter a small, cheap balance against a high fee and the tool will say so directly: the fee by itself costs more than the card interest it would replace, so even a 0% loan comes out behind. That verdict is impossible to produce in a calculator that leaves the fee out of the savings arithmetic, which is exactly what the widely-ranked ones do.

What APR do I need for this to be worth it?

Short answer

Roughly the balance-weighted APR of the debts being replaced, measured on the disclosed APR. In the worked example that weighted rate is 24.65%, and the offer breaks even at a disclosed APR of 24.52% — a 22% note rate at a 5% fee, or 24.52% with no fee at all.

Notice what the fee does to that line. The same debts, the same 60-month term, and the same break-even APR — but the note rate you can accept drops from 24.52% to 22% once a 5% fee is attached. That is the whole argument for shopping on APR: two offers quoting the same rate are not the same offer, and the fee is where the difference hides.

Two fixed lines sit above any break-even number this tool produces. A disclosed APR above 36% is the Military Lending Act ceiling (10 U.S.C. §987; 32 CFR 232) and, for paying off cards, close to a mathematical one — most card APRs sit below it. An origination fee above 8% crosses the typical published range our verified lender dataset benchmarks against. Either one disqualifies an offer here regardless of what the savings line says, and the tool renders that warning above the savings line for exactly that reason. The full six-rule set, with the reasoning and sources behind each, is on the debt consolidation page.

What this page is not

Credit Defense Hub is an educational publisher. It is not a lender, loan broker, or lead generator, it holds no NMLS registration, and no lender pays for placement here. This tool produces illustrative arithmetic on figures you type; it is not an offer, a quote, a prequalification, or advice for any one person’s situation, and it cannot tell you whether any lender would approve you or at what rate. Verified rate ranges, the buyer-beware tier, and the source URL behind every figure live on the debt consolidation loans page.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if a debt consolidation loan actually saves money?

Compare it against the same monthly dollars put on the cards you already have, not against today's minimum payments. In the worked example on this page, three cards totalling $14,850 at a balance-weighted 24.65% move to a 60-month loan at 15.99% with a 5% origination fee. Against the same $380.05 a month on the cards, the loan comes out $8,122.64 cheaper. Against today's minimums it looks $10,235.88 cheaper — but $2,113.24 of that gap is the loan getting credit for two things it did not do: $1,322.19 from sending the same money to the highest-APR card first, and $791.05 from paying $5.05 more a month.

Why does the origination fee change what a consolidation loan costs?

Because the fee is deducted from the proceeds, so the loan has to be written for more than the debt it pays off, and interest accrues on the fee as well. In the worked example a 5% fee means $15,631.58 is borrowed for $14,850 of debt — a $781.58 fee that costs $1,140.13 over five years once it is financed. It also raises the disclosed APR from the 15.99% note rate to 18.36%, because Regulation Z (12 CFR 1026.18) requires the APR to be figured against the money you actually receive.

What debt consolidation loan rates make consolidating worth it?

There is no universal number — it depends on the balance-weighted APR of the debts being replaced, the term, and the fee. The calculator solves for it. In the worked example, at a 5% fee over 60 months, any note rate at or below 22% (a disclosed APR of about 24.52%) costs no more in total dollars than putting the same money on the cards. With no origination fee the same loan breaks even at 24.52%. Both land just under the 24.65% weighted APR of the debts, which is the intuition: the offer has to beat the average rate it replaces, after fees.

Why compare a loan against a fixed payment instead of my minimum payments?

Because a consolidation loan payment is almost always larger than the minimums it replaces, and any payment larger than a minimum retires debt faster whether or not a loan is involved. A fixed total also gets allocated to the highest-APR balance first, which minimums never do — in the worked example that allocation alone saves $1,322.19 on identical dollars. Comparing a loan against minimums therefore credits the loan with both effects, and both are free. The minimums figure is still worth seeing, since it shows what the current path costs if nothing changes, so this page shows both side by side and labels which is which.

Is a loan to pay off credit card debt always cheaper than the cards?

No. It is cheaper only when the loan's disclosed APR, fee included, is below the balance-weighted APR of the debts, and only if the cards then stay near zero. Fees push offers over that line more often than rates do: an origination fee above 8% or a disclosed APR above 36% is disqualifying on this site's rule set, and a fee can be large enough that no interest rate — not even 0% — makes the offer worth taking. The calculator says so outright when that is the case.

Does this debt consolidation calculator store or send anything I type?

No. Every figure is computed in your browser by the same tested code that produces the worked example on this page. Nothing is transmitted, nothing is stored, there is no account, no email field, and no lead form. Refreshing the page clears everything. The only analytics event recorded is that a calculator was used, with no values attached.

Terms used on this page

Unsecured debt Utilization ratio Hard inquiry Debt management plan

Sources

12 CFR 1026.18 (Regulation Z, closed-end credit disclosures: annual percentage rate, finance charge, amount financed, total of payments) — consumerfinance.gov (accessed 2026-09-04). The rule the disclosed-APR calculation follows.
10 U.S.C. §987 and 32 CFR Part 232 (Military Lending Act, 36% military annual percentage rate cap) — the fixed public benchmark behind the 36% disqualifier; see the criteria.
CFPB, “What do I need to know about consolidating my credit card debt?” (Ask CFPB 1861, last reviewed 2023-08-28) — consumerfinance.gov (accessed 2026-09-04). The source of the “more debt does not fix debt without a spending change” point.
Origination-fee benchmark (8% ceiling) and the verified lender rate ranges: Credit Defense Hub personal-loan provider dataset, with per-provider source URLs — personal-loan-providers.json.

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Educational information — not advice

This page provides general educational information about credit, debt, and consumer protections. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or credit repair services, and reading it does not create any professional relationship. Laws, procedures, deadlines, and dollar amounts vary by state and change over time.

For advice about your specific situation, consult a licensed attorney or qualified financial professional. See our full disclaimer.