Calculations are approximate and based on monthly interest and repayments
With our credit card interest calculator, you can input the the balance, APR, and monthly payment of your choice and see how long it would take you to pay it off and how much you'll end up paying in interest and fees. You can then adjust your monthly repayments to see how paying more or less each month will change how long it'll take, and how much interest you pay.
Interest on you credit card is usually charged at the end each monthly billing cycle and is a percentage of your balance. Your balance is the amount of spending if you've charged to your credit card. If you pay off the whole balance by the due date of your billing cycle, you won't be charged any interest. If you don't you'll by charged interest on the remaining balance and will be added to the balance for your next monthly billing cycle.
There are two ways to pay less interest:
Pay more every month: Increasing your monthly payments will speed up how quickly you pay off your card, which automatically reduces the amount you pay in interest overall. However, your monthly payments should be the maximum amount you can afford. It shouldn't come at the cost of missing other bill payments.
Get a balance transfer card: With a 0% balance transfer credit card, you get several months of 0% interest, which means you don't pay any interest on your balance for a set time. So whatever you pay as part of your monthly, goes entirely towards paying off your balance. Some cards may charge a balance transfer fee, but that'll be way less than the interest would pay. If you're able to pay off the whole balance before the interest free period ends, you'll have paid off your debt without paying any interest at all.
One of the worst things you can with a credit card is just make your minimum repayments, although it is important to at least pay that. Minimum repayments are just that – the bare minimum – and are a sure-fire way of paying too much interest. You could end up paying more in interest than you did for the item you purchased on the credit card if you only pay the minimum.
Paying off your debt using minimum payments ensures that your debt will last as long as possible, and the credit company will charge you the maximum amount of interest.
Balance transfers are a useful tool in paying off debt, but they're not a solution to persistent debt.
For one thing you can’t transfer a balance from one provider to a balance transfer card issued by the same provider, so your options will be limited fairly soon.
Also, every time you transfer a balance you will most likely be charged a percentage of your balance as a transfer fee.
More importantly, if you fail to clear the debt within the 0% period your balance transfer card will revert to a standard interest rate. If you can’t then transfer your balance to another provider you will end up paying a lot for your 0% debt