Debt Consolidation Calculator
↻ Updated 2026See whether rolling your balances into one consolidation loan lowers your monthly payment and total interest — or whether a longer term quietly costs you more.
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Runs entirely in your browser — nothing you enter is sent to us.How this works
How to read a consolidation comparison
Two numbers on this page move in opposite directions, and only one of them is on the loan paperwork. The monthly payment falls $83.09 while total interest falls $5,467.54 — good on both counts at the defaults. But the payment can fall while the interest rises, and a longer term is the reason. Read the interest row, not the payment row.
How consolidation savings are actually measured
The calculator runs two futures and subtracts them. The first is your current path: keep sending the same fixed monthly payment against a single blended balance until it's gone, stepping month by month as interest accrues. The second is a plain fixed-rate installment loan for the same principal at a new rate over a term you pick — the standard amortization formula, no simulation needed.
The comparison is total interest, and this is where the industry's favourite number quietly misleads. A consolidation loan's monthly payment is set by the term as much as by the rate, so stretching from 48 months to 84 always lowers the payment — while charging you interest for three more years. A lower rate and a lower payment can still be the more expensive loan. The second worked example below is exactly that case.
CURRENT PATH — simulate month by month: interest = balance × (blended APR ÷ 12) balance = balance + interest − current payment → total interest, payoff months CONSOLIDATION LOAN — closed form: r = new APR ÷ 12 new payment = balance × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)^−term) total interest = new payment × term − balance saving = current interest − consolidation interest
- balance
- The total you'd roll into one loan — assumed to be borrowed in full — no origination fee is deducted from the proceeds
- blended APR
- The weighted average rate across your current debts — weight each balance by its share of the total; a $10,000 card at 24% and a $10,000 loan at 8% blend to 16%
- current payment
- What you send those debts every month today, in total — held constant on the current path — if you're only paying minimums, this overstates how well you'd do without consolidating
- new APR
- The rate on the consolidation loan — fixed for the term; the quoted rate, before any origination fee is folded in
- term
- The length of the new loan in months — the input that decides the payment — and the one that quietly decides the total cost
The current-path model deserves a caveat. It assumes you keep paying $600 a month against a shrinking balance — crediting you with the discipline of a fixed payment you're not contractually required to make. Real card minimums fall as balances fall. If your $600 is really a stack of minimums that will shrink, your true current path is far worse than the $10,279.25 shown, and consolidation looks correspondingly better than this page suggests.
A consolidation loan is just a personal loan with a purpose written on it — the arithmetic is identical, and the personal loan calculator runs the same amortization.
Worked examples
Example: $20,000 at a blended 21%, consolidated to 11% over 48 months
The calculator's defaults. You're paying $600 a month against $20,000 of mixed balances averaging 21%, and you're offered a four-year loan at 11%.
| Current path — payoff51 months at $600/mo | 4 yr 3 mo |
| Current path — interestat a blended 21% | $10,279.25 |
| New monthly payment$20,000 at 11% over 48 months | $516.91 |
| Consolidation interest$516.91 × 48 − $20,000 | $4,811.70 |
| Monthly payment falls by$600 → $516.91 | $83.09 |
| Interest savedand three months sooner | $5,467.54 |
This is consolidation working as advertised: $5,467.54 less interest, $83.09 a month freed up, and done three months earlier. The reason it works is that the term barely changed — 48 months against a current path of 51 — so the entire benefit of the 10-point rate cut flows through to you instead of being eaten by extra months of borrowing.
Example: a lower rate and a lower payment that costs $5,030.72 more
Set the consolidation APR to 18% and the term to 84 months. That's still well below your blended 21%, and the monthly payment drops by nearly $180. Watch the interest row.
| New APR3 points below your current blended 21% | 18% |
| New monthly payment$179.64/mo lower than $600 | $420.36 |
| Consolidation interestover 84 months | $15,309.97 |
| Current path interestover 51 months | $10,279.25 |
| Extra costthe hero card flips to "Extra interest if you consolidate" | $5,030.72 |
| Extra time in debt84 vs 51 | 33 months |
A lower interest rate, a payment $179.64 smaller, and it costs $5,030.72 more. Nothing here is a trick — the loan really is cheaper per dollar per year. You're just renting the money for 33 more months, and seven years of 18% beats four years of 21% in total dollars. This is why "lower your monthly payment" and "save money" are separate claims that happen to share a page, and why the term slider deserves more of your attention than the rate.
Frequently asked questions
Is debt consolidation a good idea?
It's a rate-and-term trade, and this page prices it both ways. Consolidation moves money in your favour when the new rate is materially lower and the term doesn't stretch much past your current payoff date — the first example saves $5,467.54 on exactly that basis. It moves against you when a long term undoes the rate cut, as in the second example, where a 3-point saving costs $5,030.72.
The part no calculator models is the one lenders and researchers both flag: consolidation clears your cards without closing them, and the balances can come back. A loan that pays off $20,000 of cards leaves you with $20,000 of available credit and a loan payment. If the cards refill, you have both debts. That's a behavioural risk, not an arithmetic one, and it doesn't appear anywhere in the numbers above.
Does debt consolidation hurt your credit score?
Usually a small dip, then a recovery, if the balances stay paid off. The application is a hard inquiry, typically worth a handful of points, and a new account lowers the average age of your accounts — both are modest and both fade.
The offsetting effect can be larger. Credit utilisation is calculated on revolving credit, and an installment loan isn't revolving. Paying $20,000 of card balances to zero with a loan can drop your card utilisation sharply, and utilisation is around 30% of a FICO score. Whether the net is positive depends mostly on what happens to those cards afterwards.
What's the difference between a debt consolidation loan and a balance transfer?
Structure and time horizon. A consolidation loan is a fixed-rate installment loan with a fixed payment and a definite end date — the arithmetic on this page. A balance transfer moves card debt onto another card at a promotional rate, usually 0%, for a window that's typically 12 to 21 months, with a fee of around 3–5% of the amount moved, after which the rate reverts.
The practical split is size and speed. A transfer is unbeatable if you'll clear the balance inside the promotional window, because 0% is 0%. It gets expensive if you don't, since the remainder reverts to a card APR that's usually higher than a consolidation loan's rate. Larger balances and longer horizons are where the fixed loan's certainty tends to pay. Run both: the balance transfer calculator prices the fee against the intro window.
Does consolidating debt lower your monthly payment?
Almost always, and that's precisely why the monthly payment is the wrong thing to judge it on. The payment is a function of rate and term, and the term is yours to choose, so a long enough loan lowers the payment at any rate. In the second example the payment drops $179.64 while the cost rises $5,030.72.
The number that answers the actual question is total interest — new payment × term − balance. It's on the comparison panel above, and it's the only figure that can't be improved by simply stretching the loan.
What credit score do you need for a debt consolidation loan?
We don't publish score cutoffs, because they aren't a public standard — each lender sets its own, and the rate you're quoted is a continuum rather than a threshold. What's worth understanding is the shape of it: consolidation only helps if the new rate lands below your blended rate, and the borrowers with the highest blended rates are generally the ones offered the highest new rates.
That's the trap in the middle of this product. The arithmetic on this page assumes a rate you've actually been quoted. Enter a rate you hope to get and the calculator will faithfully compute a saving that isn't on offer to you. Use a real number.
What this consolidation comparison leaves out
The model is two clean loans. Real consolidation is messier in ways that mostly cut against the savings figure.
- No origination fee — Consolidation loans commonly carry an origination fee, often deducted from the proceeds — so borrowing $20,000 might put less than $20,000 in your hand while you owe the full amount. The calculator assumes the entire balance is funded at no cost, which overstates the saving.
- Your current debts are treated as one blended balance — Real debts have individual rates, minimums and payoff dates, and a fixed payment against a blend behaves differently from the same payment allocated across separate balances. The blend is a reasonable approximation; it is not your actual current path.
- The current path assumes an unshrinking payment — It credits you with paying $600 every month until the balance is gone. If that $600 is a stack of card minimums, it will fall as the balances fall and your real current path costs far more than $10,279.25 — which makes consolidation look better than shown here, not worse.
- Nothing stops the cards refilling, and secured debt is a different product — The model ends when the loan is repaid. It has no view on the $20,000 of newly available credit behind you, nor the outcome where you service both. It also can't price secured consolidation: rolling unsecured card debt into a home equity loan or cash-out refinance can beat any rate here precisely because the debt is now secured by your house, which changes what a missed payment means.
- ·Standard loan amortization formulas
Rates, brackets and limits here are checked against primary sources. If a number still looks off, email support@realmoneyiq.com and we'll review and fix it.
RealMoneyIQ provides free educational calculators, not financial, tax, investment or legal advice. Results are estimates based on the assumptions you enter and publicly published rates; your actual outcome will differ. Always confirm decisions with a licensed professional who knows your full situation.