Enter up to three debts and see how long payoff takes — plus a direct comparison between the snowball and avalanche methods.
Both methods apply your full monthly payment budget across all debts, paying minimums on everything and directing any extra toward one target debt at a time:
Mathematically, avalanche almost always saves more in total interest. Snowball can still be the better real-world choice if the psychological win of clearing a debt sooner keeps you consistent — the "best" method is the one you'll actually stick with.
Because it eliminates your highest-interest debt first, which is accumulating the most interest charge per dollar of balance. Clearing it earlier reduces the total interest that compounds over the payoff period.
If you've struggled to stay consistent with debt payoff in the past, the faster psychological wins from snowball can be worth the extra interest cost for many people — consistency often matters more than mathematical optimization.
Leave the unused debt fields at zero — the calculator will only factor in debts with a balance greater than zero.
Yes. This calculator assumes no new charges are added to any of these balances during the payoff period — new spending on the same cards will extend your actual timeline beyond this estimate.
This calculator provides estimates for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Actual payoff timelines depend on your lender's terms and your ongoing spending behavior.