Debt Snowball Calculator
Enter every balance, rate and minimum along with one monthly budget: this debt snowball calculator sends the money above the minimums to the smallest balance first, and returns the debt-free date, the month each debt closes, the total interest, and what that ordering costs against paying the highest rate first.
Debt-free October 1, 2028 after 25 months
- Months to debt-free
- 25
- Total interest
- $2,035.58
- Total paid
- $14,535.58
Payoff order
- 1 Store card February 2027
- 2 Credit card December 2027
- 3 Car loan October 2028
Month-by-month plan — every month, every balance
| # | Date | Store card | Credit card | Car loan | Paid | Interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-10-01 | $1,160.00 | $3,980.00 | $6,920.00 | $600.00 | $160.00 |
| 2 | 2026-11-01 | $817.73 | $3,959.60 | $6,839.20 | $600.00 | $156.53 |
| 3 | 2026-12-01 | $473.18 | $3,938.79 | $6,757.59 | $600.00 | $153.03 |
| 4 | 2027-01-01 | $126.33 | $3,917.57 | $6,675.17 | $600.00 | $149.51 |
| 5 | 2027-02-01 | $0.00 | $3,673.09 | $6,591.92 | $600.00 | $145.94 |
| 6 | 2027-03-01 | $0.00 | $3,296.55 | $6,507.84 | $600.00 | $139.38 |
| 7 | 2027-04-01 | $0.00 | $2,912.48 | $6,422.92 | $600.00 | $131.01 |
| 8 | 2027-05-01 | $0.00 | $2,520.73 | $6,337.15 | $600.00 | $122.48 |
| 9 | 2027-06-01 | $0.00 | $2,121.14 | $6,250.52 | $600.00 | $113.78 |
| 10 | 2027-07-01 | $0.00 | $1,713.56 | $6,163.03 | $600.00 | $104.93 |
| 11 | 2027-08-01 | $0.00 | $1,297.83 | $6,074.66 | $600.00 | $95.90 |
| 12 | 2027-09-01 | $0.00 | $873.79 | $5,985.41 | $600.00 | $86.71 |
| 13 | 2027-10-01 | $0.00 | $441.27 | $5,895.26 | $600.00 | $77.33 |
| 14 | 2027-11-01 | $0.00 | $0.10 | $5,804.21 | $600.00 | $67.78 |
| 15 | 2027-12-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $5,262.35 | $600.00 | $58.04 |
| 16 | 2028-01-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $4,714.97 | $600.00 | $52.62 |
| 17 | 2028-02-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $4,162.12 | $600.00 | $47.15 |
| 18 | 2028-03-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $3,603.74 | $600.00 | $41.62 |
| 19 | 2028-04-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $3,039.78 | $600.00 | $36.04 |
| 20 | 2028-05-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $2,470.18 | $600.00 | $30.40 |
| 21 | 2028-06-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $1,894.88 | $600.00 | $24.70 |
| 22 | 2028-07-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $1,313.83 | $600.00 | $18.95 |
| 23 | 2028-08-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $726.97 | $600.00 | $13.14 |
| 24 | 2028-09-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $134.24 | $600.00 | $7.27 |
| 25 | 2028-10-01 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $0.00 | $135.58 | $1.34 |
What this page tells you
The debt snowball is one rule. List every balance, pay every minimum, and put everything the budget has left on the smallest balance until it is gone — then on the next smallest, and so on to the last. The ordering is the whole method. It ignores the interest rates completely, which is the objection to it, and it closes accounts sooner than any other ordering can, which is the argument for it.
That trade has a price and the price can be stated exactly. On the three debts below the snowball pays $250.19 more interest and takes one month longer than the same balances, the same minimums and the same budget run highest-rate-first. What the $250.19 buys is the store card gone in month 5 instead of month 24, and a first account closed six months before the avalanche closes anything at all.
This page recommends neither ordering. It runs the snowball on the numbers entered and puts the avalanche's figures beside them, because on most sets of debts the gap is smaller than people expect and on some it is not, and the only way to know which is to compute it. Nothing typed here is stored or transmitted. There are no accounts and no saved plans; a plan that has to survive the tab closing survives as a link, and the link carries the figures and never the labels.
How to read the result
The debt-free date is the month the last balance reaches zero. Twenty-five monthly payments beginning 1 October 2026 end on 1 October 2028, because the twenty-fifth falls twenty-four months after the first. Every debt also carries its own payoff month, and the debt-free date is simply the last of them rather than a separate calculation. A balance already at zero is listed as paid and takes no place in the order.
The order is fixed before the first payment and is never re-sorted. It is worked out once, from the starting balances, and the plan holds to it even if two balances cross later. Debts that tie to the cent are separated by the rate, the higher APR going first, and if the rates tie as well, by the order they were entered — two $1,000 balances at 10% and 20% on a $300.00 budget therefore produce the same order under both methods, the 20% one first, and both clear in 7 months with $87.52 of interest. Balances do cross when a minimum is smaller than that debt's own monthly interest: a $4,000 card at 24% with a $50.00 minimum accrues $80.00 in its first month and ends it at $4,030.00, growing until its turn arrives. The page names any debt in that position instead of letting the growth pass unremarked.
Each closure raises what the next target receives, in the month the closure happens. The store card below closes in month 5 on its own $40.00 minimum plus $87.17 of the $310.00 surplus, and the $222.83 that was not needed reaches the credit card in that same month rather than the following one. From month 6 the credit card takes $450.00 — its $100.00 minimum, the $310.00 surplus and the store card's freed $40.00 — and from month 16, once the credit card has taken its last ten cents, the car loan takes the entire $600.00 budget. That escalation is what the method is named for, and it follows from paying nothing to a closed account rather than from a rule of its own.
The cost of the ordering sits almost entirely on one debt. Run these three both ways and the 24% credit card accrues $772.93 of interest under the snowball against $494.32 under the avalanche, because it waits on its minimum for four months while the store card is the target; the car loan costs $124.60 more as well. Against that, the store card accrues $27.17 rather than $180.19, since the snowball clears it before it can accrue much. Add $278.61 and $124.60, subtract $153.02, and the $250.19 difference is accounted for in full.
A payment is capped by what the budget holds, so the closing payments are odd amounts. The credit card enters month 14 at $441.27, accrues $8.83 and owes $450.10 against the $450.00 coming to it, which leaves ten cents; month 15 closes it with a payment of $0.10 and no interest at all, since 24% of ten cents rounds to nothing. The car loan's twenty-fifth month takes $135.58 of the $600.00 available. Twenty-four months of $600.00 plus that $135.58 is $14,535.58 — the $12,500.00 owed at the start and $2,035.58 of interest, which is the identity the plan is checked against.
How the plan is built
- B
- your total monthly budget across every debt
- iₖ
- each debt's interest for month k, rounded half-up to the cent
- bₖ₋₁
- that debt's balance before this month's interest
Each month: interest is added to every open balance, every open debt receives its minimum, and whatever is left of the budget goes to one target debt — the first in the chosen order that is still open.
When a debt closes, it simply stops receiving anything, so its former minimum stays in the budget and reaches the next target in the same month. That is the rollover, and it is a consequence of the rule rather than an extra step.
The rounding rule, the final-payment adjustment and the published test vectors are all on the methodology page.
A worked example
A worked example: three debts on a $600 budget, smallest first
Take a $1,500 store card at 8.000% with a $40 minimum, a $4,000 credit card at 24.000% with a $100 minimum and a $7,000 car loan at 12.000% with a $150 minimum, against a budget of $600.00 a month. The snowball order comes from the balances alone — 1,500 < 4,000 < 7,000 — so it is store card, credit card, car loan, and the 24% rate in the middle does not enter into it. The minimums come to $290.00, leaving a surplus of $310.00 to direct. Month one charges 1,500.00 × 8 ÷ 1,200 = $10.00, 4,000.00 × 24 ÷ 1,200 = $80.00 and 7,000.00 × 12 ÷ 1,200 = $70.00. The store card then takes its $40.00 minimum and the whole surplus: 1,510.00 − 40.00 − 310.00 = $1,160.00, while the credit card pays $100.00 and falls to $3,980.00 and the car loan pays $150.00 and falls to $6,920.00.
Over the next three months the store card drops to $817.73, $473.18 and $126.33. In month five it accrues 126.33 × 8 ÷ 1,200 = 0.8422, rounded half-up to $0.84, and owes $127.17. The $40.00 minimum leaves $87.17 of that, the surplus covers it, and the debt is closed in month 5 — with the other $222.83 of the surplus going to the credit card in the same month. The credit card accrues $78.35 on its $3,917.57, reaches $3,995.92, pays $100.00 and then $222.83, and ends month five at $3,673.09; the car loan ends it at $6,591.92.
From month six the credit card receives $450.00 a month and runs down from $3,296.55, closing in month 15. From month 16 the car loan has the whole $600.00 to itself, and it closes in month 25 — 1 October 2028. The interest paid over those twenty-five months is $2,035.58: $27.17 on the store card, $772.93 on the credit card and $1,235.48 on the car loan.
The avalanche on identical inputs sorts by rate — credit card at 24%, car loan at 12%, store card at 8% — and sends month one's $310.00 surplus to the credit card, 4,080.00 − 100.00 − 310.00 = $3,670.00, while the store card takes only its minimum and sits at $1,470.00. It closes the credit card in month 11, the car loan in month 23 and the store card in month 24, finishing on 1 September 2028 with $1,785.39 of interest. So the snowball costs $250.19 more and runs one month longer. It also closes an account in month 5, six months before the avalanche closes anything, and takes the store card off the list nineteen months earlier. Both figures are printed; neither settles the question.
- The debts
- $1,500 store card at 8% (min $40); $4,000 credit card at 24% (min $100); $7,000 car loan at 12% (min $150)
- Snowball order
- store card, credit card, car loan — smallest starting balance first
- Minimums, budget, surplus
- $290.00, $600.00, $310.00
- Debt-free
- 25 months, 1 October 2028
- Total interest
- $2,035.58
- Each debt closes
- store card month 5, credit card month 15, car loan month 25
- Interest by debt
- store card $27.17, credit card $772.93, car loan $1,235.48
- Total paid
- $14,535.58 — $12,500.00 of balances and $2,035.58 of interest
- Avalanche on the same inputs
- 24 months, 1 September 2028, $1,785.39 of interest
- What the snowball ordering costs
- one month and $250.19
Every figure here is derived from the formula above and checked to the cent against vector V14 / V15 in the published test vectors — not read back off this page.
What this does not model
- The plan assumes every dollar above a minimum reaches the debt it is aimed at, in the month it is sent. A lender that treats it as an advance on the next instalment leaves that balance where it was — and the ordering then stops mattering, because snowball, avalanche and paying the minimums all return the same answer. Ask for extra payments to be applied to principal, in writing.
- Interest is charged once a month on each outstanding balance and rounded to the cent. There is no daily accrual and no compounding within the month, so an issuer that compounds daily will charge a little more than this plan shows.
- Each minimum is a fixed amount for the length of the plan. A real card minimum is usually a percentage of the balance and falls as the balance falls, which makes a fixed minimum the optimistic assumption for any debt that is not yet the target.
- The ordering is decided by the starting balances and by nothing else. A promotional rate about to end, an annual fee, a rate that is scheduled to change — none of these are visible to the ordering, and none of them are modelled.
- The budget is the same every month, every rate is fixed, and nothing new is borrowed against any of these balances while the plan runs. New spending on a card that is still open is the usual reason a real plan takes longer than the one on this page.
- Nothing typed here is transmitted. There are no accounts, no saved plans and no files to download; the calculation runs in the browser, and the only thing that ever leaves it is the link you choose to copy — balances, rates, minimums and the budget, never the labels.
When to use a different page
One loan or several, fixed payment or revolving — that is the real question behind this family of calculators, and it decides which page answers yours.
Debt avalanche
The same engine sorted by rate instead of balance, which is the cheaper ordering whenever the rates differ. That page is the $250.19 seen from the other side: it leads with the interest figure rather than with the list of closing dates.
Debt payoff planner
Both orderings computed at once on one set of debts, for the comparison rather than for the method. Go there while the decision is still open; this page is for after it has been made.
Debt payoff
The plainer question — how long several balances take in total on a given monthly payment — with the ordering as a detail rather than the subject. Start there if the debt-free date matters more than which debt the surplus goes to.
Credit card payoff
One revolving balance rather than a list, with the issuer's minimum modelled as it actually works: interest plus a percentage of the balance, shrinking month by month. That rule is why $5,000 at 24% takes 234 months on minimums alone, and why the fixed minimum used here is the kinder assumption.
Questions people ask
How does a debt snowball calculator work?
It runs every debt forward one month at a time. Each month it charges each open balance its own interest, pays every minimum, then puts whatever the budget has left on a single target — the debt with the smallest starting balance, then the next smallest. When a debt reaches zero its minimum is not held in reserve for it: the minimum joins the surplus going to the next target in the same month, and the plan ends in the month the last balance clears.
What order does the debt snowball pay debts in, and does it change as balances fall?
Smallest starting balance first, and no. The order is worked out once, before the first payment, and stays fixed for the whole plan even if one balance later drops below another. Debts that tie to the cent are separated by the rate, with the higher APR going first, and debts that tie on both are taken in the order they were entered.
Does the debt snowball cost more than the debt avalanche?
Usually, and on the example below by $250.19 and one month. The snowball pays $2,035.58 of interest there against the avalanche's $1,785.39, and almost the whole difference is the 24% card sitting on its minimum for four months while the smallest balance is the target. The two methods return exactly the same plan only when there is nothing above the minimums to direct, or when every rate is identical.
Why is the debt snowball recommended if it costs more?
Because the ordering is chosen for the sequence of closures rather than for the interest. An account gone in month 5 instead of month 24 is a visible result at the point where a plan is easiest to abandon, and a plan that gets followed beats a cheaper one that does not. That effect is real and this page cannot measure it, so it prints the cost instead and leaves the judgement where it belongs.
Does this snowball calculator save my debts or track my progress?
No. There are no accounts, nothing is kept between visits, and nothing typed is sent anywhere — the whole plan is computed in the browser. The balances, rates, minimums and budget are encoded in the page's address instead, so a plan can be bookmarked or sent to someone else and it will reopen with the same numbers. The debt labels are never part of that link.