Debt Consolidation Calculator

A debt consolidation calculator is only worth trusting if it shows you both sides of the decision. This one adds up to ten of your debts, works out what they cost right now on their own rates and minimum payments, then works out what a single new loan would cost at the rate and term you have been offered. You get the new monthly payment and the honest baseline sitting next to each other, which is the only way to tell whether the offer is worth taking.

When evaluating options with a debt consolidation calculator, the primary objective is to determine whether combining multiple high-interest accounts into one loan lowers your net interest paid. Many online tools act as a basic loan calculator that only displays your new monthly installment. However, a true consolidation loan comparison must account for the cumulative interest of your existing payoff schedules.

Whether you are managing credit cards or personal loans, consolidating debts allows borrowers to unify multiple high-rate accounts under a single fixed monthly payment. Comparing consolidation loan options helps you avoid extending your loan term so far that total interest increases even if monthly payments drop.

Most consolidation calculators answer only one question: what would I pay each month? This tool is built to show both sides of the ledger, setting your new loan offer directly against your current baseline so you can verify real savings before taking on new credit.

Most consolidation calculators answer one question: what would I pay a month? That is the easy half. It leaves out the half that decides the outcome, which is what you would have paid by leaving the debts alone. A balance at 24% with a minimum payment takes years to clear and costs a great deal in interest along the way, and a lot of the apparent savings in a consolidation comes from paying that interest down faster rather than from anything clever about the new loan.

So this calculator works the current position out properly. Every debt keeps its own APR, keeps its own minimum payment, and is walked month by month until it clears. The interest from all of them is added up. Only then is that total set against the new loan. When a longer term buys a lower payment at a higher total cost, the tool says so and gives you the amount.

You can also read the result in either direction. Run the same debts at a rate close to what you already pay and the comparison will show you how much a lower rate is actually worth. Run it at zero percent and you can see how much of a consolidation win is the rate rather than the loan. Enter the rates from real offers when you have them, because the rate is the only input that moves the answer by thousands.

A debt consolidation calculator compares what one new loan would cost against what your debts cost if you leave them on their current rates. Take two credit card balances: $12,000 at 24% with a $400 minimum, and $6,000 at 26% with a $200 minimum. Together they total $18,000. Paid separately on their own minimums, the first debt clears in 47 months and costs $6,509.22 in interest, the second clears in 49 months and costs $3,795.27, and you pay $28,304.49 all told. Rolling the same $18,000 into one loan at 12% over 60 months produces a $400.40 monthly payment, $6,023.99 in interest, and $24,023.99 in total. The payment falls by $199.60 a month and the total cost falls by $4,280.50. Every figure comes from the SajiloX Debt Consolidation Calculator, which walks both paths month by month in whole cents.

The Comparison This Calculator Actually Runs

Consolidation replaces several loans with one. The question worth answering is whether the replacement is cheaper, and that needs both sides of the ledger.

What it does with the debts you already have

Each debt keeps its own APR and its own minimum payment. For every month, the interest accrues on the balance still owed, the minimum pays that interest first, and whatever is left knocks down the principal. When the balance runs out, that debt is finished and its interest is banked. The tool then moves to the next debt. Interest from all of them is summed, and the time reported for your current position is the slowest of the individual debts, not the sum of them, because you would be paying them all at once.

This baseline is deliberately unflattering to doing nothing. Minimum payments on a high-rate balance are a long and expensive way down, and they are the honest thing to compare a new offer against.

What it does with the new loan

Your balances are added into a single principal. The standard reducing-balance formula gives the monthly payment for the rate and term you enter:

P  = total of the balances you are consolidating
r  = monthly rate = APR / 100 / 12
n  = term in months

Payment = P × r / (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ)

At 0% the term simply divides the principal. The payment is rounded to whole cents once, held steady for every month, and trimmed on the last one so you never overpay. That rounding is why a 48-month loan can finish in month 49. The tool reports the actual payoff month, not the term you asked for.

How to Use It

Fill in the debts first. Each row takes a balance, the current APR, and the minimum monthly payment, and the rows are numbered in the order you add them, so Debt 1 is the first balance you typed. Add rows with the button until you have every debt you want to bring together, up to ten. A row with no balance in it is treated as spare space and skipped, so you never have to delete anything before calculating. Next, enter the APR the new loan would be offered at and the term in months. Then press Calculate.

The result panel opens on the new monthly payment in large type, with the difference over the full term directly underneath so you see the verdict before the detail. Under that sit the monthly comparison, the total cost comparison, a table showing what each individual debt costs on its own, and the full month-by-month repayment schedule, which is collapsed until you want it. You can copy the whole summary as text or print it, and the print version carries the summary, the per-debt table, and every month of the schedule.

You can switch the display currency at the top, which changes how figures are formatted and labelled. It does not change the arithmetic, so use the currency that matches the loans you are actually comparing.

$18,000 of Credit Cards, One Loan at 12%

This is the most common shape of the problem, so it is worth walking through the whole result.

The per-debt table shows why the current side is so expensive. Debt 1, the $12,000 at 24%, clears in 47 months and costs $6,509.22 in interest. Debt 2, the $6,000 at 26%, clears in 49 months and costs $3,795.27. At 26% a $200 minimum is barely moving the balance, which is why the smaller debt takes longer than the larger one.

Note that the consolidation takes longer, 60 months against 49, and still comes out cheaper. That is the usual pattern when the rate falls far enough. Payment falls by $199.60 a month and total cost falls by $4,280.50, and the saving is entirely in interest because the principal is the same $18,000 either way. Consolidation never reduces what you owe. It changes what you pay for the privilege of borrowing it for longer.

The Term Matters More Than the Rate

Most people negotiate hard on the rate and then accept whatever term comes with it. That is the wrong way round, because the term swings the total cost by more than the rate does.

Take a single $50,000 balance at 24.99% with a $1,500 minimum. On its own it clears in 58 months and costs $36,222.96 in interest. Now consolidate it at 11.86%, the current average rate on 24-month personal loans at commercial banks, and change only the term.

The 120-month loan cuts the payment by $786.69 a month instead of $391.31, so it looks like the better deal on any quick check. The total interest tells the real story. The ten-year version adds up to $19,076.89 more interest than the five-year version. It is still marginally cheaper than leaving the balance on the card, and that is the trap. A deal that clears the original only by $624.81 over two extra years is not a good deal, it is a slightly dressed-up version of the one you already have.

Pick the shortest term your budget can carry. A debt consolidation loan with a lower rate and a long term is still a debt consolidation loan, and a payment you miss is worth more than any interest you saved.

When a Lower Payment Costs More

Sometimes the two differences point in opposite directions, and the tool reports both rather than picking the flattering one.

Put $20,000 at 26% with a $600 minimum. On its own it clears in 60 months and costs $15,856.09 in interest. Consolidate it at 14% over 120 months and the monthly payment falls from $600.00 to $310.53, which is a drop of $289.47 and feels like a large win. Total interest then comes to $17,264.25, so over the full 121 months you pay $1,408.16 more than you would have paying the card down on its own.

The payment fell by nearly half and the deal got worse. The reason is arithmetic rather than a trick. The 26% balance was already heading for 60 months at $600 a month, which is a fairly brisk pace for a card balance. Stretching the same money over 120 months halves the principal coming off each month, and at 14% over two decades that more than eats the rate saving.

This is the case most worth catching before you sign anything, because a monthly payment figure on its own cannot tell you about it. The test is simple. Compare the new loan's total interest against the interest on the debts as they stand, and look at the total cost difference, not the payment difference. The tool puts that number in the verdict box right under the payment.

What Rate to Put In

Use a real offer if you have one. If you do not, a published average is a defensible starting point as long as you treat it as one.

As of the Federal Reserve G.19 release dated September 8, 2026, the average APR on credit card plans was 20.94% across all accounts and 22.15% on accounts that were assessed interest, which are the accounts carrying a balance. The average rate on 24-month personal loans at commercial banks over the same period was 11.86%. Those are the two ends of the comparison: what your cards are costing you, and roughly what an instalment loan costs the average borrower who gets one.

A credit union will often beat the commercial bank average, and a lender's own advertised rate is a starting figure for someone with good credit rather than the rate you will be given. A consolidation rate that is dramatically lower than everything on offer is worth asking about hard, because the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes that many low consolidation rates are teaser rates that apply for a limited period before the lender raises it. Ask what the rate becomes afterwards and get the answer in writing.

Run the same debts at a few different rates. Watching the answer move is more informative than any single figure, and it tells you how much room the negotiation has.

Consolidation Loan or Balance Transfer

These get described with the same words and work in different ways, so it is worth separating them.

A balance transfer card moves balances onto a new credit card account, often at a 0% promotional rate for a set introductory period. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau notes that the promotional rate usually does not last, that the rate can rise afterwards, and that you will generally pay a balance transfer fee calculated as a percentage of the amount transferred or a fixed amount, whichever is larger. Interest can start accruing from the day the transfer posts, so you do not necessarily get a full grace period. The debt stays on a credit card, which keeps the credit relationship intact.

A consolidation loan is a new instalment loan from a bank, credit union, or online lender that pays off the old balances outright. The consolidated debt then sits on one fixed rate for the whole term. The rate is usually fixed and there is no promotional period, so nothing resets later. What you gain in predictability you pay for in rate, and a fixed loan of the same size generally costs more than a promotional transfer that you clear inside the window.

The choice comes down to the window. If you can clear the balance inside a 0% window, a transfer can be cheaper. If you cannot, you want the fixed rate, because the promotional rate is going to end whether or not you are ready. This calculator models the loan side, since that is where the two-sided comparison matters most.

When to Be Careful Who You Borrow From

Two things are worth checking before you hand over any details.

Ask whether the lender is actually a lender. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau points out that many companies advertising debt consolidation services are in fact debt settlement companies, which charge fees for promising to settle your debts and may tell you to stop paying your creditors and pay money into a separate account instead. While you pay that account, interest and penalties keep adding to what you owe, missed payments go on your credit report, and collection activity can step up. The CFPB also advises considering a nonprofit credit counselor, who can help you build a budget and a payment plan at no cost.

Ask who is charging you, and when. The Federal Trade Commission amended its Telemarketing Sales Rule to bar for-profit debt relief sellers from charging a fee before they have actually settled or reduced a debt, and to stop them making claims they cannot substantiate. A company asking for money up front to "reduce your credit card debt by half" is describing something the FTC prohibits in that context. A nonprofit credit counselor is a different service from a for-profit debt relief seller, which is a distinction the CFPB draws explicitly.

Two requests you can make before you sign anything: the rate after any promotional period, and the total amount repayable over the whole term. Both are in writing, and both take seconds to ask.

What This Calculator Leaves Out

Being clear about the edges of the model matters more than adding more to it.

There are no origination fees, closing costs, or prepayment penalties in these figures. Real offers often carry an origination fee, and that fee is part of the cost of the loan, so add it to the total the tool gives you. A teaser rate that later rises is not modelled either. Enter the rate you will be paying for the whole term, not the headline rate. Late fees, and anything that happens to your credit score as a result of taking on a new account and closing old ones, are outside the model as well.

Because the tool works from balances, rates, and minimums, it cannot see your accounts, your credit file, or whether you qualify for a rate. It also cannot model a balance transfer, since that is a credit card product rather than a loan. If you want to know how long the debts as they stand would take, run the current side with the same new-loan rate and term and read the two columns.

Two related tools cover the ground this one deliberately does not. If you would rather pay the balance down and not refinance, the credit card payoff calculator shows what an extra payment each month would do. The credit card minimum payment calculator shows how your minimum is built, which is where the current side of this comparison comes from. Once the new loan is in place and you want to clear it faster than the term allows, the debt snowball calculator orders the remaining balances.

Reading the Result

The panel is laid out so the verdict comes before the detail.

The large figure is the new monthly payment, with the months and the rate underneath it. The box below that is the number to read first: it shows the difference in total cost across the whole term, labelled as either a saving or extra cost, and says plainly how much interest is involved. When that figure is a saving, you keep that amount. When it is extra cost, a longer term or a higher rate is the reason, and the tool says so.

The monthly comparison underneath shows your current minimums next to the new payment and the gap between them. A large drop there means breathing room, and it is not a measure of whether the deal is good. The total cost block is where interest and total paid are laid out for both paths, followed by the per-debt table showing what each debt costs on its own, how long it takes to clear, and how much interest it adds. The schedule underneath runs month by month with the payment split into principal and interest, so you can watch the balance fall and see the final month trimmed to the last few cents.

One warning is built in. If you enter a minimum payment that does not cover the interest accruing on that balance in the first month, the tool stops and tells you, because that balance can never clear on its own and any answer would be fictional. A lower rate is usually the way out of that, which is what the new loan is for. If you hit it, raise the rate on that debt only if you have it right and use a realistic rate, otherwise the comparison is built on a number that will not happen.

Estimates are for planning. Confirm the figures with a lender before you commit to anything, and check the current published rates against the offers you are actually being made.

Last verified: October 2026. Payment, interest, and refusal figures reproduced by running the shipped calculator, and the three average rates read from the Federal Reserve G.19 release dated September 8, 2026.