How to read your results
Cards now assumes you keep paying each card the amount you entered until that card is paid off, with no new charges. When one card is paid off, its payment stops rather than moving to the next card.
Personal loan uses a fixed rate and a fixed payment for the term you choose. The fee row is the origination fee. Total you'd pay is every loan payment added up, so it already includes the fee.
0% transfer moves the full balance plus the transfer fee to one card and keeps paying what you pay now. Anything left when the intro period ends is charged the APR you set for after the promo.
Watch the payment, not just the savings
A loan can look cheaper partly because its payment is higher and it pays the debt off sooner. The gray "same payment" box checks that by putting the loan's payment toward your cards instead, highest APR first. If the loan still costs less, the lower rate is doing the work. If the loan's payment is lower than what you pay now, the savings may shrink, or turn into a higher cost, over a long term.
An illustrative example
These are the example numbers the calculator opens with. They're round figures for illustration, not current rates.
- Two cards: $6,000 at 24% paying $180 a month, and $3,500 at 28% paying $105 a month. That's $9,500 and $285 a month in total. Kept up, the payments would clear both cards in about 66 months, with about $7,334 in interest.
- A 36-month loan at 13% APR with a 4% origination fee: borrowing about $9,896 nets $9,500 after the $396 fee. The payment is about $333 a month, interest is about $2,108, and the total paid is about $12,003, roughly $4,830 less than the cards.
- Same-payment check: putting $333 a month toward the cards, highest APR first, would take about 44 months and about $4,877 in interest. The loan still comes out about $2,373 ahead, because of its lower rate.
- A 0% transfer for 18 months with a 3% fee, still paying $285 a month: about $4,655 would be left when the promo ends. At 24% after that, it's paid off in about 38 months in total, with about $1,037 in interest plus the $285 fee.
Here the transfer costs the least, if you qualify for a big enough limit and keep paying. The loan has a fixed end date and doesn't depend on a promo. Your numbers may point the other way.
When consolidating may not help
- The loan APR you're offered isn't clearly lower than your cards' APRs, or the fee wipes out the difference.
- A long term lowers the payment but adds years of interest.
- The cards fill back up after you pay them off. Then you have the loan and new card debt.
For more, read our guide to using a personal loan to consolidate credit card debt, the personal loan vs. balance transfer comparison, and how 0% balance transfers work. The CFPB explains what to know before consolidating credit card debt and how nonprofit credit counseling works.