The extra payment moves the date more than the order does
Switch between avalanche and snowball above and the payoff date moves by a month or two. Change the extra payment and the whole schedule moves. The reason is that a minimum is sized to cover the interest and chip at the balance, so almost every dollar above it lands on the principal instead - and principal cleared early is interest that is never charged at all. That is why the gap between this plan and the grey minimums-only line widens the further right you look, rather than staying the width of the extra payment.
From a schedule to the actual month
A payoff plan is arithmetic. Keeping one is not, and this page assumes the extra payment arrives every month without fail - which is the part a real month of spending decides. Cadence tracks credit cards and loans as first-class accounts, so those balances move on their own as you pay them down, and a payoff can be followed as a goal with a date on it. How balances and interest are handled is set out in credit cards and loans, and if the question turns from clearing a balance to building one, the investment calculator runs the same kind of projection in the other direction. If clearing these balances is what stands between you and a mortgage, the rent vs buy calculator works out how long you would have to stay for buying to pay off. The rest are collected on the calculators page.
Frequently asked questions
How does this debt payoff calculator work?
It runs your debts month by month. Each month every balance is charged one twelfth of its APR, then each debt receives its minimum payment, then anything left over - your extra payment, plus the minimums freed by any debt already cleared - goes to whichever debt the ordering puts first. When that one is cleared the whole payment rolls onto the next. The chart plots the total still owed at the end of each month, against the same debts paid at their minimums alone.
Does this work for Canadian debts?
Yes. Every amount is in CAD and every field is formatted for Canada, and Canadian credit cards, lines of credit, car loans and student loans all behave the same way here: a balance, an APR and a minimum payment. The arithmetic itself has no country in it - what differs between Canada and elsewhere is the rates you type, not how a payment is applied. Formal debt relief under Canadian insolvency law, such as a consumer proposal or bankruptcy, is not modelled: this page prices clearing the balances in full.
What is the difference between the avalanche and snowball methods?
Only the order the debts are paid off in. Avalanche puts the highest APR first, which pays the least interest overall because the dearest balance is cleared soonest. Snowball puts the smallest balance first, which clears individual debts sooner and brings the first cleared balance forward. The money leaving your account each month is identical either way, and this page shows the interest total and the first-balance-gone month for both, so the difference is a figure rather than a slogan.
What if the minimum payment is less than the interest?
Then that balance grows instead of shrinking, and the calculator says so rather than inventing a date. A debt charged more interest each month than the payment it receives never clears on that payment alone, and if that is true of every debt in the list the payoff date reads "Never". A single debt in that position can still be cleared later, once the debts ahead of it are gone and the whole monthly payment lands on it, and the schedule accounts for that.
What does this calculator leave out?
Four things worth knowing. It holds each minimum flat, whereas a card minimum is usually a percentage of the balance and shrinks as the balance falls, which stretches a real minimums-only payoff further out than the figure here. It assumes no new spending on any of the accounts. It ignores annual fees, late fees and any promotional or variable rate, so a card at 0% until the spring is not modelled. And it assumes every payment arrives, every month.
Do I need an account to use this?
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser: your balances, rates and payments are never sent to a server, never stored, and disappear when you close the tab. Cadence itself is a paid subscription with a 14-day free trial, but this page is open to anyone.