The minimum payment keeps you in debt for years. Find out how long it'll actually take — and how much interest you'll really pay.
Credit card minimum payments are designed to keep you in debt as long as possible. On a $5,000 balance at 24% APR, making only the minimum payment each month will take over 17 years to pay off — and cost more than $7,000 in interest alone. You'll pay more in interest than you originally borrowed. This calculator makes that timeline and total cost visible before you decide how much to pay each month.
The three modes let you approach the calculation from whatever angle is most useful to you. Minimum payment mode shows the true long-term cost of the path of least resistance. Fixed payment mode lets you enter what you can actually afford each month and see exactly when you'll be debt-free and what it'll cost. Pay-off-by-date mode works backwards — enter when you want to be done and it tells you what monthly payment you'd need to make that happen.
The comparison box shows what you save by paying more than the minimum. The difference is often shocking — paying $50 extra per month on a $5,000 balance can cut your payoff time by 10 years and save thousands in interest. Seeing that comparison in concrete numbers is often the thing that prompts people to actually change their payment behavior.
Credit card interest is calculated using your daily periodic rate — your APR divided by 365. Each day your balance carries interest, the daily rate is applied to the remaining balance. At 24% APR your daily rate is about 0.0658%. On a $5,000 balance that is roughly $3.29 in interest per day or $99 per month. This is why even making minimum payments barely reduces the principal in the early months — most of your payment goes to interest.
Most credit card minimum payments are set at 1–3% of your outstanding balance. Because the minimum decreases as your balance decreases, you make smaller and smaller payments over time — meaning interest continues compounding on the remaining balance. On a $5,000 balance at 24% APR making 2% minimum payments, you would be making payments for over 17 years and paying more in interest than the original balance.
Two popular strategies are the debt avalanche (paying off the highest interest rate card first, which minimizes total interest paid) and the debt snowball (paying off the smallest balance first, which provides psychological wins). Both work — research suggests the debt avalanche saves more money while the debt snowball has better completion rates because of the motivational effect of eliminating accounts.
As of 2024–2025 the average credit card APR in the US is approximately 20–24%. Anything above 20% is considered high and should be prioritized for payoff. Store credit cards often carry APRs of 25–35%. A rate below 15% is relatively favorable for a credit card. If you carry a balance regularly, the APR is the most important number on your credit card — more important than rewards or cashback rates.
The impact of additional payments is dramatic due to compound interest working in reverse. On a $5,000 balance at 24% APR on minimum payments, adding just $50 per month to your payment can cut years off your payoff timeline and save thousands in interest. Use the fixed payment mode in this calculator to see exactly how different monthly amounts change your payoff date and total interest paid.