Free Debt Snowball Calculator (with a Month-by-Month Plan)
This debt snowball calculator shows how long it takes to clear every balance when you pay the smallest debt first and roll each freed-up payment into the next one. Enter your debts, add what you can pay on top of the minimums, and you get a debt-free date, total interest, and how much you save compared with paying minimums only.
The table is filled in with a sample: a $4,500 credit card at 24.99% APR and a $12,000 car loan at 7.5%, plus $300 a month extra. Replace those rows with your own numbers. No sign-up needed.
How the debt snowball works
The snowball is a payoff order, not a loan or a program. Every month you:
- Pay the minimum on every debt, so nothing goes late.
- Send every extra dollar to the debt with the smallest balance.
- When that debt hits zero, add its old minimum to your extra and point the whole amount at the next-smallest balance.
Step 3 is the snowball. The amount aimed at the focus debt grows each time a debt disappears, while your total monthly budget stays the same. You aren't paying more than you planned; you're just not letting freed-up money slip back into everyday spending.
Interest rates don't affect the order. That's the method's main trade-off: it can cost more interest than paying the highest APR first (the avalanche), but it gets you a closed account sooner, and that early win is what keeps many people on track for the months that follow.
Enter your debts
For each debt you need four things, all of them on your latest statement or in your lender's app:
- Name — anything you'll recognize, like "Gas card" or "Car loan".
- Balance — what you owe today, not the original loan amount.
- APR — the annual rate. For credit cards use the purchase APR. If part of a balance sits on a 0% promo, enter it as its own row at 0%.
- Minimum payment — the required monthly payment. On credit cards the minimum usually shrinks as the balance falls; enter today's minimum and keep paying at least that much. Holding the payment steady is part of the plan.
Then set Extra payment per month: money you can add on top of all minimums every single month. Use a number you can hit in an ordinary month, not your best one. A new empty row appears as you type, up to ten debts.
Include everything with a balance: credit cards, store cards, car loans, personal loans, medical bills on a payment plan, student loans. A mortgage can go in too, but with its size it will almost always end up last in the snowball anyway.
Your payoff date
Here's what happens with the sample numbers. The monthly budget is $680: $120 minimum on the card, $260 on the car loan, and $300 extra. The card has the smaller balance, so it's the focus debt and gets $420 a month.
| Month | Credit card | Car loan | What's happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $4,173.71 | $11,815.00 | $420 to the card, $260 to the car |
| 6 | $2,437.47 | $10,872.51 | Card interest shrinks as the balance drops |
| 12 | $103.44 | $9,702.08 | One small payment left on the card |
| 13 | Paid off | $9,082.72 | Card's $120 and the $300 extra roll to the car |
| 20 | — | $4,637.44 | Car loan gets the full $680 |
| 24 | — | $2,008.86 | Last stretch |
| 27 | — | Paid off | Debt-free |
You're debt-free in 27 months, and the total interest is $1,959.57.
Notice the car loan during the first year. It only gets its $260 minimum, yet it still drops from $12,000 to about $9,700. The snowball doesn't ignore your other debts; it just doesn't speed them up yet. From month 14 the car loan gets $680 instead of $260, and it hits zero in month 27.
For comparison, if you paid each debt's minimum and nothing more, the card alone would take 74 months, and the two debts would cost $6,542.48 in interest. The calculator's "Interest saved vs minimums" uses a slightly kinder baseline: the same minimums with no extra, but freed minimums still roll forward. That takes 60 months and $6,233.20, so the $300 extra saves $4,273.63 and almost three years.
The extra amount moves the date more than anything else. Same two debts, different extra:
| Extra per month | Debt-free in | Total interest |
|---|---|---|
| $0 | 60 months | $6,233.20 |
| $100 | 42 months | $3,341.20 |
| $200 | 33 months | $2,450.11 |
| $300 | 27 months | $1,959.57 |
| $500 | 21 months | $1,440.16 |
The first $100 does the most work: it cuts 18 months and $2,892 in interest. Each additional $100 still helps, just a little less.
A note on precision: the calculator charges APR divided by 12 on each balance every month. Lenders accrue interest daily, so your statements will differ by a few dollars, not hundreds.
Snowball vs avalanche on your numbers
With the sample debts, the snowball and the avalanche give the same result: 27 months and $1,959.57. The smallest debt, the card, also has the highest APR, so both methods go after it first. That's common, because small balances are often credit cards and store cards, which tend to carry higher rates than car or student loans.
The methods split when a small debt has a lower rate than a bigger one. Add a third row, a store card with $1,800 at 17.99% APR and a $55 minimum, and keep $300 extra:
| Snowball | Avalanche | |
|---|---|---|
| Payoff order | Store card, credit card, car | Credit card, store card, car |
| First debt paid off | Month 6 | Month 13 |
| Debt-free in | 29 months | 28 months |
| Total interest | $2,530.72 | $2,386.46 |
The avalanche saves $144.26 and one month. The snowball gets you your first zero balance seven months sooner. Neither answer is wrong. The question is whether a closed account in month 6 is worth about $144 to you. Switch between the two buttons in the calculator: when the avalanche would save money, it tells you how much. For more on the highest-rate-first approach, see the debt avalanche calculator.
Save the plan in the app
The calculator answers "when" and "how much." A plan you follow for two years needs a bit more, and that's what the full DelDebt planner is for. It's free and works without an account; if you don't sign in, your debts are stored on your device.
- Your debts, saved, with due dates and categories: credit card, car loan, student loan, mortgage and more.
- More methods: snowball, avalanche, blizzard (smallest debt first for a quick win, then highest APR), cash flow (largest monthly payment first, to free up cash fastest), or your own custom order.
- Payment tracking: mark each payment as made, see your history and progress, and keep a streak of months without a missed payment.
- Payment calendar and reminders, including an .ics file for your calendar app, with due dates that fall on a weekend or holiday moved to the business day before, so you pay early rather than late.
- Extra payment preview: before you send a lump sum, see how much interest it saves and whether to shorten the term or lower the payment.
- Check against your statement: compare the planner's interest with what your lender actually charged and adjust.
- Upload a schedule: a screenshot, photo or PDF of your lender's payment schedule fills in the fields for you.
If you'd rather keep things in a spreadsheet, there's a free debt snowball template, along with an honest look at what a spreadsheet handles well and where it gets painful.