About the debt consolidation calculator
Two plans are run month by month. Now: each debt accrues its APR ÷ 12 and takes its own payment, and when a debt is cleared its payment moves to the highest-rate debt left. Consolidated: one loan repaid by M = L × r × (1 + r)^n ÷ ((1 + r)^n − 1). When the origination fee comes out of the loan, you borrow the debts ÷ (1 − fee) to receive enough to clear them. The saving is the total paid now minus the loan's payments and any cash added.
With the defaults, three debts totaling 16,900 at 560 a month take 45 months and 7,996.16 of interest. A 48-month loan at 11.99% with a 5% fee borrows 17,789.47, costs 468.38 a month and saves 2,414.03. Its APR with the fee is 14.77% against a combined 22.09% on the debts, and it saves money at any rate below 17.58%.
Rates are held fixed, and cleared cards are assumed to carry no new balances. Promotional balance-transfer rates are not modeled.
Questions
Is debt consolidation worth it?
Only if the loan's interest and fees come to less than the interest you would pay on the debts at your current payments. The three default debts, 16,900 in all, cost 7,996.16 of interest over 45 months. A 48-month loan at 11.99% with a 5% fee costs 4,692.66 of interest plus 889.47 of fee, saving 2,414.03 and lowering the payment by 91.62 a month.
Does a longer consolidation loan save more money?
No. A longer term lowers the payment but adds interest. For the default debts at 11.99% with a 5% fee, 36 months costs 590.78 a month and saves 3,628.08; 48 months costs 468.38 and saves 2,414.03; 60 months costs 395.63 and saves 1,158.53; 72 months costs 347.70 and loses 137.89. The CFPB warns that paying over a longer time could mean paying a lot more overall.
How does an origination fee change the cost of a consolidation loan?
It raises the amount you borrow and the APR. To receive 16,900 when a 5% fee is taken from the loan, you borrow 16,900 ÷ 0.95 = 17,789.47, and the APR rises from 11.99% to 14.77% because the fee counts as a prepaid finance charge. With no fee the default loan saves 3,538.14; with 5% it saves 2,414.03; with 8% it saves 1,680.92.
What is the break-even interest rate for debt consolidation?
The loan rate at which consolidating costs exactly what keeping the debts would. Below it you save; above it you lose. For the default debts with a 5% fee, the break-even rate is 23.32% for a 36-month loan, 17.58% for 48 months, 14.11% for 60 months and 11.78% for 72 months, which is why the 72-month loan at 11.99% costs more.
Why is my combined APR different from the average of my rates?
The combined APR is the single rate that turns your actual payment stream into the total you owe, so it weights each debt by how long its balance stays unpaid. The default debts carry 23.99%, 29.99% and 14.5%, a balance-weighted average of 21.47%; paid at 560 a month with payments moving to the highest rate, they behave like one loan at 22.09%. Compare that figure with the loan's APR including fees.
How accurate is the debt consolidation calculator?
Accuracy depends on your inputs and the method's assumptions. Decimal arithmetic uses 50 significant digits, but estimates, numerical methods and source data can be less precise; the displayed rounding does not remove those limits. It is checked against 6 worked examples whose answers come from independent sources; for example, “Three cards against a 25,000 loan at 10.99%” is checked against Calculator.net debt consolidation calculator, published output for its defaults (fetched 2026-09-26): 543.44 a month, 7,606.15 interest, 59 months, APR 18.92% vs 13.25%, 250 upfront.
Where does the method come from?
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — What do I need to know about consolidating my credit card debt?; Regulation Z, 12 CFR 1026.4 and 1026.22 — Finance charge and annual percentage rate; Microsoft Excel RATE function (APR from payment and amount received).