Where to find the balance, APR, and minimum
Updated October 27, 2026
The calculator needs three numbers per debt: what you owe now, the APR that balance is revolving at, and the dollar amount you will pay at least once a month. Statements print a lot of nearby figures that do not belong in those boxes. Layouts differ by issuer. The labels below are the usual ones, not a copy of any bank's form.
Balance: what you still owe, not the credit limit
Use the balance that will actually accrue interest if you do not pay it off. On a card, the statement balance is the amount owed on the day the cycle closed. The current balance in the app may be higher if you have spent since then, or lower if a payment has already posted. For a payoff plan, type the balance you still intend to pay down, after any payment that has already cleared. Do not type the credit limit. A $10,000 limit with a $2,400 balance is a $2,400 debt.
Loans usually show a payoff balance or a principal balance. Use the figure the lender says is left to pay, not the original amount you borrowed. If the loan balance on the statement is principal only and interest is added on the due date, you will be a few dollars off this calculator, which folds one month of interest into the balance at the start of each month. That is close enough for a plan and wrong for a same-day payoff wire. Ask the lender for a payoff quote before you send a final payment.
APR: the rate on the revolving balance
Look for "annual percentage rate," "APR," or "interest rate," and read which balance it applies to. Cards often list more than one:
- Purchase APR, for ordinary spending that you did not pay in full.
- A promotional APR, often 0%, with an end date. That rate is not the rate for the whole payoff unless you will finish before the date.
- Cash advance APR, often higher, and often charged from the day of the advance.
- Penalty APR, which may apply after a late payment. Do not type it unless it is the rate you are in now.
The Schumer box in the card agreement is the long version of those rates. The monthly statement usually prints the rate in effect for each balance this cycle, sometimes next to an "interest charge" line. A loan note shows the interest rate on the contract and, if it is variable, the current rate on the statement. This calculator stores one rate per row for the entire plan. If a promo ends halfway, split the problem the way the transfer guide does, instead of typing 0 and forgetting the rest.
Some statements show a daily periodic rate instead of, or next to, the APR. A daily rate of 0.06299% is about 0.0006299 × 365 = 22.99% APR. Type 22.99, not 0.06299. Dividing the wrong number by 12 again will make the plan look almost interest-free.
Minimum payment: this month's dollar amount
The minimum payment due is a dollar figure, with a due date. Type the dollars. The agreement then explains how next month's minimum will be rebuilt. A common pattern is the greater of a small floor (such as $25 or $40) or a percentage of the new balance plus the interest and fees just billed. That formula is not what you type. The calculator keeps the dollar amount fixed, which is accurate only if you keep paying at least that many dollars.
If you always pay a fixed amount above the minimum — $200 every month, for example — put $200 in the minimum field and leave the extra-payment box at $0, or put the contractual minimum in the minimum field and the rest in extra. For a single debt the two inputs land in the same place. For several debts they do not: extra is aimed at one debt, while each minimum is paid on its own row. Use the minimum field for what each account must receive, and the extra field for the amount you can aim.
A past-due amount or a late fee can be folded into the minimum printed this month. The calculator has no late-fee field. If you are past due, the statement's minimum is the number that stops another late fee, and it may be larger than a normal month. Type what you must send. Do not type a smaller "regular" minimum and ignore the past-due line.
A labeled illustration
Imagine a statement that shows a $2,400.00 balance, a 22.99% purchase APR, a $40.00 minimum due, and an interest charge of $45.35 for a 30-day cycle in which the balance never moved. Those are made-up statement lines so the boxes have something to point at.
- Balance to type: 2400.
- APR to type: 22.99.
- Minimum to type: 40, if $40 is what you will keep paying. Interest in month 1 inside this calculator is 2,400 × 0.2299 / 12 = $45.98, not the $45.35 on the illustration. The $0.63 gap is the difference between a monthly rate and a 30-day daily rate, explained in the interest guide. A $40 minimum does not cover $45.98 of interest, so this particular card would need a higher payment before the calculator can show a payoff date.
The credit limit, the rewards balance, the cash-advance limit, and the "available credit" line are not inputs. The payment due date matters in real life and is ignored by the model, which treats every month as a full cycle.
After the numbers are in
Run both strategies if you have more than one debt. If the interest totals are close, read why that happens. If you want to see what a larger fixed payment does, change only the extra field and keep the rows still, which is the setup in the extra-payment table.