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ToolBoxGenie

Loan Calculator

Calculators · Added 6 July 2026

A loan has four moving parts — amount, rate, term and payment. Fix any three and the fourth is determined. This calculator lets you solve for whichever one you do not know, which makes it useful for affordability questions as well as straightforward repayment maths.

Solve for
%
years

How to use the loan calculator

  1. 1Choose what you want to solve for: monthly payment, loan amount, or term.
  2. 2Fill in the remaining three values.
  3. 3Read the result along with total interest and total cost.
  4. 4Expand the schedule to see the balance falling month by month.

Examples

Solving for payment

Input
Borrow 600,000 at 11% for 5 years
Result
Payment 13,045/month · Total interest 182,727

Solving for affordability

Input
I can pay 20,000/month at 9% for 7 years
Result
Maximum loan about 1,243,000

About the loan calculator

The total cost line is the one that matters

Loan marketing is built around the monthly payment, because it is the number that fits a household budget. It is also the number most easily manipulated: stretch the term far enough and almost any amount becomes 'affordable'.

Total cost tells the real story. The same 600,000 borrowed at 11% costs about 182,760 in interest over five years and roughly 383,000 over ten. The monthly figure drops by a third; the amount you hand over rises by more than double the difference.

Secured versus unsecured borrowing

Secured loans are backed by an asset the lender can seize, which lowers their risk and therefore your rate. Mortgages and car loans sit here, usually in the single digits. Unsecured borrowing — personal loans, credit cards, overdrafts — has no such backstop and prices accordingly.

The gap is large enough that consolidating expensive unsecured debt into a secured facility can save a great deal of money, but it converts a debt that could at worst damage your credit file into one that could cost you your home. That trade-off deserves more thought than the interest saving alone suggests.

Frequently asked questions

How much can I borrow on a given monthly budget?
Switch the calculator to 'loan amount' mode and enter your affordable payment, the rate and the term. Lenders will usually cap total debt payments at 40 to 50 percent of gross income, so check your figure against that ceiling as well.
What is the difference between the interest rate and the APR?
The interest rate covers only the cost of the money. The APR folds in mandatory fees — processing, documentation, compulsory insurance — and expresses the whole thing as a single annual figure. Two loans at the same rate can have very different APRs, which is why the APR is the number to compare.
Should I choose a longer term for a smaller payment?
Only if the shorter term genuinely does not fit your budget. Extending a term lowers each payment but raises total interest, sometimes dramatically, because the balance accrues charges for longer. Run both and compare the total cost line, not just the monthly figure.

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