Free Credit Card Rewards Cost-Benefit Calculator

Many people love the "cashback" or other rewards they they can earn by using a credit card. Credit card companies offer these programs because they know, in the aggregate, they will lead to higher credit card use. But carrying a balance on your credit card quickly erodes the value of any rewards that might be earned by using the card. Use this calculator to guage the cost of paying interest on a credit card balance against the benefit of earning rewards. The calculator assumes that the monthly balance you carry remains relatively constant. If you let this balance grow, the net value of any rewards is diminished further.