Is the loan calculator free?
Yes. It is completely free to use, with no signup, no account, and no paywall.
How accurate are the results?
The calculator uses the standard formulas for this kind of math, but real-world results can differ once fees, rounding, rate changes, and provider-specific rules come into play. Treat the output as a planning estimate, not a quote.
Does it stay local?
Yes. The numbers you enter are processed entirely in your browser and never leave your device.
Should I enter the interest rate or the APR?
Enter the note rate if you want the payment your lender will actually charge, since that is what the payment is computed from. Enter the APR if you are comparing two offers with different fees, because APR bundles origination costs and points into a single comparable number. The two produce different payments, and the difference is the fee.
Is the rate I type an annual or a monthly figure?
Annual. The tool divides it by 12 to get a monthly periodic rate, which means 6% becomes 0.5% a month. Because that 0.5% compounds twelve times, the effective annual rate is 6.17%, slightly above the number you typed.
Can I see the month-by-month amortization schedule?
No. The tool returns the monthly payment, the total paid, and the total interest, and it does not break the loan down period by period or export a table.
What happens if I enter 0 as the interest rate?
The formula would divide by zero, so the code branches and returns amount / months instead. A 20000 interest-free loan over 5 years shows a payment of 333.33 and zero total interest.
What is the monthly payment on a 20000 loan at 6 percent for 5 years?
386.66. Total paid is 23199.36 and total interest is 3199.36. Those are the defaults on the page, so you can open it and read the three lines without typing anything.
How much of my first payment goes to interest?
On 20000 at 6 percent, 100.00 of the 386.66 first payment is interest and 286.66 reduces the balance. Interest is charged on the outstanding balance, so the interest share shrinks every month while the payment stays level.
Does a longer term save money?
It lowers the payment and raises the cost. On 20000 at 6 percent, going from 3 years to 7 years drops the monthly payment from 608.44 to 292.17 but lifts total interest from 1903.79 to 4542.37. You are renting the money for longer, so you pay for longer.
Is this the same as a personal loan or auto loan calculator?
The math is the same amortization formula for any fixed-rate installment loan, so a personal loan, an auto loan, and a student loan all work here. The Car Payment Calculator adds a down payment field, and the Student Loan Calculator labels the term as a repayment period, if you prefer the fields named for the job.
Why does typing 20,000 with a comma give me a strange answer?
Each field is read with a plain number parse, which rejects thousands separators and currency symbols. A comma makes the entry unreadable and the field falls back to 0. Type 20000 with digits and a decimal point only.
Is the result a quote I can rely on?
No. It is an estimate. Lenders add origination fees, insurance, or documentation charges, sometimes financing them into the balance, and they apply their own rounding and payment-date conventions. Use the number to compare offers and budget, and rely on the lender paperwork for the binding figure.
Why does my lender quote a different payment?
Usually because the lender is amortizing a slightly different principal. Origination fees, insurance, or a documentation charge are often financed into the loan, which raises the balance the payment is computed on. The formula itself is the same one every lender uses.