easyMcalc

Monthly instalmentsMethod checked 11 September 2026

Personal loan calculator

An estimate for information only, not financial advice. How the payment is worked out

Monthly payment $491.09/ a month Full schedule

The loan
The annual rate on the agreement, before any fee.
At most 50 years, or 600 months.
The fee
As a percentage of the amount borrowed. Lenders usually deduct it from the money they send you rather than billing for it.
A flat charge on top of the percentage, if the lender quotes one. Leave it at nothing if not.

The payment, the fee and what it all costs

Monthly payment $491.09 / a month

  • Amount borrowed $15,000
  • Interest $2,678.88
Monthly payment
$491.09
Time to clear it
3 years
Interest
$2,678.88
Total repaid
$17,678.88
Fee
$750
Money you actually receive
$14,250
Total cost of borrowing
$3,428.88
Rate including the fee
14.58%

The last payment is $490.73, because an instalment rounded to the cent cannot divide the balance exactly.

Paying the fee out of the money you receive makes this loan cost 14.58% a year rather than the 11% on the contract.

That figure covers the interest and the fee you typed in, and nothing else. It is not the annual percentage rate a lender has to disclose, which folds in charges this page never asks about and rounds by its own rules.

The fee is taken out of what reaches your account. You still owe the whole amount borrowed and still pay the instalment that repays it. If your lender adds the fee to the balance instead, type the total into the amount box.

Year by year

PeriodPaidInterestOff the balanceStill owed
Year 1$5,893.08$1,429.42$4,463.66$10,536.34
Year 2$5,893.08$912.88$4,980.20$5,556.14
Year 3$5,892.72$336.58$5,556.14$0

One line a year, with the balance as it stands at the end of it. The month by month version of the same loan is on the amortization page.

This page runs exactly the same arithmetic as the Business loan page. Only the wording and the starting figures differ. Business loan

The fee is the reason this page exists

An unsecured personal loan is priced by two numbers, and only one of them is advertised. The interest rate goes on the poster. The origination fee comes out of the money that reaches your account, and it is what turns a rate you agreed to into a cost you did not.

The arithmetic is unforgiving on short terms. A fee is paid once, at the start, whatever the term; spread over three years it adds far more to the annual cost than the same fee spread over ten. That is why two loans at the same quoted rate can cost meaningfully different amounts, and why comparing rates alone is not comparing loans.

The page prints what the borrowing really costs a year once the fee is counted. That figure is the rate at which the money you actually receive, and the payments you actually make, balance out.

Where the fee sits

The convention here is the common one: the fee is deducted from the proceeds. You still owe the whole amount borrowed and you still pay the instalment that repays it, and what lands in your account is less.

Some lenders add the fee to the balance instead, so that you borrow it and pay interest on it. That costs more, and the way to price it here is to put the total, loan plus fee, into the amount field. The payment will be the larger one you would actually be charged.

Either way, the amount you need and the amount you should borrow are not the same number. Needing a round sum after a fee of a few per cent means borrowing more than that sum.

What that rate is, and what it is not

It is worked out from the real cash flows: the net amount arriving today, and every scheduled payment leaving after it, on a monthly grid. The search that finds it is the same one the IRR calculator uses, to the nearest ten-thousandth of a per cent.

It is not the annual percentage rate a lender is required to disclose. Those are defined by regulation, in the United States by Regulation Z and in the European Union by the consumer credit directives, and each folds a specified list of charges into the figure and rounds by its own rules. This page contains exactly the interest and the fees you typed in. Where the lender's disclosed figure is higher, the difference is charges this page never asked about.

What a personal loan brings that this page leaves out

Rates are set by credit assessment, so the rate you are offered can differ from the rate advertised and the difference is the point of the application. Nothing here estimates it, and no calculator honestly can.

Also absent: payment protection insurance sold alongside the loan, late fees, the effect of a missed payment, early repayment charges where they exist, and any variable rate. The schedule assumes a fixed rate paid as agreed.

Common questions

How much should I borrow if I need a specific amount in hand?

More than the amount, by enough to cover the fee. Raise the amount borrowed and work it out again until the money you actually receive matches what you need. Two or three attempts get there, because the fee moves with the amount.

Is a longer term cheaper?

The payment is smaller and the total is never smaller. At a rate of nothing they are the same money spread thinner; at any real rate the total grows with every extra year. A longer term also dilutes the fee across more of them, so the annual cost including the fee falls even as the money you hand over rises. Those two facts pull in opposite directions and both are on this page.

Is this the same as the business loan page?

Yes. It is the same calculation with different wording and different starting figures, and saying so is more useful than pretending otherwise. Use whichever page reads like your situation.

Why does the last payment differ from the rest?

Because a level payment rounded to the cent cannot divide a balance exactly. The last instalment collects what is left, which is almost always slightly less.

Is anything I type stored?

No. The calculation happens on the server as part of rendering the page, nothing is written down, and the access log for this site drops the query string precisely so that the numbers you enter are never recorded.

Sources

This is a formula tool: the arithmetic is the schedule below and nothing on this page was read from a table. These are the documents defining the regulated rates it deliberately does not compute:

How the payment is worked out

Monthly instalments. Interest for a month is the balance times the annual rate divided by twelve, rounded to the nearest minor unit in a single step, so a monthly rate is never formed on its own. The instalment is the smallest amount that clears the balance within the term, which usually leaves a last payment a little smaller than the rest. Solving for a term instead runs the same schedule with the payment you gave and counts the instalments it takes.

The rate including the fee is the rate at which the money you actually receive, and the payments you actually make, balance out. It is found by the same search the IRR calculator uses, on the same monthly grid, to the nearest ten-thousandth of a per cent.

The rate it prints includes the interest and the fees you typed in and nothing else, so it is not the APR or APRC a lender has to disclose: those fold in charges this page never asks about.