Two strategies, one monthly budget
Snowball and avalanche both work the same way mechanically: you pay the minimum on every debt, then throw every spare dollar at one target debt until it’s gone, then roll that payment into the next target. The only difference between them is which debt gets picked first. Snowball picks the smallest balance. Avalanche picks the highest interest rate. Same total monthly budget, same mechanism, different order — and that order changes both how fast you finish and how much you pay in interest along the way.
Why avalanche almost always costs less
Avalanche targets the debt bleeding you the most in interest first, so it minimizes total interest paid by mathematical construction — there’s no scenario where snowball beats it on total cost, only ties. The comparison above shows exactly how much more avalanche saves on your specific numbers. On debts with similar rates, the gap is small. On a mix of high-rate credit cards and a low-rate car loan or student loan, the gap can be substantial.
Why people still choose snowball anyway
Personal finance isn’t only a math problem. Snowball’s real advantage is behavioral: knocking out an entire debt — getting an account to zero and closing it out — produces a concrete win early, which for a lot of people is what keeps the plan alive past month three. If avalanche’s mathematically optimal path takes 18 months to close the first account and you know from experience that you lose motivation without visible progress, the “worse” math might still be the better real-world plan. That’s not you being bad at math. That’s you understanding your own follow-through.
What the payoff order table is actually showing you
The table above lists every debt you entered with two independent orderings — which one gets attacked first, second, third under each strategy, and roughly when each one hits zero. Look at cases where the orders diverge sharply: a debt that’s small but low-interest gets deprioritized fast under avalanche, while a debt that’s large but high-interest gets deprioritized under snowball. Those are the debts where your choice of strategy matters most.
The extra payment is the real lever
Regardless of which strategy you pick, the size of your extra monthly payment matters more than which debt it’s aimed at first. Doubling your extra payment typically cuts years off the payoff timeline; switching between snowball and avalanche on the same extra payment usually changes the timeline by a much smaller margin. If you’re deciding where to find more money in your budget versus which debt to target first, the first decision generally matters more.
A note on what this doesn’t model
This calculator assumes your extra payment amount stays constant every month and that you don’t add new debt while paying these off. It also doesn’t account for balance transfer offers, debt consolidation loans, or promotional 0% APR periods — all of which can change the math significantly if they’re available to you. If your minimums plus extra payment don’t cover the interest accruing on your balances, the calculator will warn you directly rather than showing a payoff date that will never actually happen.
This article is for educational purposes only and isn't legal, financial, or tax advice. See our Disclaimer for details.
