Personal Loan Calculator (Payment, Interest and APR with Fees)
Monthly payment and total interest on a personal loan, and the true APR once an origination fee is taken out of the money you receive.
Inputs
- Principal$10,000(84%)
- Interest$1,957(16%)
| Year | Principal paid | Interest paid | Balance |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $2,944 | $1,042 | $7,056 |
| 2 | $3,318 | $668 | $3,738 |
| 3 | $3,738 | $247 | $0.00 |
- Total interest payable
- $1,957
- Total payment
- $11,957
- Loan amount
- $10,000
- Term
- 3 years (36 payments)
- Monthly rate (r)
- 12% ÷ 12 = 1%
- Working
- (1 + r)^36 = 1.4308; payment = loan × r × 1.4308 ÷ 0.4308 = loan × 0.033214
- Interest as a share of all payments
- 16%
Use this calculator on your own site
Free embed
- Two lines of HTML, unlimited views
- Shows a small CalculateEveryday bar, with a credit link under the calculator
What each Personal Loan input means
- Loan amount
- The loan amount on the offer, before any fee is taken out.
- Interest rate (annual)
- The interest rate the lender quotes (sometimes called the note rate). If you only have an APR that already includes the fee, enter it here and leave the fee at 0.
- Tenure
- Loan length in months — 36 or 60 are common.
- Origination fee (optional)
- Origination or processing fee as a percentage of the loan, if it is deducted from the money you receive. Leave at 0 if there is none.
Personal Loan formula
Payment = P × r × (1 + r)^n / ((1 + r)^n − 1) · APR with a fee: the rate at which the same payments repay only P − fee
A personal loan is an unsecured, fixed-rate loan repaid in equal monthly payments, so the payment comes from the standard loan formula: P is the amount borrowed, r is the annual rate divided by 12 and n is the number of months, usually 12 to 84. Because there is no collateral, rates run higher than on mortgages or car loans. Many lenders also charge an origination fee — often a few percent — and take it out of the loan before paying you, so you repay the full amount on less cash. Regulation Z, the US Truth in Lending rule, treats that fee as a prepaid finance charge that must be counted in the APR. The page does the same: it finds the annual rate at which your monthly payments would exactly repay the cash you actually receive, and shows it beside the quoted rate. That APR is the figure to compare between lenders, because a lower rate with a big fee can cost more than a higher rate with none.
Personal Loan worked example
Borrowing $10,000 at 12% over 3 years: r = 1% a month and (1.01)^36 = 1.4308, so the payment is 10,000 × 0.01 × 1.4308 ÷ 0.4308, about $332 a month. Total repayment is near $11,957, with $1,957 in interest — 16% of everything paid.
More Personal Loan examples
A $15,000 loan at 11% for 48 months costs $388 a month. With a 5% origination fee of $750 deducted, only $14,250 reaches your account, and the APR on that cash works out at 13.76% — almost three points above the quoted rate.
Where the Personal Loan calculator can give the wrong answer
- If the fee is added to the loan instead of deducted, you borrow more on the same terms: enter the loan plus the fee as the amount and 0 as the fee.
- Prepayment penalties vary by lender; this assumes a fixed rate, no prepayments and no missed payments.
- A 'flat rate' quote charges interest on the original amount for the whole term and is much more expensive than the same number as a reducing-balance rate. Enter the APR from the loan agreement, not a flat headline rate.
- The APR here includes only the origination fee. Required insurance or other charges would raise it further.
- Lenders round payments to the cent and adjust the last one, so figures can differ by a few cents.
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Personal Loan reference table
| Rate | 24 months | 36 months | 60 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8% | 452 | 313 | 203 |
| 12% | 471 | 332 | 222 |
| 16% | 490 | 352 | 243 |
| 20% | 509 | 372 | 265 |
| 24% | 529 | 392 | 288 |
Personal Loan FAQ
- Use payment = P × r × (1 + r)^n ÷ ((1 + r)^n − 1). For $8,000 at 15% over 24 months: r = 0.0125, (1.0125)^24 = 1.3474, payment = 8,000 × 0.0125 × 1.3474 ÷ 0.3474 = $387.89.
- The interest rate sets your payment. The APR also counts fees charged to get the loan, spread over its life, so it shows the real yearly cost; US lenders must disclose it under the Truth in Lending rules. With no fees, the two are the same.
- More than its size suggests, because you pay interest on money you never received. A 5% fee on a four-year loan at 11% lifts the APR to about 13.8%; on a shorter loan the same fee raises the APR even more.
- Personal loans charge more because they're unsecured, and their terms are far shorter. $10,000 over 30 years at 6.5% would cost about $63 a month; over 3 years at 12% it is $332.
- It can be, if the APR is well below the cards' and you stop adding to the card balances. The credit-card payoff calculator shows what the cards cost at their own rate, for comparison with the loan's total interest here.