Real Cost

Every loan has two numbers: the one they quote you, and the one you end up paying. This app is about the second one.

Before you sign

The rate is not the price. Put in the amount, the rate and the fees, and see what the loan actually costs you: the monthly payment, the real cost with the fees included, and what the whole thing adds up to over the years.

It also reads the paperwork. Open the Closing Disclosure your lender emailed, or photograph the page, and Real Cost pulls out the amount borrowed, the rate, the payment and the APR. If those numbers do not add up — and sometimes they do not — it tells you instead of guessing.

While you are paying

Put the mortgage, the car, the card and the student loan in one place and see them together: what you still owe, how many payments are left, and the number nobody puts on screen — how much of everything you have already paid was interest rather than debt.

Log each payment with the date you really paid it, get a reminder a few days before the next one is due, and see what $100 more a month would do.

What it costs

The calculator is free forever, and so is tracking your first debt. One payment of $4.99 unlocks tracking more than one debt, payment reminders and reading your lender's paperwork.

No subscription, no account, and no ads — not one.