Credit cards · 2026
How much do you have to pay to move the needle?
Utilisation is the fastest-moving part of a credit score and the only one you can change this month. The awkward part is that nobody tells you the number — you get a ratio and a vague instruction to keep it low, with no idea what the payment actually is.
So put in what each card owes and what each card allows. The answer comes back in dollars, per card and in total, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
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Your revolving accounts
Use the balance on the statement, not the one after you pay
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Where you stand
Enter a balance and a credit limit above and the numbers appear here. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
The two things this gets right that most do not
By Victor Gil Vazquez · Reviewed 2026-08-23
The first is showing the ratio on each card as well as the aggregate. Scoring models read both, and the common failure is a household with one nearly maxed card and a large unused limit somewhere else. The total looks fine; the card does not. A calculator that publishes one number tells that person the problem does not exist.
The second is not double-counting the payment. Paying down the worst card also lowers the aggregate, so the money needed to fix both is the larger of the two requirements rather than their sum. Adding them would ask you for hundreds of dollars you do not need to find, which is the kind of error that makes someone give up on the whole exercise.
What it deliberately does not do is predict a score. Nobody outside the scoring companies can turn a utilisation ratio into a number of points, and any calculator that claims to is guessing. This one tells you the ratio and the payment, which are both facts.
The timing detail worth knowing
Issuers generally report the balance shown on your statement. That means paying in full by the due date, every month, still reports whatever the balance happened to be on the statement date — which is how someone who has never carried a balance in their life shows 40% utilisation on a mortgage application.
The fix is to pay before the statement closes rather than before the due date, at least in the months that matter. The guide explains the full mechanism, including why closing an unused card moves this in the wrong direction.
Questions
- Which balance should I enter?
- The one on your statement, not the one after you pay it. Issuers usually report the statement balance to the credit bureaus, so that is the number the scoring model sees — which is why someone who pays in full every month can still show high utilisation.
- Why does it show a ratio per card as well as an overall one?
- Because scoring models look at both. One card at 90% is a problem even when everything together sits at 15%, and a calculator that published only the aggregate would tell that person there is nothing to fix. The per-card figure is usually the one worth acting on.
- Why is the amount to fix every card not the sum of the two totals?
- Because paying down a specific card also lowers the aggregate — the same dollar counts toward both requirements. Adding them would ask you for more money than the job needs, so the figure shown is the larger of the two, not their sum.
- Is 30% a rule?
- No. It is a widely repeated rule of thumb, not a threshold in any published scoring model, and there is no cliff at 29%. Lower is better all the way down, which is why the calculator also offers 10% — that is nearer where the highest scores actually sit.
- Does anything I type get sent anywhere?
- No. The arithmetic runs in your browser and the figures are stored only on your own device so the page remembers them. Our analytics records how many cards were entered and nothing else — no balance, no limit, no ratio.
- How fast does paying a card down change my score?
- Faster than almost anything else you can do. Utilisation has no memory: once the lower balance is reported, usually at the next statement, the ratio is simply lower. There is no benefit to a history of low utilisation the way there is with payment history.
Related reading
The ratio is one input. These explain what it is worth, and what to do about the balance underneath it.
- Credit Utilization: The Fastest-Moving Part of Your Credit ScoreHow much of your available credit you are using gets recalculated every month, which makes it the one score factor you can change quickly. It is also the one wrapped in the most confident misinformation — starting with the famous 30% rule.Guide · 5 min read
- Why a 700 Credit Score Isn't as Good as You Think700 sounds like a strong number because it looks like a school grade out of 100. On a scale that runs to 850 it is squarely mid-table — and the gap between mid-table and excellent is measured in the rate you are offered, every time you borrow.Guide · 4 min read
- 0% Balance Transfers: The Maths, the Fee, and the Mistake That Undoes ItA promotional balance transfer can save real money, and it does exactly one thing: it buys you months without interest. What it does not do is reduce what you owe — and spending on the card you just cleared is how people end up worse off than before.Guide · 6 min read