Compare Loan Offers Side by Side: Payment, Interest, APR and Total Cost

You have three offers for the same $20,000. A bank wants $497.70 a month, a car dealer $500.00, an online lender only $424.94. The lowest payment looks like the obvious choice, yet over its life that loan costs $1,496.45 more than the cheapest offer. And the offer with the least interest is not the cheapest either, because it charges a $400 processing fee.

Each number answers a different question. The monthly payment tells you what fits your budget. Total interest tells you the price before fees. The APR tells you the price per year once fees are included. The total cost tells you how much leaves your pocket in the end. When offers differ in rate, method, term and fees all at once, you need all four in one place.

Loan Calculator's Compare loans screen puts two or three saved loans in one table and highlights the lowest total interest and the lowest APR, so you can see at a glance where the offers disagree.

What should you compare?

Before you sign, line up these numbers for every offer:

• First payment — what leaves your account in month 1. With equal payments it stays the same every month; with equal principal it is the highest payment of the loan.
• Total interest — interest only, before fees. A fair measure only when the offers charge the same fees over the same term.
• APR including fees — the yearly rate that links the money you actually receive to everything you pay back. It is the fairest single number when offers use different methods or charge fees. The true APR guide explains it step by step.
• Total cost including fees — every payment plus the processing fee and insurance. This is the cost in money, not in percent.
• Term — a longer term lowers the payment and usually raises the total. Compare like with like whenever the lender lets you choose.

Three $20,000 offers at a glance

Offer A is a bank loan at 9% a year with equal payments over 48 months and a 2% processing fee. Offer B is dealer finance at 5% flat over 48 months with no fees. Offer C is an online lender at 10% a year with equal payments over 60 months and no fees.

Three rows, three different winners. C has the lowest payment, A the lowest interest, and B the lowest APR and the lowest total cost. None of these answers is wrong; they answer different questions.

1. Monthly payment: the number that feels cheapest

Best for: checking that a loan fits your monthly budget, not deciding which loan is cheaper.

C's payment is $72.76 lower than A's and $75.06 lower than B's. It gets there by spreading the loan over 60 months instead of 48: twelve more payments, each of them carrying interest. C's total interest is $5,496.45. The same 10% loan over 48 months would cost $4,348.13, so $1,148.32 of C's interest comes from the extra year alone.

A lower payment is still worth something. It leaves room in a tight budget, and on a reducing-balance loan you can usually pay extra later when money allows. But it is a budget decision, not a price comparison. If the smaller payment is the only one that fits, take it knowingly — the table shows exactly what the extra year costs.

In the comparison table this row is called First payment. For equal-payment loans it is the monthly payment; for equal-principal and promo-rate loans the payment changes over time, so the first one is shown.

2. Total interest: the row the app highlights first

Best for: offers with the same fees and the same term, such as two banks quoting different rates for the same product.

The app marks the lowest Total interest in green. Here that is offer A at $3,889.61, which is $110.39 less than dealer offer B. If nothing else differed, A would win.

Total interest leaves out two things, though:

• Fees. A's $400 processing fee is not interest, so it never appears in this row.
• Time. A shorter loan almost always shows less interest, even at a higher rate, because you owe money for fewer months.

Offer B is a good reminder of why the headline rate misleads. "5% flat" sounds far cheaper than A's 9%, but flat interest is charged on the full $20,000 every month, even when you owe only a few hundred dollars. B's $4,000 of interest is higher than A's despite the lower number on the poster. The flat rate vs reducing balance guide explains why a flat rate is worth roughly 1.8 times its face value.

3. APR incl. fees and total cost: the fair tie-breakers

Best for: offers with a processing fee or insurance, or offers that use different interest methods.

APR incl. fees is the annual rate at which the money you receive equals everything you pay back. For offer A the 2% fee is taken at the start, so you receive $19,600 but repay the schedule of a $20,000 loan. That lifts A from 9% to 10.06%. B's flat 5% works out to 9.24%. C has no fees, so its APR stays at exactly 10.00%. The app marks the lowest APR in green — offer B.

Total cost incl. fees turns the same idea into money: all payments, plus the processing fee, plus insurance for every month. A costs $24,289.61, B $24,000.00 and C $25,496.45. This row appears only when at least one loan has fees, and it is not highlighted, so read it yourself.

How much does the fee matter? Keep A's rate and term and change only the processing fee:

On a four-year loan, each percentage point of fee adds a little more than half a point of APR. Offer A beats offer B only if its fee is below about $110 — a useful figure to have in hand when you ask the bank whether the fee can be reduced.

4. How to compare offers in Loan Calculator

Best for: turning three quotes on paper into one table in a few minutes.

1. On the Calculator tab, enter the first offer: Loan amount, Annual interest rate (%/year), Term and Interest method. For offer B, choose Flat rate and type 5.
2. If the offer has fees, open Advanced options, turn on Fees & insurance and fill in Processing fee (%) and Insurance (%/month). Without them, the APR simply equals the headline rate.
3. Tap Calculate, then Save loan, and give it a clear Loan name such as "Bank 9% + 2% fee".
4. Repeat for the other offers. The free version stores up to three loans — exactly what a three-way comparison needs. Pro removes the limit.
5. Open the Saved tab, tick two or three loans and tap Compare selected. With one or four ticked, the app reminds you to "Select 2–3 loans to compare".
6. The comparison is a Pro feature that you can also unlock for 24 hours with 1 credit. New installs start with 5 credits, and an optional rewarded video adds 1 more, up to 5 a day.

To keep the columns readable, the table shortens large amounts: $3,889.61 appears as 3.89K and $24,289.61 as 24.29K. Your saved loans and the comparison stay on your phone.

5. When the table cannot pick a winner

Best for: knowing the limits of any side-by-side comparison.

• Different currencies. The app has no exchange rates, so it never converts amounts. If the loans use different currencies, it shows a note that lists them, drops the green mark on total interest and asks you to compare the rate, term and APR instead.
• Different amounts. Total interest and total cost grow with the amount borrowed. If one lender offers $20,000 and another $18,000, compare the APR, or re-enter both offers with the same amount.
• Promo + floating loans. The rate appears as promo→floating, for example 6→10%. The schedule assumes the floating rate you typed holds for the rest of the term, so treat that loan's APR as an estimate.
• Different terms. As offer C shows, APR and total cost can disagree. Decide first which payment you can afford, then pick the lowest total cost among the offers that meet it.

Which offer should you choose?

The right offer depends on which constraint matters most to you. Start from your situation:

FAQ

Why is the loan with the lowest total interest not the cheapest?

Because total interest leaves out fees. In the example, offer A has $110.39 less interest than offer B but charges a $400 processing fee, so it costs $289.61 more in total. Read Total cost incl. fees whenever an offer has fees.

What do the green highlights mean?

The app marks the lowest Total interest and the lowest APR incl. fees. The total interest mark is turned off when the loans are in different currencies, because the amounts cannot be compared without converting them.

How many loans can I compare at once?

Two or three. Save each offer, tick them in Saved and tap Compare selected. The free version stores up to three loans; Pro stores as many as you like.

Is APR the same as the interest rate?

Only when there are no fees and interest is charged on the reducing balance. A flat rate or any fee pushes the APR above the headline rate: in the example, 5% flat became 9.24%, and 9% with a 2% fee became 10.06%.

Does comparing loans need an internet connection?

No. Loans are saved and compared on your phone, and the comparison table works with no connection at all.