Calculator
True-Cost Calculator
Two numbers turn an advertised price into what you actually pay: how many billing cycles that price covers, and how often you're actually billed. Enter your own quote below and see the arithmetic, step by step.
Calculator
What you're actually charged for the offer — a single cycle, or the lump sum for a prepay.
Enter 1 if it's a single cycle with no commitment, or the number of cycles a prepay requires — e.g. 3 for a 3-month prepay.
Many providers charge more per cycle once a prepay commitment ends. Enter that rate if the provider states it, for a more realistic first-year total.
Enter the price, the cycles it covers, and pick a billing cycle length above to see the result.
The two numbers that hide a real price
Prepay read as monthly
A 3, 6, or 12-month prepay total gets divided by the term and printed with a “/mo” suffix, so a rate that only exists if you pay for months at once reads as the price of one. The first field above does that division for you, honestly labeled as an amortized rate rather than a real single-cycle price.
Twelve charges assumed, thirteen billed
A plan billed every 4 weeks — 28 days — charges 13 times in a year, not 12, because 52 weeks divided by 4 is 13. A whole extra payment sits between the headline monthly figure and what actually leaves your account over twelve months.
Both are named and worked in full, against live prices, on our methodology page. This tool lets you run the same two operations on a quote of your own.
How the math works
Price per cycle, amortized = the price you were quoted ÷ the number of billing cycles it covers. If it covers one cycle with no commitment, this is just the quoted price. If it's a 3-month prepay, this spreads that lump sum evenly across the three cycles it buys.
Projected year = that per-cycle price × the number of times you're actually billed in a year — 12 for calendar-month billing, 13 for every-4-weeks billing.
Realistic first-year total, only shown when you supply a renewal rate = the commitment price, plus the remaining cycles in the year charged at that renewal rate. Without a renewal rate, the tool has no basis to guess what happens after the commitment ends, so it doesn't.
What this calculator does not tell you
Key terms
- Walk-away price
- What a reader actually pays per cycle if they stop after fulfilling the minimum commitment — a fact about a specific provider's pricing, not something this calculator can derive for you.
- Amortized rate
- A lump-sum prepay price spread evenly across the cycles it covers. What this calculator computes from your first two fields.
- Billing cycle
- How often you're actually charged. “Monthly” usually means the calendar month (12 charges a year); “every 4 weeks” means 13.
- True annual cost
- Price per cycle multiplied by the number of times you're actually billed in a year, not by 12 out of habit.
This tool performs arithmetic only. It is not financial advice, and it does not know any specific provider's pricing beyond what you enter. Repeat this calculation with the provider's own published terms before you commit to a plan.