Calculators / Mortgage vs Invest
Mortgage Payoff vs Invest
You have some spare cash each month. Do you throw it at the mortgage to be debt-free sooner, or invest it and let the market compound? This compares both paths month by month and shows which one leaves you richer. Everything runs in your browser.
The extra goes either toward the mortgage (paying it off early, then investing what you were paying) or straight into investments. Same money, two paths.
Pay down mortgage · Invest instead · the gap
How this works
Both paths use the same monthly budget: your normal mortgage payment plus the extra. Pay down: the extra is added to every mortgage payment until the loan is gone, then the whole amount (payment + extra) is invested for the rest of the term. Invest instead: you make the normal payment and invest only the extra from day one.
At each point, net worth is your investment pot − remaining mortgage balance, so the debt you still owe counts against you. Paying down comes out ahead when your mortgage rate is high relative to expected returns; investing comes out ahead when the market is expected to out-earn the interest you'd save.
Simplifications: constant rate and return, monthly compounding, taxes and fees ignored, no early-payoff penalties. Illustrative, not advice.
Illustration only. Accuracy not guaranteed. A simplified model for education, not financial advice and not a recommendation to choose one option over another. Which comes out ahead depends entirely on the assumptions you enter. See the disclaimer.