How it works
What the calculator counts, and what it leaves out.
Pick a card and the calculator lists every credit and benefit it gives each year, next to its annual fee. It uses the same card data as the MoneyRoom app, with a note on any detail still pending final verification. Nothing counts until you tap it, because a credit you'd never use shouldn't cancel out a fee you pay every year. Tap a line to count its full yearly amount, or open its terms to enter what you'd really get from it.
The result is one year's total: the credits and benefits you counted, minus the fee. A plus number means what you counted beats the fee. A minus number is how much the card's other perks — points, lounge access, status, protections — would need to be worth to you to break even.
What we leave out on purpose
- Welcome bonuses and one-time credits. They pay once, but the fee comes every year. The calculator shows a normal year — year two and after.
- Credits that come every few years. A credit paid once every four years counts as a quarter of its amount each year, not the full amount every year.
- Interest. The calculator measures rewards, not the cost of borrowing. If you carry a balance, no annual-fee card is a good deal.
- Perks with no fair dollar value. Lounge access, elite status, free-night certificates and insurance show $0 until you add your own number, because we can't know how often you'd use them.
Three examples at typical use
The Card Score pages (our 0–10 rating of each card) use published discounts to estimate what a typical cardholder might get back, because few people use every credit in full: monthly deadlines, enrollments, and credits that only work through the card's own travel site get in the way. These figures are estimates from that method, not real customer results. Face value means each credit's full amount.
$526 of credits and benefits at face value, about $366 at typical use, against a $95 fee — +$271 a year, so it clears the fee.
$330 of credits and benefits at face value, about $372 at typical use, against a $395 fee — −$23 a year, so it comes close — worth deciding whether to keep it or switch to a cheaper card.
Summit Reserve World Elite Mastercard
$453 of credits and benefits at face value, about $278 at typical use, against a $295 fee — −$17 a year, so it comes close — worth deciding whether to keep it or switch to a cheaper card.
Before you cancel a card
The annual fee is charged around the date you opened the card. Most card issuers will move you to a no-fee card in the same family (a “product change”) instead of closing the account. Run the numbers here first, then check your card agreement for the issuer's refund window and product-change rules. Those terms, not this page, have the final say.
Every credit here resets on a schedule: monthly, quarterly, twice a year, yearly, or on your card anniversary. The statement-credit reset calendar shows when; the methodology page shows how we estimate typical use. MoneyRoom takes no affiliate commissions and has no application links, so the math has no reason to flatter a card.