Enter your starting deposit, monthly contribution, rate, and compounding frequency to project your balance over time.
Holding this page's own default deposit schedule fixed — $2,000 to start, $150 a month, 4% for 10 years — and changing only the compounding frequency: monthly compounding finishes at $25,069, quarterly at $25,050, and annual at $24,965. The gap between the best and worst of those is $104 — real money, but a small fraction of the $5,000-plus in total interest earned. Frequency matters more the higher the rate and the longer the horizon; it rarely decides where to bank.
Holding the deposit schedule fixed again and changing only the rate: a traditional 0.5% APY earns $556 in interest over the same 10 years, while a 4.5% high-yield rate earns $5,814 — more than ten times as much, from an account that works exactly the same way and holds the same $20,000 in deposits. Compounding frequency is worth chasing after the rate is already competitive, not instead of it.
This page runs its month-by-month simulation the same way regardless of whether compounding is monthly, quarterly, or annual — it converts whichever frequency is selected into an equivalent monthly rate first: (1 + annual rate ÷ frequency)frequency ÷ 12 − 1. For monthly compounding that reduces to the simple annual-rate-divided-by-12 most people expect; for quarterly or annual compounding it correctly captures the extra compounding that happens between deposits, rather than just splitting the annual rate evenly across twelve months regardless of how it actually compounds — the Compound Interest Calculator runs the same underlying compounding math for a lump sum with no regular deposits added.
More frequent compounding means interest gets added to your balance sooner, so it starts earning interest on itself sooner too. At the same nominal annual rate, monthly compounding will always produce a slightly higher balance than quarterly, and quarterly slightly higher than annual — though for typical savings-account rates the difference between frequencies is usually small in dollar terms over a few years, growing more noticeable the longer the money sits and the higher the rate.
Traditional brick-and-mortar bank savings accounts have often paid well under 1% APY regardless of broader rate conditions, while online-only high-yield savings accounts have historically paid several percentage points more since they carry lower overhead. Rates on both move with the broader interest-rate environment, so it's worth checking current offers rather than assuming any single number holds indefinitely.
Savings accounts are the right tool for money you need to keep safe, liquid, and stable in value — an emergency fund, or savings for a purchase in the next year or two — since the balance doesn't fluctuate with markets. Investing tends to suit longer time horizons (retirement, a goal 10+ years out) where you can ride out short-term market swings in exchange for a higher expected long-run return. See the Investment Calculator to model that side of the equation separately.
Yes. If your savings account's rate is lower than the inflation rate — which has often been the case for standard savings accounts — your balance still grows in dollar terms, but it loses purchasing power in real terms, meaning it buys less than it would have today. Use the Inflation Calculator, a companion tool, to see concretely how a given inflation rate erodes value over time.
Worked example: starting with a $2,000 deposit, adding $150 every month, at a 4% annual rate compounded monthly for 10 years, the balance grows to roughly $25,069. Total deposited over that period is $2,000 + ($150 × 120 months) = $20,000, so interest earned comes to about $5,069 — a meaningful boost, though far less dramatic than what the same monthly amount could earn in a higher-return, longer-horizon investment account instead.
Rates worth knowing about right now: the Fed's year-long hold and what it means for savers, the ECB's June 2026 rate hike, why African central banks are moving in opposite directions, and the Bank of Canada's latest hold at 2.25%. Working out your Zakat on savings? See the Zakat Calculator. Rates staying high is good news for savers — the Fed just held for a fifth time, with three officials pushing to go higher.