High-Yield Savings Calculator
What a high APY really earns you versus a regular account.
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How this calculator works
The gap between a regular savings account (often 0.01–0.5% APY) and a high-yield account (4%+) is one of the easiest wins in personal finance: same FDIC insurance, same liquidity, wildly different interest. This high-yield savings calculator quantifies it for your situation. Enter your deposit, both APYs, a monthly addition and the timeline, and it projects each balance year by year, showing the interest each earns and the extra dollars the high-yield account puts in your pocket.
The "extra earned" number is the whole pitch: on $10,000 with $500 monthly deposits over five years, the difference between 0.5% and 4.5% is thousands of dollars for about twenty minutes of work opening an account. High-yield accounts are typically online banks with lower overhead; your money stays FDIC-insured up to the legal limits, and transfers to your checking take a day or two. Rates move with the Fed, so the APY will drift over time, but the spread over brick-and-mortar accounts has persisted for decades. Park your emergency fund and short-term goals here; money you will not touch for years belongs in investments instead.