Savings Goal Calculator

A savings goal calculator for any target: an emergency fund, a house deposit, a car, a holiday. Use it to work out how long to save: enter your current balance, your goal, what you can put away each period and the rate your account pays, and it works out the time. The rate is the number most people get wrong, and there is a section below on how it is actually set.

Want a more accurate result?

Calculator results are estimates only. The rate your account really pays depends on conditions you have to meet each month, and a broker can confirm the numbers against your actual situation.
Free. No obligation. Takes 2 minutes

What this calculator is modelling

This tool models compound growth on a savings balance: a starting amount, a regular deposit added each period, interest applied to the running balance, and a target that stops the clock. That shape is the same whether the goal is a house deposit, a wedding, a car or six months of expenses set aside. What differs between them is the size of the target, not the arithmetic.

Four inputs drive the answer, and they do not carry equal weight.

Your starting balance

What you already have set aside. It shortens the timeline directly, dollar for dollar, and it also starts earning interest from month one rather than accumulating slowly. The most reliable of the four inputs, because you can verify it today.

Your regular deposit

The amount you add each week, fortnight or month. On most realistic goals this is the input that moves the timeline more than any other, and it is the one you control outright. Consistency matters more here than size.

The interest rate

What the account pays on the running balance. Easy to type in, hard to get right, because the number advertised and the number paid are usually not the same. This is the input the section below deals with.

The compounding frequency

How often interest is calculated and added back. Most Australian savings accounts calculate daily and pay monthly. The effect is real but small next to the other three.
Three of those four you can state accurately from your own bank statements. The fourth, the rate, is where nearly every savings projection quietly goes wrong, because the figure on the advertisement is not the figure that lands in the account. What this page can do is explain the one number inside the calculation that catches people out.

The rate, and who actually decides it

The advertised rate on an Australian savings account is usually two numbers added together. Raise the part you actually receive and the timeline shortens. Lose it and the timeline stretches, sometimes by months.

One part of it is fixed no matter what. That is the base rate. Everything above it is conditional, and the conditions reset every single month.

The reasoning is straightforward from the bank’s side. A bonus paid only to customers who keep depositing and stop withdrawing is a bonus that costs less to fund, because a meaningful share of customers will miss it in any given month. The structure is disclosed, it is legal, and it is the reason a projection built on the headline number drifts from reality by month five.
What the account actually pays, in any given month

= base rate + ( bonus rate, only if every condition was met that month )

Conditions vary by product and are set out in the product disclosure statement. Typical ones are a minimum monthly deposit, no withdrawals, and a closing balance higher than the opening balance.
Two things about that formula are worth pausing on.

First, it resolves monthly, not annually. One missed condition does not reduce the bonus for that month, it removes it entirely for that month, and a year with four missed months is not a year at the advertised rate.

Second, and this is where most published advice goes wrong, the base rate on many high-headline accounts is close to zero. Not a couple of points lower. Close to zero.

What each rate actually does to the timeline

Advice about savings accounts almost always stops at telling you a higher rate is better. It rarely says how much better, which is the only part that helps you decide whether chasing a rate is worth the paperwork.

The five cards below answer that. Every figure is the time to reach a $50,000 goal starting from $10,000, at five different monthly deposits, calculated from the compounding formula rather than quoted from anywhere. Read down a card to see what saving harder does. Read across the cards to see what a better rate does.

Base rate only, 0.5 per cent

$500  6 yr 7 mo
$750  4 yr 5 mo
$1,000  3 yr 4 mo
$1,500  2 yr 3 mo
$2,000  1 yr 8 mo

every bonus condition missed

2.5 per cent

$500  6 yr
$750  4 yr 2 mo
$1,000  3 yr 2 mo
$1,500  2 yr 2 mo
$2,000  1 yr 8 mo

the figure this calculator is pre-filled with

4.0 per cent

$500  5 yr 8 mo
$750  4 yr
$1,000  3 yr 1 mo
$1,500  2 yr 2 mo
$2,000  1 yr 8 mo

a fair no-conditions ongoing rate

5.0 per cent

$500  5 yr 5 mo
$750  3 yr 10 mo
$1,000  3 yr
$1,500  2 yr 1 mo
$2,000  1 yr 7 mo

a bonus rate, conditions met every month

5.85 per cent

$500  5 yr 3 mo
$750  3 yr 9 mo
$1,000  3 yr
$1,500  2 yr 1 mo
$2,000  1 yr 7 mo

an introductory rate, first four months only
Read across the $500 row. Losing every bonus month costs you sixteen months. Read down any single card instead and doubling the deposit from $500 to $1,000 saves you well over three years. On this goal, at these amounts, what you put in beats what the bank pays you, and it is not close.

That is worth knowing before you spend a weekend comparing accounts. Chase the rate second. Fix the deposit first. The figures in these cards are the compounding formula applied at representative rates to show the pattern, not an offer of any particular account or rate.

Worked example: what the tax office takes

The figures below are illustrative and are not a rate offer, a quote, or tax advice. They show how the arithmetic behaves.

Take $10,000 saved, a $50,000 goal, $1,000 a month, at an assumed 5.0 per cent. The goal is reached in 3 years, with $4,368 of that total coming from interest rather than from you.

Interest on an Australian savings account is assessable income, taxed at your marginal rate plus the Medicare levy. Using the 2026 to 2027 brackets:

On the 15 per cent bracket, 17 combined
You keep about $3,625. Effective yield 4.15 rather than 5.0.

On the 30 per cent bracket, 32 combined
You keep about $2,970. Effective yield 3.40.

On the 45 per cent bracket, 47 combined
You keep about $2,315. Effective yield 2.65.

The timeline does not change, because the calculator compounds the gross figure. What changes is that a top-bracket saver keeps roughly $2,053 less of the same interest than someone on the lowest bracket, on identical deposits.
This is why a savings projection quoted to the dollar is worth less than it looks. The rate drives the interest, the interest is taxed before you ever touch it, and neither the advertised rate nor the calculator accounts for that.

What the calculator does not show you

A timeline is one input into a savings plan. These are the others, and every one of them can move the answer.

Inflation shrinks the target itself

The calculator holds your dollar target fixed. Purchasing power does not sit still. A $50,000 goal reached in three years buys less than $50,000 buys today, and on a house deposit the thing you are saving toward may have moved faster than the target did. Worth building in on anything beyond a couple of years.

So are the bonus conditions

A pay that lands a day late, one withdrawal for an emergency, or a balance that closes lower than it opened can drop a whole month to the base rate. It rarely announces itself, and it usually surfaces on a statement weeks later. This is the main reason the rate you type in is a rate question second and a behaviour question first.

Balance caps and fees are usually absent too

Many high-rate accounts pay the bonus only up to a balance cap, and some charge a monthly fee once a promotional period ends. A simple rate and deposit calculator has nowhere to put either. You have to read the product disclosure statement yourself, and it is worth doing before you move any money.

The rate itself does not hold still

Savings rates move with the Reserve Bank cash rate and with each bank’s own competitive position. The number you enter today is not locked in across the years this projection runs. On longer goals, that deserves a recheck every few months rather than a single calculation at the start.

Before you compare accounts

Most savings calculators stop at a timeline. Ask each account for its base rate, its bonus rate, every condition attached to the bonus, the balance cap, and any fee that starts once a promotional period ends. Then run them side by side on the same deposit. A headline rate on its own tells you almost nothing until the base rate behind it is on the table.
Related tools on this site: the how much to deposit calculator, which answers the same question from the other direction, and the borrowing power calculator.
See how interest on interest builds over time with the compound interest calculator.

If the goal behind this is a property, see buying a home or first home buyer loans.
Sources
Australian Taxation Office: individual income tax rates for Australian residents, used for the marginal rates in the worked example, together with the Medicare levy.
ASIC Moneysmart: savings goals calculator, whose published assumptions confirm that savings calculators of this type exclude tax, fees and inflation.
Reserve Bank of Australia cash rate, and published savings account rate surveys, both current at September 2026, used only to choose representative rates for the table.

About the figures on this page. Every timeline and interest figure shown was calculated directly from the compound growth formula, not copied from a third party, using a $10,000 opening balance, a $50,000 target and monthly compounding. Rates and deposit amounts are illustrative and are not an offer, and no account is recommended.

General information only, and not financial or tax advice. Nothing on this page takes your objectives, financial situation or needs into account. Your marginal tax rate, your account’s conditions and the suitability of any savings strategy depend on your circumstances, and a registered tax agent or financial adviser is the right person to confirm them. Loanity is a credit representative and can provide credit assistance once a credit product is the goal.
STILL GOT QUESTIONS?

Savings goal questions, answered

How long will it take to reach my savings goal?

Take your current balance, add your regular deposit each period, apply the account’s rate to the running balance, and repeat until you hit the target. The calculator above does this for you. The part that needs care is the rate: the number advertised and the number actually paid are usually different, and on most goals the deposit moves the timeline further than the rate does.

The base rate is paid unconditionally. The bonus rate is paid only in a month where you met every condition attached to it, usually a minimum deposit, no withdrawals, and a balance that grew. Miss one and that month drops to the base rate alone, which on many high-headline accounts is close to zero.

The ongoing rate. Introductory rates typically run for four months, and most savings goals take years, so a projection built on the introductory figure is wrong for the overwhelming majority of the period it covers. Enter what the account pays in month five onward and you get a timeline you can plan against.

Usually one of three things: a bonus condition was missed in some months, the introductory rate ended, or a deposit was skipped. The calculator assumes the rate and the deposit both hold perfectly for the entire period. Real accounts and real months rarely do, and the gap compounds rather than staying flat.

No, and neither do most savings calculators. It shows gross interest. Interest is assessable income taxed at your marginal rate plus the Medicare levy, so between roughly 17 and 47 per cent combined never reaches you. See the worked example above for what that does to the same set of numbers.

On the figures in the table above, saving harder wins comfortably. Doubling the monthly deposit from $500 to $1,000 saves more than three years on a $50,000 goal. Moving from the worst rate shown to the best saves sixteen months at the same deposit. Both are worth doing, but they are not the same size, and the deposit is the one entirely within your control.

The calculator assumes a fixed deposit throughout. If your income or expenses change, rerun it with the new figure rather than averaging the old and new together. Averaging understates the damage of the low months, because the months where you deposited less also earned less interest for every month that followed.

This one fixes the deposit and tells you the time. The how much to deposit calculator fixes the time and tells you the deposit. Same arithmetic, opposite unknown. Use this one when the deposit is what your budget allows, and the other when the deadline is what you cannot move.

Yes, the arithmetic is identical whatever the target is. One thing worth adding on a deposit specifically: lenders generally look at your savings pattern when assessing an application, so a record of regular deposits does more than get you to the number. It also helps demonstrate you can service a loan once you are there.

No. The calculator runs in your browser on whatever you type in, and the figures are not saved or sent anywhere. If you would like the numbers checked against your actual accounts and goal, a broker review is free and there is no obligation attached to it.

Important information about this calculator
This tool provides an estimate to assist with financial planning and savings targets based on hypothetical interest rates and compounding intervals. It does not account for income tax payable on earned interest, bank account maintenance fees, inflation, changes in property market values, or bonus interest criteria required by deposit institutions.
Interest rates on savings products, bank terms, and economic conditions change over time, and past yields are no guarantee of future performance. Loanity does not warrant or guarantee that you will achieve the calculated outcomes or that the parameters on this page reflect current market deposit rates. This content is general in nature and should not be relied upon as a formal savings or investment plan.