Not another budgeting app. Debt Engine reads your APRs, your BNPL deadlines, and your paycheck cadence — then tells you what to do, in order, with the math to back it.
Type one debt, see your payoff date in 60 seconds · year one free, $29/yr after — we’ll ask before charging
Manual entry only · no bank credentials · no data selling
AI advisor powered by Claude · your numbers never train AI models
Or try a free calculator first — debt avalanche, BNPL deadlines, or the windfall finder.
Real interest cost, not vibes. Automatic prioritization with deadline overrides for BNPL.
Affirm, Klarna, PayPal 0% promos surface before retroactive interest hits. No major app does this.
Biweekly earners get two extra checks a year (26 instead of 24). We earmark them for debt — invisible to the budget.
Ask Claude — Anthropic’s AI — about your own numbers. “Should I refinance my 7.5% car loan?” “Is my Affirm promo a trap?”
“Chase Sapphire”. We prefill the APR from ~30 common issuers — adjust if you know the exact rate. Add balance and minimum.
Your debt-free date, the savings from paying $X/mo extra, and — once you add a second debt — the avalanche order. No login required.
Sign up to lock the strategy in, track payoffs, get BNPL deadline alerts, and share with a partner. Year one free.
One $8k card, $210 minimum + $200/mo redirected from windfall paychecks, tax refunds, or a small bonus — money you already earn, aimed at the right card. With multiple debts, avalanche cascade compounds the savings further — see a real example below.
This is the real trajectory chart from the dashboard — rendered against an invented household: thirteen debts, ~$138k total, BNPL deadlines stacked in the front, a 401(k) loan holding up the rear. Your actual numbers show the same shape with your names on it.
Sample household · extra $400/mo from windfall paychecks · avalanche order with BNPL deadlines honored
The avalanche order isn't arbitrary — it picks up specific dollar tradeoffs hiding in your APRs and BNPL deadlines. After you add your debts, an AI paragraph names exactly which ones drive the order and what each lever costs you in dollars. Three sample mixes below — your shape will be different.
Avalanche recommended — saves $1,840 vs snowball over 28 months. Chase Sapphire's 22.99% is 4 points above Discover and 15 points above the auto loan — every $1,000 left on it costs $19/mo in interest alone. Once it's gone, $180/mo cascades into Discover. Federal student loans stay last at 4.8%; chasing them sacrifices PSLF and IDR options that may be worth more than the rate.
Sample explanation · your numbers, your names, your tradeoffs
Accounts, retirement, real estate, vehicles, rentals. What you own against what you owe.
Snap a photo, auto-parse every deduction. No typing line items from a W-2.
Current balance + contributions + realistic returns → monthly income at 65. Honest math.
When does your portfolio earn more than you contribute? When can you stop saving entirely? Real FI math.
Spouse, partner, or accountant — view or edit. Not another shared Google Sheet.
Manual entry only. No bank credentials, no Plaid, no broker reselling your transactions.
The dashboard opens with one sentence: "Attack the Amex next. 22% APR — highest in your stack. Chase (16%) after. Citi's 0% promo expires July 8; we'll remind you." Every screen backs that call with the math — APR avalanche order, BNPL countdown timers, a cashflow waterfall, a retirement projection. No dashboards for dashboards' sake.
We're manual entry. No Plaid credentials to hand over. If typing balances once a month sounds like too much, we're not it.
That's YNAB. We do debt strategy. The two actually complement each other — we don't compete.
Set up autopay above the minimum and close this tab. You don't need a tool; you need a calendar.
Year one's on us. After that it's $29/yr. If that's a dealbreaker we understand — go in peace.
"Strategy over data. Adults using a strategy tool, not another dashboard that tells you what you already know."
— Built for the user who tried Mint, then Monarch, then YNAB, and still didn’t know what to actually do
I built Debt Engine because I needed it: paying down my own stack of debts, capturing the 401(k) match, funding the IRA, and running the early-retirement math — and no tool would tell me what to do next. Just dashboards repeating what I already knew.
There are no investors here, which means no pressure to sell your data, push bank sync, or hook you with streaks. The strategy engine is deterministic math you can audit — the AI doesn’t decide your payoff order, it explains it. For that I use Claude, because when you ask a question about your own money, you deserve the best reasoning model available on your side.
Your data is yours — export everything as JSON anytime, right from Settings. If this ever shuts down, you leave with your numbers.