Compare 3 Mortgage Options

Updated July 2026

What This Calculator Shows You

Three mortgage options, side by side, with the numbers that actually decide things: the payment, the total interest, and the full schedule for each one. Print ready when you are done.

Most people land here for one of three reasons:

• You have competing offers. Two or three lenders, different rates and terms, and you want to know which one actually wins rather than which number is smallest.
• You are testing one variable. Same mortgage, but twenty five years against thirty. Or monthly against accelerated biweekly. Or five percent down against ten.
• You are weighing a shorter term against a longer one. A two year against a five year, and what each commits you to.

Compare Like With Like, or the Answer Is Garbage

This is where comparisons go wrong, and it happens constantly.

Watch the amortization. A thirty year amortization will always show a lower payment than a twenty five year one. That does not make it cheaper. It makes it longer, and you pay more interest for the privilege. If one of your options has a different amortization, you are not comparing mortgages, you are comparing timelines. Look at the total interest column, not the payment.

Watch the term. A two year rate and a five year rate are different products with different commitments. The shorter one might be lower today, and it also puts you back in the market sooner, at whatever rates exist then. That is a risk, not a free lunch.

Watch what kind of rate you were quoted. A posted rate and a discounted rate are not the same animal. Make sure every number you enter is a real offer somebody would actually put in writing.

Watch the frequency. Accelerated payments will beat monthly on the schedule every time, because you are paying more over a year. That is a genuine advantage, just make sure you know that is what you are looking at.

What This Calculator Cannot Compare

Here is the honest limitation, and it is a big one. Everything above is about numbers. The parts of a mortgage that cost people the most money are not numbers on a rate sheet.

The penalty to get out. Break a mortgage early and what you pay varies enormously between lenders. Some calculate it in ways that produce a far bigger number than you would ever expect, and the discount you were given at the start can make it worse. If there is any chance you sell, refinance or restructure mid term, this can dwarf the rate difference you are comparing.

Prepayment privileges. How much extra you can pay each year without a penalty, and how much you can raise your payment. If you intend to pay the mortgage down aggressively, a generous contract is worth real money.

Portability. Whether you can take the mortgage with you if you move, and what happens if the new place costs more.

Whether you qualify at all. The best rate on the page is worthless if that lender will not approve your file. Self employed income, an acreage, a manufactured home, unusual income - these change which lenders are even available to you.

So use the calculator for the math, then ask about those four things before you sign anything. A slightly higher rate on a flexible contract beats a sharp rate on a rigid one more often than people think.

A Real Story: The Friend Who Was Going to Walk Away Over 0.1 Percent

A number of years back, a fellow I had known for decades came to me about his renewal. Neighbour, friend, the kind you have a beer with. He wanted my read on what his bank had put in front of him.

So I shopped it properly, and here is the honest result: the best I could get him was about a tenth of a percent better than his own bank had offered. That was it. A tenth.

He was straight with me, the way old friends are. He said he was going to stay with his bank. It was only a tenth of a percent, he had been with them for years, and he did not feel like requalifying and moving everything over a number that small.

And you know what? On that math, he was right. A tenth of a percent is not a reason to move a mortgage. If that had been the whole conversation, I would have told him to sign with his bank and I would have meant it.

But I had been looking at something else while I was in there.

Rates were trending down at the time. His new rate was going to be lower than the one he had been paying for years, which meant his required payment was about to drop. That is normally the good news part. Most people take the lower payment, enjoy the extra room in the budget, and never think about it again.

So I asked him one question.

You have been making the old payment for years without any trouble. If I can show you a way to save tens of thousands of dollars just by continuing to make it, will you let me handle this one instead of the bank?

He shook my hand on it.

We set the new mortgage up at his old payment amount instead of the new lower one. Same money out of his account every month as the month before. Nothing changed in his life. But every dollar of that difference went straight against the principal, from the very first payment.

His mortgage was paid off years earlier than it otherwise would have been, and it saved him tens of thousands of dollars in interest that he simply never had to pay.

Here is the part that stays with me, and it is not the part you might expect.

It is not that a friend of decades was about to take his business elsewhere. That is fine. He was making a reasonable call on the information he had, and I would rather he do that than move a mortgage out of loyalty.

What sits with me is that if he had signed his bank's renewal letter that week, he would never have known. There would have been no moment where he found out. No statement showing him what he missed. He would have paid it off on schedule, years later than he needed to, tens of thousands lighter, perfectly satisfied, because nothing would have told him otherwise.

That is what a renewal letter in the mail actually costs people. Not a bad rate necessarily. The conversation that never happened.

And it is exactly what this page is about. He was comparing the wrong thing. He was weighing a tenth of a percent, because that is the number on the rate sheet, while a decision worth many multiples of it sat in the same conversation completely unnoticed. The rate was nearly irrelevant. How the mortgage was structured was everything.

If nobody is asking you how you want your mortgage set up, you are being sold a product. You are not being given advice.

How it works, in round numbers

His numbers are his own business, so here is a generic example that shows the mechanism. Say you are renewing $500,000 with 25 years left and your rate drops from 6.5 percent to 3.5 percent:

• Take the lower payment, and you pay it off in 25 years as scheduled.
• Keep paying the old amount instead, and the same mortgage is gone roughly 8 to 9 years sooner, saving somewhere in the neighbourhood of $90,000 in interest.

A bigger balance, a steeper rate drop or a longer amortization pushes that higher again. A smaller mortgage or a shallower drop makes it less, though it is still normally tens of thousands. Illustration only. Your own numbers depend on your balance, your rates, your amortization and what your lender allows.

One thing to check before you plan around it: your prepayment privileges. Setting a payment above the contract minimum is usually straightforward at renewal, since you are signing a new contract anyway, but confirm the details with your lender.

What Most People Get Wrong

They compare the payment instead of the total cost. The payment tells you what it feels like month to month. The total interest tells you what it costs. Look at both, and understand why they disagree when they do.

They assume the lowest rate wins. Usually it does. Not always, and the exceptions are expensive. See the section above.

They compare against a rate they saw advertised. Advertised rates often assume a specific term, a specific amortization, insured status, and a perfect file. Compare offers made to you.

They forget the term ends. Every option here is a contract with an expiry date, not the whole mortgage. You will renew several times before it is paid off. Ask what each lender is like to renew with, because the second term is where people quietly lose money.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why does the option with the lowest payment sometimes cost the most?
Almost always because it has a longer amortization. Stretching a mortgage over thirty years instead of twenty five lowers the payment and raises the total interest. Compare the total interest column, not just the payment, and make sure both options use the same amortization if you want a fair comparison.

Q: Is the lowest rate always the best mortgage?
Usually, but not always. Penalty calculations, prepayment privileges and portability vary between lenders and none of them appear on a rate sheet. If there is a real chance you will break or change the mortgage during the term, those terms can matter more than a small rate difference.

Q: Should I compare a two year term against a five year term here?
You can, and it is worth doing, but understand what you are seeing. A shorter term often carries a different rate and puts you back in the market sooner, at unknown future rates. The calculator shows you the cost during the term. It cannot tell you what renewal will look like.

Q: How do I compare a fixed offer against a variable one?
Enter both and see the difference at today's rates, then remember the variable number will move. The comparison is a starting point, not a prediction. Penalty structures also differ between fixed and variable, which matters if you might not finish the term.

Q: My rate is dropping at renewal. Should I take the lower payment?
Only if you need it. If you have been comfortably making the higher payment, consider keeping it on the new mortgage instead. The entire difference goes straight against principal from the first payment, which can take years off the mortgage and save a very large amount of interest. It is one of the most valuable things you can do at renewal and almost nobody is offered it. Confirm your prepayment privileges with the lender when you set it up.

Q: What should I ask a lender beyond the rate?
Four things. How is the penalty calculated if I break early. How much can I prepay each year without a charge. Can I take this mortgage with me if I move. And what are my options at renewal. A lender who answers those clearly and in writing is worth more than one who is a fraction of a point cheaper.

Q: Can I use this to compare down payment amounts?
Yes, and it is one of the better uses. Set up the same purchase with different down payments and look at the difference in payment and total interest. Just remember that under twenty percent down there is also mortgage insurance to account for, and the premium changes as your down payment rises.

So What Do You Actually Do?

Put your real offers in, make sure the amortizations match so the comparison is fair, and look at the total interest rather than the payment. Print it.

Then bring it to me, or to whoever you are dealing with, and ask the four questions in the FAQ above. If the answers are clear and in writing, you have a real comparison. If they are vague, that is your answer about the lender.

Have offers you want a second opinion on?
Call or text 403-703-6847. To compare properly, have these handy: each written offer with its rate, term and amortization, your mortgage balance or purchase price, and your renewal or possession date.

Shawn Selanders is a RECA-licensed mortgage broker with Mortgage Architects, serving High River, Okotoks, Calgary, Foothills County and Southern Alberta since 1999.