FunancePerks only count if you use them
A travel credit you would not otherwise have spent is not worth its face value. The model asks what you actually use rather than what is advertised.
Credit card value for AustraliansIs that annual fee actually paying for itself?
Premium cards are sold on the perks and paid for on the fee. The honest test is whether the value you personally extract exceeds what you hand over each year, and most people have never run it.
Free forever · no card required · no bank login · runs in your browser
The reasoning tends to go: the lounge access alone is worth it. Which may be true, if you use the lounge. The fee is certain and annual. The perks are conditional on behaviour you may not actually have.
Funance holds the real fees, earn rates and benefits for 19 Australian cards and puts them against your actual spend, so the comparison is arithmetic rather than vibes.
Sometimes the card wins comfortably. Sometimes the answer is that you have been paying several hundred dollars a year for a lounge you visited twice.
| Side | What goes in |
|---|---|
| Cost | Annual fee, including any additional cardholder fee |
| Value, points | Your annual spend at the card's earn rate |
| Value, travel credit | Only if you would have spent it anyway |
| Value, lounge access | Visits you actually make in a year |
| Value, insurances | Only if it replaces cover you would buy |
| Result | Net value, positive or negative |
Structure of the comparison. Actual fees and earn rates vary by card and issuer.
How it avoids flattering the card
What the tool actually does
Earn rate against your real spend
Points value depends entirely on how much goes through the card. Your budget already holds that number, so it is used rather than guessed.
19 Australian cards
Real fees, earn rates and benefits for the major Australian cards, so you can compare the one you hold against the alternatives.
No referral incentive
Funance takes no commissions and runs no card referral links. There is no version of this calculator where recommending a switch pays us.
What you need
- Your card and its annual fee
- Roughly what you put through it each year
- Which perks you genuinely use
- Any additional cardholder fees
Questions
The things everyone asks
Does Funance earn commission on credit cards?
No. Funance takes no commissions and carries no referral links. It is funded by subscriptions only, which is why the calculator is free to tell you to cancel a card.
How many cards are included?
Nineteen Australian credit cards, with their real fees, earn rates and benefits.
Which plan includes the card analyser?
Credit Cards is part of Pro, at $9.90 a month or $79 a year.
Related
Other things you can work out here
Debt repayment calculator
Two households with identical debts and identical budgets can finish years apart, purely on payoff order. Funance shows both strategies side by side with your numbers, then gives you a date.
Debt repayment calculator →Subscription tracker Australia
Subscriptions are priced monthly because monthly sounds small. Annualised and stacked together they are frequently one of the largest discretionary lines in a household budget, and the least examined.
Subscription tracker →Budget planner Australia
Most budgets fail in week three, when the car registration arrives and the plan quietly stops matching reality. Funance budgets on planned versus actual, so the gap is visible instead of fatal.
Budget planner for Australians →Know where your money goes.
Know where you're going.
Set up your household in about ten minutes. No bank login, no card, no commitment.
Free forever · no card required · no bank login · runs in your browser