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Is your no-cost EMI really free?

The banner says ₹0 interest. This prices what's left: the GST on the interest the seller paid, the processing fee, and the pay-now discount you gave up. Free, in your browser, or as a sheet you keep.

By · every number checked at its source · how we verify

The calculator

Traps & behaviour

Type your offer. The maths runs in your browser: nothing is sent anywhere. Not sure what to type? Load the worked example first.

Your EMI offer, priced

The price shown with the EMI offer.
Ask the shop. Leave blank if there's no discount.
That's the offer. Nothing to type here.

Behind the 0%

The bank still books the EMI as a loan at its own interest rate. The seller pays that interest for you, usually as a discount you never see, and you pay 18% GST on it plus any processing fee. That's what these three boxes capture.

The total your card statement shows for this EMI.
Not shown at the shop. It's in your card's EMI terms or the bank's EMI confirmation. Only needed to estimate the GST before your statement arrives.

Same formulas as the sheet: extra = EMIs + fee + GST on interest − pay-now price. Yearly rate = the rate at which (pay-now price − fee) today equals your monthly payments (EMI plus GST spread evenly), × 12.

Worked example

From India #02
A ₹60,000 phone on 6 'no-cost' EMIsRupees
Six EMIs of ₹10,000₹60,000
Rate the shop shows0%
Interest the bank books behind the 0%, at an illustrative 15% a year, paid by the seller₹2,540
GST at 18% on that interest, paid by you₹457
Processing fee ₹199 plus GST, paid by you₹235
Extra you pay₹692
As a yearly rateabout 4%

Now ask for the pay-now price. If paying in one shot gets you 5% off, the comparison is ₹57,000 today against ₹60,692 over six months: about 22% a year. The cost was never in the EMI. It was in the discount you didn't ask for.

Illustrative, our calculation. No brand, bank, card or seller named.

Why it works this way: in September 2013 the RBI told banks that in zero-percent EMI schemes 'the interest element is often camouflaged and passed on to customer in the form of processing fee' (RBI/2013-14/292).

Get the sheet

Free
Google Sheet · Excelv1.0 · 11 Oct 2026 · CC BY 4.0

No-cost EMI true-cost sheet

You enter: sticker price, pay-now price, EMI, months, processing fee, and the GST your statement shows (or, before the statement, the bank's rate behind the 0%).
It shows: what you pay in all, the extra over paying now in rupees, and that extra as a yearly rate. One row per offer, so you can compare three.
It won't: name a bank, card or seller, or tell you whether to buy.
✓ No scripts · no add-ons · no signup
Make a copyDownload .xlsx

Known limits

Read these first
  • It can't know the pay-now discount. You have to ask the shop.
  • A missed EMI brings late fees and card interest that this tool doesn't model.
  • GST on the interest is how card issuers commonly bill it. Your statement is the proof; type its figure in.
  • Timing is simplified: the fee is treated as paid on day one and GST as spread evenly over the EMIs.
  • It prices one purchase. Whether you need the thing is up to you.

Tested against six hand-checked cases (v1.0, 11 October 2026), matched to the rupee and to 0.1 percentage point.