2% vs 5% Cash Back Calculator
Model whether a flat 2% cash back card or a 5% rotating/category card wins for your actual yearly spend after caps, fallback rewards, activation misses, annual fees and foreign transaction fees.
Compare flat 2% vs category 5%
Use rough annual spend. The calculator assumes the category card earns 5% up to a cap, then a fallback rate on the remaining spend.
Flat 2% wins by $0
Adjust inputs for your real category usage.
How to use / 使用方法
Use annual credit-card spend and isolate the portion that truly fits the 5% categories.
Enter the annual cap and a miss percentage for quarters you forget to activate or cannot use naturally.
Annual fees and foreign transaction fees can erase rewards, especially if a card is not a travel card.
Check category calendars, merchant coding, exclusions, redemption minimums and APR before applying.
Official verification box / 官方验证盒
- Confirm current reward rates, category calendars, activation deadlines, quarterly/annual caps and eligible merchants from the issuer’s official page.
- Verify annual fee, foreign transaction fee, redemption minimums, welcome-offer eligibility, APR and balance-transfer terms before applying.
- Merchant category coding can vary; do not assume every grocery, wholesale, PayPal, dining, gas or travel purchase qualifies.
- Omellody is not a card issuer or financial advisor. Issuer terms and card agreements control.
Formula and interpretation
Flat card: total annual spend × flat reward rate − annual fee. Category card: eligible active category spend up to cap × category rate + remaining spend × fallback rate − annual fee − estimated foreign transaction fee.