Adding a card to the list

An optional name so you can tell your cards apart, the face value printed on the front, and the date you received it — that’s all each entry needs. The date matters more than it might seem: it’s the anchor for every other number on the page, the thing that tells the calculator how long the money has actually been sitting still. A $75 card received about two and a half years ago uses that gap to work out both its remaining balance and how much ground it’s lost, so getting the date roughly right matters more than getting the exact dollar amount right.

What updates the moment you type

Two numbers sit underneath each card, and both recalculate live. Remaining balance is the face value minus any inactivity fees you’ve told the calculator about — nothing assumed on your behalf. Potential missed growth is the more interesting one: what that same face value would be worth today if it had gone into a high-yield savings account on the day you got the card, instead of into a drawer. For that $75 card sitting since January 2024, the gap comes out to roughly $7.74 — not a fortune, but it’s the part of the card’s value that quietly evaporated while it sat unused.

Why fees are never assumed for you

Gift card fees aren’t standardized, so guessing at them would mean putting a number on your card that might not belong there. The toggle stays off by default, and the remaining balance simply equals the face value. Switch it on and you’re in control: enter the exact fee and how many months of inactivity trigger it, and only then does the calculator start deducting. A $40 card with a $3 monthly fee starting after 12 months of inactivity, received in late 2022, ends up fully depleted — the balance reads $0, and the card gets a depleted label instead of a misleading number.

A small badge with a federal guarantee behind it

The CARD Act of 2009 keeps general-use gift cards from expiring in less than five years from the date they were issued, and every card on this page carries a badge reflecting that. Since the exact issue date usually isn’t something anyone has on hand, the calculator treats the date you entered as a stand-in for it. While a card is inside that window, the badge counts down how much runway is left; once the five-year mark passes, it switches to flag that the protection has ended.

Three numbers, once you’ve added something

The block above the list fills in as soon as there’s at least one card: total face value across everything you’ve entered, the estimated remaining balance after any fees, and the potential missed growth — the gap between what your cards are worth now and what they’d be worth had that money been earning interest since day one. Two cards like the examples above, one intact and one depleted by fees, land at a combined $75 in remaining balance against roughly $54 in potential missed growth. That split is usually what surprises people more than the balance itself.

Making the rate your own

4% is simply the starting point — roughly what a lot of competitive high-yield savings accounts were paying in mid-2026. It’s not a guess so much as an observation, and it’s yours to change: move the slider and every card’s growth figure recalculates instantly, whether your own account earns 3% or 5.5%.

Taking the numbers with you

Nothing here gets saved anywhere. Close the tab and the list is gone, which is exactly why the copy summary button exists: one click builds a plain-text rundown of every card plus the combined totals and drops it on your clipboard, ready to paste wherever you actually want to keep it.