How do you calculate your down payment and PMI together?
You enter a home price, and a good down payment calculator with PMI should show you four things at the same time: the cash you put down, the monthly principal and interest, the monthly PMI in real dollars, and the year PMI falls off. Perclo does all of that for 3%, 5%, 10%, and 20% down in one view, with no re-entering numbers and no lender funnel. Type $400,000 and every scenario populates in under a second.
Most calculators flag that PMI "applies" at lower down payments and stop there. That leaves you guessing. The question you actually need answered is how much it costs per month, how long you'll pay it, and how that compares against putting more down and skipping it entirely. Perclo treats PMI as a real number on the page, not a footnote.
How much PMI will I pay per month?
For a $400,000 home with 5% down (a 95% loan-to-value ratio), monthly PMI typically lands between $100 and $200 on a conventional loan. Perclo uses an LTV-band rate table with three tiers (95-90%, 90-85%, and 85-80%) and multiplies by the loan balance to produce a real dollar figure per scenario. No rate cards to cross-reference, no mortgage insurance disclosure buried behind a lender signup.
Here's why the dollar figure matters more than the percentage. A PMI rate of 0.85% sounds small until you translate it into $269 a month on a $380,000 loan. That's $3,228 a year going toward insurance that protects the lender, not you. When you can see that number next to the 20%-down scenario that skips PMI entirely, the decision about how much to save before buying becomes a lot clearer.
When does PMI drop off my mortgage?
Conventional PMI automatically terminates when your loan balance reaches 78% of the original home price, which happens through scheduled amortization. For a 3% down payment on a $400,000 home at 7% over 30 years, that milestone arrives somewhere between year 8 and year 12 depending on the rate. Perclo calculates the year for each scenario and shows it inline on the scenario column, so you can see the tradeoff without pulling up a separate amortization schedule.
The PMI removal year is the long-tail cost no one talks about. Putting 3% down instead of 10% isn't just a $150/month charge today. It's nine-plus years of that charge before it goes away. Multiply and the number gets real. Perclo puts the year on the page so the comparison lives in one frame.
How much cash do I actually need to buy a house?
Your total cash needed at closing equals your down payment plus estimated closing costs, which typically run 2-5% of the home price. Perclo uses a 3% national-average closing cost estimate and adds it to each scenario's down payment to show a Total Cash Needed line at the bottom of every column. On a $400,000 home, that's $12,000 plus the down payment itself. These are numbers that should be visible before you start talking to a lender, not after.
This is the line item that catches first-time buyers off guard. A 20% down payment on a $400,000 home isn't $80,000 of cash. It's $80,000 plus roughly $12,000 in closing costs, or $92,000 sitting in escrow on closing day. The calculator that shows you $80,000 and stops is the calculator that has you calling a lender in a panic two weeks before closing asking where the extra $12,000 comes from.
Should I put 5%, 10%, or 20% down on a house?
The answer depends on how the monthly payment, the PMI cost, and the total cash needed balance against the cash you have on hand. Seeing all three together is the only way to decide honestly. Perclo's four-column layout is built for that decision: 3%, 5%, 10%, and 20% side by side, every output field repeated per column, so your eye can scan horizontally and see exactly what each percentage buys you.
For pre-approval researchers sitting on $20,000 to $50,000 in savings, the choice is rarely between 5% and 20%. It's between 5% and 10%, or between 10% and 12% if you want to stretch. Perclo includes a custom percentage input for that. Type 8% or 12% and a fifth column renders with the full output, so you can model your actual situation instead of picking the closest preset.
What makes Perclo different from other down payment calculators?
Four things, all of which solve pain points that show up repeatedly in first-time-buyer research.
First, every scenario renders simultaneously. On Calculator.net or NerdWallet, comparing 5% and 20% down means running the calculation twice and then manually comparing the two results. Perclo renders all four presets in one pass and updates all four when you change the interest rate or loan term. Re-entry is zero.
Second, PMI is shown in dollars. MortgageCalculator.org is the only major competitor that does this, and their interface is a dated ad-heavy table. Perclo presents the same data in a clean column layout.
Third, there is no funnel. No email capture, no "see your personalized rate" CTA, no lender affiliate table. You can use the tool, close the tab, and never hear from anyone. That's the deal.
Fourth, the math is deterministic and the page is fast. All calculations run client-side in the browser using standard amortization. No API calls, no latency, no state persistence. Close the tab and nothing is saved. Reopen it and start fresh.
Who is Perclo for?
Anyone tabbing between three different mortgage sites trying to assemble a picture of what buying a house actually costs. The product was built around a specific user: 29 years old, household income around $85K, $20K to $50K saved, pre-browsing homes before formal pre-approval, and tired of sites that push prequalification before showing numbers. If that's you, Perclo takes about 30 seconds to load, accepts a home price, and shows you everything you came to see. No account, no ads cluttering the output column, no affiliate tables pretending to be helpful.
Try Perclo at appcrib.com/perclo. Type a home price. Every scenario, one clean view.