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Pick when you started saving. This replays what an average savings account and a high-yield account really paid, month by month, to the latest month.
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The same money goes into both accounts, on the same days.
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This high yield savings calculator replays real savings rates. Pick UK or US and the year you started saving, and it follows the same money to the latest month in two accounts: an average savings account, earning what savers really got on average each month, and a high-yield account that kept up with the money market. Both get the same money on the same days: a starting sum, then a monthly amount at the end of each month. The amounts are examples (£10,000 plus £200 a month in the UK, $10,000 plus $300 a month in the US), and you can type your own over both.
In the UK, the average account earns the Bank of England's effective rate on households' interest-bearing easy-access deposits, from 2000, and the high-yield account earns Bank Rate, which the best easy-access accounts follow. In the US, the average account earns the FDIC's national rate on savings accounts, published from May 2009, and the high-yield account earns the 3-month Treasury bill yield, which high-yield savings accounts and money market funds follow. Interest is added every month, with no tax or fees taken.
No free record of the best accounts' rates exists, so the money-market rate stands in for them. For years after 2009 it was below even the average rate; in those months the high-yield account earns the average rate. The best accounts paid more than either then, so the gain in those years is understated.
These use the calculator's starting figures for one UK case and one US case, and are refreshed when the data updates.
Had you kept £10,000 and then £200 a month in a high-yield account from January 2015 instead of an average savings account, by July 2026 you'd have £3,935 more: £44,358 high-yield, against £40,423 in an average account.
Had you kept $10,000 and then $300 a month in a high-yield account from January 2015 instead of an average savings account, by August 2026 you'd have $9,588 more: $62,119 high-yield, against $52,531 in an average account.
Pick UK or US and the year you started saving above, and type what you had and what you added each month. The big figure is how much more the high-yield account ended with; the table shows the interest each account earned, the rate each paid on average, and whether each kept up with prices.
It depends on when. While money-market rates were near zero, from 2009 to about 2021, a high-yield account made little difference. When they were high, as in 2000, 2007 and from 2023, the average account paid a fraction of what the money market did, and the gap grew quickly. Try a few start years above.
In the US, the FDIC publishes a national rate on savings accounts every month, an average across banks and branches; this calculator uses it from May 2009, when it began. In the UK, the Bank of England publishes the effective rate households actually earn on interest-bearing easy-access deposits. "How it played out" gives each account's average rate over the years you pick.
Choose UK above. The average easy-access balance earned well under Bank Rate for most of the years since 2000, and the best accounts track Bank Rate, so moving to one has usually paid, most of all since 2023. For years after 2009, Bank Rate was below the average rate; the calculator then pays the high-yield account the average rate, so it understates what switching earned.