Medicare Cost Calculator: Estimate Your Total Monthly Cost

Published 2026-09-10 · Last updated 2026-09-10.

What you enter

You enter the monthly amounts you actually pay or have been quoted: a Part B premium, a Part D or Advantage plan premium, and any supplemental premium such as Medigap. You also enter any income-related extra amount that applies to you, as a figure you supply, and any regular out-of-pocket amount you want to budget for. The tool adds what you enter — it does not look up a rate for you.

That user-entered design is deliberate. Medicare costs vary by plan, ZIP code, income and year, so a tool that stored a single national price would mislead most readers. Your own plan documents and the official plan-compare tool are the sources for the inputs; this calculator is the arithmetic that turns them into a monthly and annual total.

Your estimated monthly total

The output shows a monthly total and the same total stretched over a year, so you can compare it with a household budget rather than a single bill. It separates the fixed monthly premiums from the variable out-of-pocket amounts you entered, because those two behave differently: premiums arrive every month whether you use care or not, while out-of-pocket costs spike in months when you do.

Use the total as a planning figure, not a quote. If you switch from Original Medicare plus Medigap to an Advantage plan, or the other way, re-enter every premium rather than carrying one plan's figure into the other path. The plan comparison page walks through that switch side by side.

What is not included

The calculator does not include costs you have not entered, and it does not predict how much care you will need. Dental, vision and hearing extras, drug costs that vary by pharmacy, and one-off hospital cost-sharing are only in the total if you put them in. A total that looks low because you left a regular medicine out is not a saving — it is an incomplete input.

It also does not include late-enrollment penalties, which are a separate question covered on the enrollment page, or any help you may qualify for with Medicare costs. If cost is a barrier, check the Medicaid and Medicare together section on the Medicaid page before deciding you cannot afford cover.

How to use the total well

Compare totals on the same basis: same medicines, same doctors, same expected use of care. A plan with a low premium and a narrow network can cost more overall if your doctors are outside it, while a higher-premium plan with broader access can cost less in a heavy-care year. Write down what you assumed for each plan, so the comparison stays honest when you revisit it.

Re-run the calculator whenever a premium notice arrives, a medicine changes, or your income changes. Medicare is an annual decision as much as a first-time decision, and the cheapest total last year is not automatically the cheapest total this year.

Compare plans next

Take your total to the Medicare plan comparison page, where you enter two paths side by side and see where each one wins. That page is built for the Original versus Advantage choice, and it pairs naturally with the Parts explained page if any part's role is still unclear. Read all three together before you enrol or switch, and confirm every premium on the official source.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLE (not a policy fact): Rosa, a fictional new Medicare beneficiary, enters illustrative monthly amounts she invented for this example — a Part B amount, a drug plan amount and a supplemental amount — into the tool. The tool adds them into a monthly total and an annual total, and Rosa sees that a small monthly difference becomes a large annual difference. She then re-runs the tool with a different drug plan amount to see how sensitive her total is to that one choice. No amount in this example is a current Medicare premium.