Does your credit card fee pay for itself?
A ₹12,500 card is not expensive if it returns ₹30,000. A free card is not cheap if it returns nothing. Enter what you spend in a month and the arithmetic below shows, for 40 Indian cards, what each one would return against what it costs.
What you spend in a month
That is ₹58,000 a month, ₹6,96,000 a year.
On that spending, the best net return is Airtel Axis Bank Credit Card
It returns about ₹31,680 a year and costs ₹500, so you are ₹31,180 ahead — an effective return of 4.55% on everything you spend.
2 of these 40 cards would cost you more in fees than they return at this level of spending.
Every card, ranked
Rewards minus fee, highest first. Negative means the fee wins.
| Card | Rewards/yr | Fee | Net | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airtel Axis Bank Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹31,680 | ₹500 | ₹31,180 | 4.55% |
| Swiggy HDFC Bank Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹26,760 | ₹500 | ₹26,260 | 3.84% |
| Marriott Bonvoy HDFC Bank Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹27,960 | ₹3,000 | ₹24,960 | 4.02% |
| SBI Prime Credit CardSBI Card | ₹27,000 | ₹2,999 | ₹24,001 | 3.88% |
| Tata Neu Infinity HDFC Bank Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹24,960 | ₹1,499 | ₹23,461 | 3.59% |
| SBI Cashback Credit CardSBI Card | ₹23,760 | ₹999 | ₹22,761 | 3.41% |
| Flipkart Axis Bank Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹23,040 | ₹500 | ₹22,540 | 3.31% |
| SBI Elite Credit CardSBI Card | ₹26,160 | ₹4,999 | ₹21,161 | 3.76% |
| ICICI Bank Emeralde Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹32,760 | ₹12,000 | ₹20,760 | 4.71% |
| Axis Bank Ace Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹20,640 | ₹499 | ₹20,141 | 2.97% |
| ICICI Bank Rubyx Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹21,960 | ₹2,000 | ₹19,960 | 3.16% |
| Standard Chartered EaseMyTrip Credit CardStandard Chartered | ₹20,220 | ₹350 | ₹19,870 | 2.91% |
| ICICI Bank Sapphiro Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹21,960 | ₹3,500 | ₹18,460 | 3.16% |
| HDFC Millennia Credit CardUnknown | ₹19,440 | ₹1,000 | ₹18,440 | 2.79% |
| Standard Chartered Ultimate Credit CardStandard Chartered | ₹22,140 | ₹5,000 | ₹17,140 | 3.18% |
| Amazon Pay ICICI Bank Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹16,920 | None | ₹16,920 | 2.43% |
| HDFC Regalia Gold Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹17,982 | ₹2,500 | ₹15,482 | 2.58% |
| Tata Neu Plus HDFC Bank Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹15,360 | ₹499 | ₹14,861 | 2.21% |
| ICICI Bank Coral Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹13,560 | ₹500 | ₹13,060 | 1.95% |
| HDFC Diners Club Black Metal Edition Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹22,338 | ₹10,000 | ₹12,338 | 3.21% |
| Axis Bank Atlas Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹16,440 | ₹5,000 | ₹11,440 | 2.36% |
| HDFC Bank Regalia Credit CardUnknown | ₹13,560 | ₹2,500 | ₹11,060 | 1.95% |
| SimplyCLICK SBI CardSBI Card | ₹10,710 | ₹499 | ₹10,211 | 1.54% |
| HDFC Infinia Credit Card Metal EditionHDFC Bank | ₹22,338 | ₹12,500 | ₹9,838 | 3.21% |
| Axis Bank Magnus Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹22,080 | ₹12,500 | ₹9,580 | 3.17% |
| IDFC FIRST Bank Mayura Credit CardIDFC First Bank | ₹14,980 | ₹5,999 | ₹8,981 | 2.15% |
| IDFC FIRST Mayura Credit Card (Metal)IDFC First Bank | ₹14,980 | ₹5,999 | ₹8,981 | 2.15% |
| SBI SimplySAVE Credit CardUnknown | ₹8,760 | ₹499 | ₹8,261 | 1.26% |
| BPCL SBI Card OctaneSBI Card | ₹9,750 | ₹1,499 | ₹8,251 | 1.40% |
| IDFC FIRST Bank Wealth Credit CardIDFC First Bank | ₹7,156 | None | ₹7,156 | 1.03% |
| HDFC Bank MoneyBack Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹7,554 | ₹500 | ₹7,054 | 1.09% |
| HDFC MoneyBack+ Credit CardHDFC Bank | ₹7,554 | ₹500 | ₹7,054 | 1.09% |
| IDFC FIRST Ashva Credit Card (Metal)IDFC First Bank | ₹9,121 | ₹2,999 | ₹6,122 | 1.31% |
| IDFC FIRST Bank Ashva Credit CardIDFC First Bank | ₹9,121 | ₹2,999 | ₹6,122 | 1.31% |
| American Express SmartEarn Credit CardAmerican Express | ₹6,378 | ₹495 | ₹5,883 | 0.92% |
| IDFC FIRST Bank Select Credit CardIDFC First Bank | ₹5,112 | None | ₹5,112 | 0.73% |
| American Express Platinum Travel Credit CardAmerican Express | ₹9,480 | ₹5,000 | ₹4,480 | 1.36% |
| American Express Gold Credit CardAmerican Express | ₹8,700 | ₹4,500 | ₹4,200 | 1.25% |
| ICICI Bank Times Black Credit CardICICI Bank | ₹19,200 | ₹20,000 | −₹800 | 2.76% |
| Axis Bank Primus Credit CardAxis Bank | ₹33,360 | ₹3,00,000 | −₹2,66,640 | 4.79% |
What this calculation does and does not tell you
The sum is spend × 12 × reward rate, per category, minus the annual fee. Nothing is weighted, discounted or adjusted behind the scenes — you can check any row of the table on paper.
It assumes you redeem your rewards at face value, which many people never get around to, and it ignores welcome bonuses, milestone benefits and lounge access — real value that is impossible to price generically. It also cannot tell you which card is best for a single category: the rates in this dataset are largely flat across categories, so a card that looks equally good at dining and fuel probably just has one base rate.
Covers 40 cards where the reward structure is published clearly enough to compute. For cards with no annual fee at all, see the no-fee list. If you would rather this ran on your actual statements instead of estimates, that is what the app does.