With SAVE terminated and RAP now the only income-driven repayment option for federal student loans disbursed on or after July 1, 2026, a lot of borrowers are left comparing a plan they've never used against one they may have relied on for years, Income-Based Repayment (IBR). The two plans measure your ability to pay very differently, which means the “better” option really does depend on your specific numbers.
How IBR calculates your payment
IBR bases your payment on discretionary income — your AGI minus 150% of the federal poverty guideline for your household size and state. If you first borrowed before July 1, 2014, you're on “old IBR”: 15% of discretionary income, forgiven after 25 years. If you first borrowed on or after that date, you're on “new IBR”: 10% of discretionary income, forgiven after 20 years. Either version caps your payment at what you'd owe under a standard 10-year repayment, so IBR can never cost you more than just paying it off in 10 years would.
How RAP calculates your payment
RAP skips the poverty-line deduction entirely and applies a percentage directly to your full AGI, rising in $10,000 income bands from 1% up to 10%, with a $50-a-month reduction per dependent and a $10 monthly floor. Because there's no income floor exempted from the calculation the way IBR's poverty-line deduction works, RAP payments tend to kick in at lower income levels than IBR's discretionary-income approach would.
Where each plan tends to come out ahead
Lower-income borrowers, especially those with several dependents, often come out ahead on IBR: the poverty-line deduction shields a meaningful chunk of income from the calculation before the percentage is even applied, and IBR's per-dependent household-size adjustment (built into the poverty guideline itself) is generally more generous than RAP's flat $50-per-dependent reduction. Higher-income borrowers with few or no dependents, on the other hand, sometimes land closer to RAP's top percentage tiers, which can outpace what 10% or 15% of a smaller discretionary-income base would have charged them under IBR.
There's a real tradeoff on the other side of the ledger, though: RAP guarantees your balance shrinks every qualifying month, since the government covers any unpaid interest, while IBR doesn't offer that guarantee outside of specific subsidized-interest windows — a low IBR payment that doesn't cover accruing interest can let your balance grow over time.
There's no universal winner — run both numbers
Because the two plans use fundamentally different income formulas, the honest answer to “which one pays more” is that it depends on your AGI, your household size, and how you weigh a potentially lower payment today against a balance that might not shrink versus a guarantee that it will. If your loans still qualify for both plans, the only reliable way to know which one actually costs you less is to estimate your payment under each and compare, rather than assuming either plan is the better deal by default.