Is TSA PreCheck or CLEAR worth it for you?

The honest answer depends on three things nobody else asks you: which airport you fly from, how often, and what an hour of your time is worth.

How each program prices out

Costs are the published enrollment fees. Minutes saved come from the modeled queue at your airport.

Program	Cost	Hours saved	Value	Net

What the calculator assumes

PreCheck lanes run at roughly a third of the standard queue, with a floor of about three minutes and a ceiling of fifteen: the lane is faster, not instant. Global Entry includes PreCheck and adds the re-entry kiosk, which is worth counting only if you actually fly back into the country. CLEAR moves you to the front of the identity check but not through the scanner, so it stacks with PreCheck rather than replacing it.

Enrollment fees are the published ones: PreCheck $85 for five years, Global Entry $120 for five years, CLEAR $219 a year. Fees change; these were current at the last rebuild on 31 August 2026. Credit card and airline benefits that reimburse these fees change the answer completely, and this calculator does not know about yours.

Security minutes are modeled from published flight schedules, not measured. Here is exactly how.