Investment Return Calculator
Total and annualised return on an investment.
Investment Details
Enter what you started with and what it's worth now — your return updates instantly.
Total return
+$5,000.00
50.00% total return over 5 years — 8.45% annualised (CAGR).
Annualised return (CAGR) assumes your total invested amount behaved like a single lump sum over the whole period. If you added contributions gradually rather than all at once, your true time-weighted return may differ slightly from this estimate.
How Your Return Compares
What your $10,000 total invested would have grown to over 5 years at common benchmark annual returns.
| Annual return | Projected value |
|---|---|
| Your result (8.45%) | $15,000.00 |
| 3% per year | $11,592.74 |
| 5% per year | $12,762.82 |
| 7% per year | $14,025.52 |
| 10% per year | $16,105.10 |
How to Calculate Investment Return
Enter what you started with, what it's worth today (or what you sold it for), and how long you've held it. This calculator works out your total dollar gain or loss, your total percentage return, your annualised return (CAGR), and — if you add an inflation rate — your real, inflation-adjusted return.
The Formulas
Worked Example
$10,000 invested, now worth $15,000 after 5 years, with no extra contributions or income. Total return is 50% ($5,000 gain). Simply dividing that by 5 years gives 10% a year — but the correct, compounding-aware annualised return (CAGR) is 8.45% a year, which is what actually compounds to a 50% total gain over 5 years.
Why Total Return ÷ Years Overstates Your Annual Rate
A "simple average annual return" just divides your total return by the number of years — it ignores the fact that each year's gains build on the previous year's balance. The correct measure for a true per-year rate is the compound annual growth rate (CAGR), which this calculator shows alongside the simple average so you can see exactly how much compounding accounts for.
Accounting for Extra Contributions and Income
Many simple ROI calculators only compare a starting and ending balance, which overstates your return if you added money along the way, or understates it if you ignore income like dividends or interest. This calculator lets you add both so your net return reflects everything you actually put in and got back — though because it still treats the total as a single lump sum for the CAGR calculation, a true time-weighted return (if you added money at very different points in the period) may differ slightly.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I calculate return on investment?
- Return on investment (ROI) is your gain or loss divided by what you put in: (Final Value − Total Invested) ÷ Total Invested × 100. If you started with $10,000 and it's now worth $15,000, your total return is ($15,000 − $10,000) ÷ $10,000 = 50%. This calculator does that automatically and also works out your annualised return.
- What's the difference between total return and annualised return?
- Total return is your overall gain or loss over the whole period you held the investment — 50% over 5 years, for example. Annualised return (CAGR) converts that into a single "per year" rate that compounds to the same result — in that example, about 8.45% a year, not 10% (50% ÷ 5), because compounding means each year's growth builds on the last.
- How do I calculate net investment return?
- Net investment return accounts for everything that went in and came out — not just the starting and ending balance. This calculator lets you add extra contributions (money added after the start) and income received (dividends, interest or distributions), so your return reflects your actual net result rather than just the headline price change.
- What is an annualised (or annualized) return calculator?
- An annualised return calculator converts a total return over any time period into an equivalent compound annual growth rate (CAGR), so you can fairly compare investments held for different lengths of time — a 20% return over 2 years and a 20% return over 5 years are very different performances once annualised.
- How do I calculate a stock's return?
- For a simple stock holding, enter what you paid (initial investment), what it's worth now or what you sold it for (final value), and any dividends received (income received) — the calculator works out your total dollar return, total percentage return, and annualised return in one go.
- What is the rate of return formula?
- The basic rate of return formula is (Ending Value − Beginning Value) ÷ Beginning Value × 100. For a rate that accounts for compounding over multiple years, the formula is (Ending Value ÷ Beginning Value)^(1 ÷ Years) − 1 — that's the annualised return (CAGR) this calculator shows alongside the simple total return.
- How do I calculate portfolio return with multiple contributions?
- If you've added money to your portfolio over time, your true return should account for that extra money, not just compare the start and end balance. Add your total extra contributions in the "Additional contributions" field so the calculator measures your return against everything you actually put in, not just your original starting amount.
- What is a real (inflation-adjusted) investment return?
- Your nominal return is the percentage gain before accounting for inflation; your real return adjusts for inflation to show the actual increase in purchasing power. Enter an inflation rate above to see both figures side by side — a 7% nominal return with 3% inflation leaves a real return of roughly 3.9%, not 4%, due to compounding.
- Why is my annualised return lower than my total return divided by the years?
- Dividing total return by years (a "simple average") ignores compounding and overstates the true annual rate for anything other than a single year. Annualised return (CAGR) is the mathematically correct per-year rate that, compounded every year, reproduces your actual total return — this calculator shows both so you can see the gap.