ROI Calculator
Did it pay off? Enter what you put in, what you got out, and how long it took — get the total return and the annualized rate that makes any two investments comparable.
Estimates are for illustration and education only — not financial advice. Past returns don't guarantee future results.
ROI, and why annualized matters more
ROI is the simplest scorecard in investing: (final value − total invested) ÷ total invested. A $10,000 investment that becomes $14,500 returned 45%. Include every cost — fees, commissions, taxes, maintenance — in the invested side, or the number flatters the result.
The problem with raw ROI
ROI ignores time. A 45% return is superb over three years and mediocre over fifteen. The fix is the annualized return (CAGR): the single yearly rate that would compound your investment from start to finish — (final ÷ invested)1/years − 1. That's the number to compare against index funds, savings rates, or any other opportunity.
Reading the result honestly
A CAGR near 7–10% matches what broad stock markets have historically returned — meaning the investment did fine, but so would a passive fund. Well above that, ask how much risk (or luck) was involved; well below, the money had a cost you didn't see on paper. And remember inflation quietly eats 2–3% of any nominal return — our inflation calculator shows how much.
From past to future
ROI looks backward. To project forward, take the annualized rate this page gives you and feed it into the compound interest calculator — or check how fast that rate doubles money with the rule of 72.
Same ROI, very different years
What a total return works out to per year, depending on how long it took. Time is the silent half of every return figure.
| Total ROI | In 1 year | In 3 years | In 5 years | In 10 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +25% | 25.0%/yr | 7.7%/yr | 4.6%/yr | 2.3%/yr |
| +50% | 50.0%/yr | 14.5%/yr | 8.4%/yr | 4.1%/yr |
| +100% | 100.0%/yr | 26.0%/yr | 14.9%/yr | 7.2%/yr |
| +200% | 200.0%/yr | 44.2%/yr | 24.6%/yr | 11.6%/yr |
| −25% | −25.0%/yr | −9.1%/yr | −5.6%/yr | −2.8%/yr |
Annualized figures rounded to one decimal — illustrative only.
ROI, and why annualising matters
Return on investment measures the total gain relative to what you put in. But a raw ROI ignores time — so to compare investments fairly you annualise it into a compound yearly rate (CAGR).