ROI Calculator
Return on investment is the gain divided by what you put in: (final value − initial investment) ÷ initial investment × 100. Enter 10,000 as Initial Investment and 15,000 as Final Value on the Simple tab and this calculator returns 50.00% with a 5,000 net gain. The Annualized tab turns 10,000 into 25,000 over 5 years into 150.00% total and 20.11% a year.
Growth Projection
| Investment Name | Invested | Current Value | Years | ROI | Annual | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Best Performer
About ROI Calculator
This ROI calculator has three tabs. Simple takes an Initial Investment and a Final Value and returns the return on investment as a percentage plus the net gain in money. Annualized adds a Years held field and reports two figures side by side: total ROI over the whole period and the compound annual rate that would have produced it, together with a growth projection bar for each year. Comparison is a small table where you name several investments, give each an amount invested, a current value and a number of years, and the tool ranks them by total and by annual return.
The arithmetic is the standard one. Total ROI is (final − initial) ÷ initial × 100. The annualized figure is the geometric mean, (final ÷ initial) raised to the power of 1 ÷ years, minus 1 — not the total divided by the number of years, which overstates a long hold. With 10,000 growing to 25,000 in 5 years the total is 150.00% while the annualized rate is 20.11%.
The comparison table is where the difference bites. Its three sample rows show 10,000 to 15,000 over 3 years at 50.00% total and 14.47% a year, 50,000 to 65,000 over 5 years at 30.00% and 5.39%, and 5,000 to 8,000 over 2 years at 60.00% and 26.49%. Add a row with the button, delete one with its remove control, and the Best performer panel updates.
Limits. Everything is entered by you: the tool has no market data, no fees, no tax and no inflation adjustment, and Initial Investment has to already include the costs you want counted. Amounts carry a dollar sign but the arithmetic is currency-neutral. This is a calculator, not financial advice.
Use Cases
How to use
Stay on the Simple tab for a single investment: type the amount you put in under Initial Investment ($) and what it is worth now under Final Value ($).
Read the result panel: the large percentage is the return on investment and Net gain below it is the same figure in money.
Press Annualized when the holding period matters. Add Years held and the tool shows Total ROI and Annualized ROI as two separate tiles.
Look at the Growth projection bars underneath, one per year, to see how the annualized rate compounds towards the final value.
Press Comparison to weigh several investments. Fill in a name, the amount invested, the current value and the years for each row.
Use the add button for another row and the remove control to drop one; the Best performer panel names the winner on total and on annual return.
Pro Tips
- Put every cost into Initial Investment, not just the purchase price. Fees, shipping and setup all belong there, because the tool has no separate cost field and will not add them for you.
- Years held accepts decimals in steps of 0.1, so an eighteen-month hold goes in as 1.5. Leave it at 0 and the calculator treats the period as one year rather than dividing by zero.
- Read Annualized ROI, not Total ROI, when comparing investments of different lengths. The Comparison table prints both columns side by side precisely so the two are not confused.
- The growth projection bars are drawn from the annualized rate, so they show smooth compounding, not what actually happened year by year. They are a shape, not a history.
- A Final Value below the Initial Investment gives a negative percentage and a negative net gain. That minus sign is a real loss per the numbers you typed, not an error in the tool.
Troubleshooting
Total ROI and Annualized ROI show completely different numbers.
They should. Total ROI covers the whole holding period, while Annualized ROI is the yearly compound rate that would reach the same end value. 10,000 growing to 25,000 in five years is 150.00% in total but 20.11% a year. Compare investments on the annual figure.
The result is negative.
The Final Value you entered is lower than the Initial Investment, so the calculation is reporting a loss. Check that you have not swapped the two boxes; if the numbers are right, the negative percentage and the negative net gain are the correct answer.
The percentage does not match the return my broker reports.
This tool only knows the two numbers you typed. It does not subtract fees, commissions, tax or inflation, and it does not know about money added or withdrawn during the period. Fold those costs into Initial Investment and Final Value before comparing with a statement.
Frequently Asked Questions
ROI = (final value − initial investment) ÷ initial investment × 100. Type 10,000 into Initial Investment and 15,000 into Final Value on the Simple tab and the calculator returns 50.00%, with a net gain of 5,000 underneath. The denominator is what you put in, so every cost you want counted has to be inside that first number.
Yes. A 100% return means the gain equals the amount invested, so the final value is twice the initial one: 10,000 in and 20,000 out. Note that this says nothing about how long it took. Use the Annualized tab if you need the yearly rate behind that doubling.
It means you got back 15 cents of profit for every dollar invested, on top of the dollar itself. On 10,000 that is a 1,500 net gain and a final value of 11,500. Whether 15% is total or per year matters enormously, which is why the Annualized tab reports the two separately.
A 30% ROI is a gain of three tenths of the amount invested. The real estate row in the comparison table is exactly that: 50,000 invested, 65,000 today, a 15,000 gain and 30.00% total. Spread over the five years in that row, it is only 5.39% a year.
ROI is profit expressed as a percentage of what you put in, which makes investments of different sizes comparable. The profit itself in currency is the Net gain line under the percentage. A 5,000 gain is a 50% ROI on 10,000 and a 10% ROI on 50,000 — the same profit, a very different return.
Total ROI measures the whole holding period in one number. Annualized ROI is the compound rate per year that would produce the same result: (final ÷ initial) to the power of 1 ÷ years, minus 1. For 10,000 to 25,000 over five years those are 150.00% and 20.11%. Dividing the total by the years would wrongly give 30%.
It depends entirely on how long it took, which is why this calculator refuses to rank returns for you. A 50% total return earned in one year is 50% a year; the same 50% over five years is 8.45% a year. Enter the years on the Annualized tab and compare that figure, not the headline.
Put every acquisition cost — price, fees, taxes and works — into Initial Investment, and today's valuation plus the rent you have collected into Final Value, then add the years you have owned it. The Annualized tab then gives the yearly rate. The tool does not model mortgage interest or depreciation, so include or exclude them deliberately.
With the initial amount in A2 and the final value in B2, ROI is =(B2-A2)/A2 formatted as a percentage. For the annualized figure with the years in C2, use =(B2/A2)^(1/C2)-1. Those are the same two formulas this page evaluates, so the results match to the cent.
That is a question about your market, not about the arithmetic, and this calculator does not judge or forecast returns — it only reports what your own two figures imply, and nothing here is financial advice. What it can do is make the comparison honest: put your candidates in the Comparison table with their real holding periods and read the annual column.