ROI Calculator
Calculate return on investment and annualized return from initial and final value.
Return on investment tells you how much an investment gained (or lost) relative to what you put in — but a raw ROI percentage doesn't account for how long it took to get there. This calculator gives you both the total and annualized figures.
Why annualized return matters more for comparison
A 50% ROI sounds great, but it's very different if it happened over 1 year versus 10 years. Annualized return converts any holding period to an equivalent yearly rate, which is the only fair way to compare two investments held for different lengths of time.
ROI doesn't account for risk
A high ROI on a volatile investment isn't automatically "better" than a modest ROI on a stable one — they carried different risk along the way. ROI is a useful summary number, but it shouldn't be the only factor in comparing investments.
Frequently asked questions
Does ROI include dividends or income received along the way?
Only if you include them in your "final value" input — if you received dividends or other income during the holding period, add that total to your final value to get an accurate ROI that reflects your true total return.
What's a "good" ROI?
It depends heavily on the asset class and time period — there's no universal benchmark. Comparing your annualized return to a relevant index (like the S&P 500's long-term average) is a more useful gauge than an arbitrary target number.