Calculate your ROI in seconds
This ROI calculator tells you exactly what your money earned. Type in what you put in, what you got back, and how long you held the investment. You get your return on investment as a clean percentage, so you can compare a stock to a rental property on the same scale. No spreadsheet formulas, no guessing.
When to reach for it
Use this whenever you want to judge a money decision after the fact, or size one up before you commit. It works for a stock you sold, a rental property, a marketing spend for your business, even a home renovation you hope to recoup. Anything with a cost and a payoff fits the same formula, which is what makes ROI such a handy yardstick.
Enter your initial investment
Put in the total amount you spent to get started. Include the purchase price plus any upfront fees, like a broker commission or closing cost.
Enter the final value
Type in what the investment is worth now, or what you sold it for. If you already cashed out, use the net amount that actually landed in your account.
Add the holding period
Tell the calculator how many years you held the investment. This lets it show your annualized return, not just the total.
Read your result
You get your total ROI and your yearly ROI side by side. A positive number means you made money. A negative one means you lost some.
How the math works
ROI is simpler than it looks. You take your profit (the final value minus what you invested), divide it by what you invested, then multiply by 100 to turn it into a percentage.
The formula: ROI = (Final Value - Initial Investment) ÷ Initial Investment × 100
Say you put $10,000 into an index fund and three years later it's worth $13,500. Your profit is $3,500. Divide that by your $10,000 cost and you get 0.35, which is a 35% total ROI.
That 35% is spread across three years, though. To see your true yearly rate, the calculator annualizes it, which comes out to about 10.5% per year. That yearly figure is the one you want when you stack up investments held for different lengths of time.
Costs that eat into your ROI
Your real return is usually lower than the headline number, because a few things quietly chip away at it.
Fees and commissions raise your starting cost. Taxes take a slice of your profit when you sell. Inflation lowers what your dollars are actually worth by the time you cash out. And there's opportunity cost, the return you gave up by not putting that money somewhere else.
For an honest result, enter your all-in cost (price plus fees) and use your after-tax proceeds as the final value. The calculator is only as good as the numbers you feed it.
Tips for a number you can trust
Compare the annualized ROI, not the total, when investments ran for different amounts of time. A 35% return over three years is weaker than 35% in a single year.
Always fold fees into your initial cost. A 1% commission sounds small, but it drags down your real return more than you'd expect.
Use net, after-tax dollars on both sides if you want your true take-home number.
Run a best case and a worst case. Markets move, so a range tells you more than one tidy guess.
Remember that ROI ignores risk. A big return on a shaky bet isn't the same as a steady one, so weigh how much you could lose, not just what you could make.
ROI calculator FAQ
What is a good ROI?
It depends on what you measure it against. For the U.S. stock market, the long-run average has been roughly 7% to 10% per year, so many people use that as a benchmark. A 'good' ROI is really one that beats a safer option, like a high-yield savings account, by enough to make the extra risk worth it.
What's the difference between ROI and annualized ROI?
Total ROI is your full return over the entire time you held the investment. Annualized ROI breaks that same return down into an average yearly rate. The yearly figure is the fair way to compare investments you held for different lengths of time.
Does the ROI calculator include taxes and fees?
Only if you build them into your inputs. Add fees to your initial investment and use your after-tax proceeds as the final value. The tool handles the percentage math, but it can't know your personal tax situation on its own.
Can ROI be negative?
Yes. If your final value is lower than what you put in, your ROI turns negative, which means you lost money. For example, $10,000 that falls to $8,000 gives you a -20% ROI.
How is ROI different from APR or an interest rate?
An interest rate or APR is set in advance and tells you what a loan or savings account pays. ROI is measured after the fact and works for any investment, including ones with no fixed rate, like stocks or real estate. In short, ROI looks back at what actually happened.
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