ROI Calculator

You enter the amount you invested and what the investment is worth, and it works out the return for you. It finds your net profit by subtracting the cost from the final value, divides that by the cost for the ROI percent, and, if you add a holding period, works out the annualized return too. Everything loads instantly in the page, so you'll see the numbers change as you type, and none of it is stored on our end or sent to a server.

ROI is your net profit divided by what you invested, written as a percent. You take the final value, subtract the amount you put in to get the gain, then divide the gain by the cost and multiply by 100. So $1,000 that grows to $1,500 has a $500 gain, and $500 divided by $1,000 is a 50 percent ROI. The calculator runs that the moment you type the two values, and it'll show the profit alongside.

Annualized ROI spreads the return evenly across the years you held the investment, so you can compare deals of different lengths fairly. A 50 percent return over three years isn't the same as 50 percent in one year, and the annualized figure shows that. It uses the formula (final divided by cost) to the power of one over the years, minus one. For that example it's about 14.5 percent a year, which is far more useful than the raw 50 percent.

Because the total ROI is the whole gain over the entire period, while the annualized figure is the steady yearly rate that would build up to it through compounding. Since the yearly returns compound on each other, a smaller annual rate reaches the same total. So your 50 percent over three years works out to roughly 14.5 percent a year, not 50 divided by 3. Longer holding periods pull the annualized rate down for the same total return.

It depends on the investment and the risk, so there's no single right number. The long-run stock market has averaged somewhere around 7 to 10 percent a year before inflation, which is a common benchmark, while a quick flip or a risky venture might need much more to be worth it. Don't forget that ROI alone ignores time and risk, so compare the annualized figure here, not just the headline percent, when you weigh one option against another.

It's the same formula: take what the shares are worth now, add any dividends you collected, subtract what you paid, then divide that gain by what you paid and multiply by 100. So if you bought $2,000 of stock, it's worth $2,600, and you banked $80 in dividends, your gain is $680 and the ROI is 34 percent. Pop the amount you invested and the current value into the tool above, and it'll show the return and the annualized rate once you add how long you held the shares.

You can. The plain ROI percent doesn't care about time, so it reads the same whether you held the investment a month or a decade. To get an annualized rate from a monthly return, enter the holding period in years, so one month is about 0.083 and six months is 0.5. The calculator then compounds that short period out to a yearly figure, which is the fair way to line a quick monthly gain up against a longer hold.

Yes, it's completely free, with no sign-up, and it runs right in your browser, so your figures stay on your device. Type your investment and its value, add the years if you want the annualized rate, and read the return in a tap. Bookmark it for sizing up a stock, a property, a side project, or a marketing spend, and you'll have a clear ROI estimate whenever you need one.