Investment Calculator

Enter a scenario you are willing to test, not a number you expect the market to deliver every year. The rate is an effective annual return before the asset-based fees entered separately. Run a lower and a higher case as well as a central case; the spread is more useful than a single confident-looking forecast.

Each contribution is added at the end of the month, after that month’s return and fee effect. This is an ordinary-annuity convention and is conservative for money invested earlier in the month. The last contribution therefore earns no return before the ending balance is measured.

The annual percentage is treated as an asset-retention factor spread consistently across twelve months. The fee impact shown is the difference between otherwise identical paths with and without fees, so it includes both the amount removed and all later growth that removed money could no longer earn.

Asset-based fees apply to the changing account balance, not just to what you deposited. Once a fee leaves the portfolio, it also misses every later period of compounding. That opportunity cost is why a one-percentage-point annual fee can reduce a long investment outcome by much more than one percent.

It discounts the projected future balance by the price growth implied by your constant inflation assumption. BLS explains purchasing power through the ratio of CPI levels; under a fixed annual scenario, the equivalent calculation divides by one plus inflation raised to the number of years.

No. It repeats one assumed effective return every year, while actual investments rise and fall unpredictably. It omits volatility, taxes, trading costs, cash flows other than the monthly contribution, and the order of returns. Use it to compare assumptions and saving choices, not to promise a future balance.