Estimate how regular investments could grow over time. Enter your starting investment, recurring contribution, investment frequency, expected return, and time horizon to see your projected portfolio value.
Add your initial investment, recurring amount, frequency, return assumption, and investment period.
A Dollar-Cost Averaging Calculator estimates how an investment may grow when you contribute a fixed amount at regular intervals.
Instead of investing all available money at one time, dollar-cost averaging spreads contributions across multiple investment periods.
This calculator combines your starting investment, recurring contributions, investment frequency, assumed return, and time horizon to estimate your future portfolio value.
Add any money that is already invested before recurring contributions begin.
Choose how much you will invest and how frequently contributions are made.
See total contributions, estimated growth, contribution count, and future portfolio value.
Here, r is the return per contribution period and n is the total number of recurring investment periods.
When contributions are made at the beginning of each period, the calculator gives each contribution one additional period of modeled growth.
Suppose you begin with $5,000 and invest $500 every month for 10 years.
Your total cash contributions would be your initial $5,000 plus 120 monthly investments. The calculator then estimates how both the initial amount and each recurring contribution may grow over time.
Dollar-cost averaging creates a regular investment schedule rather than requiring you to decide when the market is at the perfect entry point.
When a fixed dollar amount is invested regularly, that amount may buy more units when prices are lower and fewer units when prices are higher.
Regular contributions can make investing part of a recurring savings routine and may make long-term financial goals easier to plan.
Dollar-cost averaging does not prevent losses. Investments can decline in value, and actual returns may differ significantly from a constant annual return assumption.
Dollar-cost averaging invests money gradually over time, while lump-sum investing places a larger amount into the market at once.
With dollar-cost averaging, later contributions have less time to grow because they enter the investment at different points during the selected period.
Lump-sum investing gives the full amount exposure to market returns immediately, but it also means the entire amount is exposed to market movements from the start.