Return on investment is the gain divided by everything that had to be paid to get it. It answers a simple question: for each dollar put in, how much came back? The same gain can look very different depending on whether it took one year or twenty to arrive.
ROI Calculator - Danfio
https://danfio.com/tools/roi-calculator/ - printed from this page
Currency: USD ($) - display only, nothing was converted
Profit on $10,000 invested
$4,500.00
$10,000 in, worth $14,500 now
Return on investment compares the gain with everything paid to get it, including fees and every later top-up.
| Price move | Value at exit | Profit or loss | ROI | Annualised |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| -30% | $10,150 | $150 | 1.5% | 0.3% |
| -20% | $11,600 | $1,600 | 16% | 3.01% |
| -10% | $13,050 | $3,050 | 30.5% | 5.47% |
| Unchanged | $14,500 | $4,500 | 45% | 7.71% |
| +10% | $15,950 | $5,950 | 59.5% | 9.79% |
| +20% | $17,400 | $7,400 | 74% | 11.71% |
| +30% | $18,850 | $8,850 | 88.5% | 13.52% |
A position that has not been sold has not returned anything yet: these rows are what the same holding would show if the price moved before you sold.
| Holding period | Annualised return | Value per $1,000 invested |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 45% | $1,450.00 |
| 3 years | 13.19% | $1,450.00 |
| 5 years | 7.71% | $1,450.00 |
| 10 years | 3.79% | $1,450.00 |
| 20 years | 1.88% | $1,450.00 |
A 45% total return is remarkable in one year and ordinary spread over twenty, which is why the annualised figure is the one to compare.
This calculator takes the amount invested, anything added later, the fees paid, the income already received and the current or selling value, then reports the total return, the annualised rate and a table of what the position would show at other exit prices.
Two investments can post the same profit and be nothing alike, because the one held longer flatters the same gain. This page separates the total return from the annualized rate, then prices the same position at other exit values so the comparison stops rewarding patience alone and fees sit inside the cost basis.
A single sum in at the start and a single sum at the end is the only convention a visitor can reproduce by hand, and the page prints that assumption beside the rate rather than burying it. The arithmetic is client-side: it runs in your browser and no figure you type is sent anywhere.
Enter the after-tax proceeds yourself if you want a net figure, because tax on the gain depends on the account and the holding period. Inflation, transaction spreads, currency movement and the risk that two equal returns carried are all outside the arithmetic. Not investment or insurance advice; quotes come from a licensed provider.
ROI = (final value + income received − initial amount − later additions − fees) ÷ (initial amount + later additions + fees) × 100.
Everything paid counts as invested, which is why a commission belongs in the cost basis instead of being netted off the outcome. The gain sits in the numerator and everything paid for it sits in the denominator. A 1% fee on a 10% gain is not a rounding error: it takes a tenth of the return, because the fee dollars never get to compound or count as gain.
A 45% gain is a 45% ROI whenever it happened, but it is 7.71% a year over five years and 3.79% a year over ten. Comparing two investments by total return alone rewards whichever one was held longer, so the annualised figure (the compound rate, sometimes written CAGR) is the honest comparison, and the two can diverge sharply even when the total looks healthy.
The annualised number also exposes small differences over long periods. Two portfolios five percentage points apart in total return are much closer than they look: over five years that is about a percentage point a year, and over twenty years less still.
Tax on the gain is not calculated, because it depends on the account type, the holding period and the bracket. If you want the after-tax figure, enter the post-tax proceeds as the current value.
Risk is not captured either. A 20% return that was guaranteed and a 20% return that could have lost half the money are not the same result, and no single ratio separates them. Inflation, transaction spreads and currency movement are likewise outside the arithmetic, so the percentage is a raw number rather than an adjusted one.
The annualised rate treats the holding as one sum in at the start and one sum at the end, and real investing rarely sits that way. A 15.84% total return over two years is 6.24% a year only if the money was there from day one; money added halfway through changes the rate hidden inside the same ending value.
The page keeps the single-sum convention because it is the only one a visitor can reproduce by hand, and it says so in the same sentence as the number. Between two positions of different lengths, compare the annualised rates: the total return alone rewards whichever one was held longer.
A 45% return on $10,000 and a 45% return on $100,000 are the same percentage and different decisions. The page prints the dollar gain beside the percentage for that reason: the ratio answers how efficiently, the dollars answer whether it was worth doing, and neither substitutes for the other when you are choosing what comes next.
The counterexample is a small position with a big rate. $500 turned into $800 is a 60% return - better than any fund in a typical portfolio - and $300 of profit. Sizing the position up does not preserve that: the same idea at $50,000 is a different trade with different liquidity, and the percentage is silent about all of it.
Fees behave the same way in reverse. A $25 commission on a $1,000 trade is 2.5% of the position, a large part of a 10% gain; the same $25 on a $25,000 trade is a tenth of a percent. That is why the fee field is a dollar amount rather than a rate here: the arithmetic has to see the dollars before it can say what they cost.
Each example below was run through the calculator on this page when the site was built, so the numbers match what you see when you enter the same inputs.
Amount invested: $10,000.00 · Added later: $0.00 · Value now (or at sale): $14,500.00 · Dividends or income received: $0.00 · Fees and costs: $0.00 · Holding period: 5 years
Profit on $10,000 invested
$4,500.00
$10,000 in, worth $14,500 now
Return on investment: 45% · Annualised over 5 years: 7.71% · Back per dollar invested: 1.45x · Total cost basis: $10,000.00
A 45% total return is 7.71% a year compounded, which is the figure to compare with an index fund or a savings rate.
Amount invested: $25,000.00 · Added later: $5,000.00 · Value now (or at sale): $31,000.00 · Dividends or income received: $1,800.00 · Fees and costs: $25.00 · Holding period: 4 years
Profit on $30,025 invested
$2,775.00
$30,000 in, $25 of fees, worth $31,000 now, plus $1,800 received
Return on investment: 9.24% · Annualised over 4 years: 0.8% · Back per dollar invested: 1.03x · Total cost basis: $30,025.00
The $1,800 of dividends counts towards the return even though the share price barely moved, and the $25 of fees is added to the cost basis rather than deducted from the gain.
Amount invested: $8,000.00 · Added later: $0.00 · Value now (or at sale): $5,200.00 · Dividends or income received: $120.00 · Fees and costs: $20.00 · Holding period: 2 years
Loss on $8,020 invested
-$2,700.00
$8,000 in, $20 of fees, worth $5,200 now, plus $120 received
Return on investment: -33.67% · Annualised over 2 years: -19.48% · Back per dollar invested: 0.65x · Total cost basis: $8,020.00
The return is negative but smaller than the price fall suggests, because the income received and the fees both count in the sum: the price fell 35% while the return is about −34%.
Amount invested: $10,000.00 · Added later: $0.00 · Value now (or at sale): $11,400.00 · Dividends or income received: $300.00 · Fees and costs: $100.00 · Holding period: 2 years
Profit on $10,100 invested
$1,600.00
$10,000 in, $100 of fees, worth $11,400 now, plus $300 received
Return on investment: 15.84% · Annualised over 2 years: 6.24% · Back per dollar invested: 1.13x · Total cost basis: $10,100.00
$10,000 plus $100 of fees became $11,400 now, and the $300 of dividends received counts toward the $1,600 profit: 15.84% total, which is 6.24% a year compounded. The fee sits inside the cost basis rather than being netted off the gain.
It depends on the risk and the horizon. A broad stock market index has returned roughly 7% to 10% a year before inflation over long periods, a savings account pays a fraction of that with almost no risk, and anything promising a large monthly return is either leveraged or a scam. Judge the return against the alternative you could have held instead, not against zero.
Use annualised return to compare two investments of different lengths, and total return to see what actually happened to your money. The table above shows both for the same position so the difference is visible: the same total return is a modest annual rate once the period is long.
Yes. Total return includes price change plus income, and for many holdings the income is most of the result. Enter what you received in cash, not what was reinvested, and add reinvested dividends to the current value instead.
Fees are added to the money invested, so they reduce the return exactly like a smaller gain would. A 1% fee on a portfolio earning 8% costs around 12% of the return over a decade and much more over a lifetime, because the money that paid the fee never compounds.
Yes, and the calculator reports it that way: a negative figure is the share of the money that did not come back. A −100% return means the whole investment was lost, which is the floor for a long position.
No. Enter the after-tax proceeds to see a net figure, and remember that a 7% return with 2.5% inflation is about 4.4% in real purchasing power. The compound interest calculator on this site shows that restatement explicitly.
Last reviewed 2026-09-14. Not investment or insurance advice; quotes come from a licensed provider. Read the full disclaimer.
Where a figure on this page comes from an official agency — HUD, IRS, FICO or a state body — the site keeps a dated snapshot of the source page in its sources library, and a scheduled job re-checks that snapshot, so the number can be traced back to the document it came from.
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