Calculator
ROI Calculator
Investment Return Calculator
Total Return (ROI)
66.00%
Performance Analysis
Your investment returned 66.0% in total, or 10.67% per year after including $1,200 of income. That is in line with or above the historical long-run return of the US stock market.
The Simplest Question in Investing: What Did I Make?
Return on investment strips investing back to one number: how much did you put in, what came out, and what is the difference as a percentage of your money? Whether the position is ASX shares, an ETF, a rental deposit or a managed fund, simple ROI answers it identically - profit divided by cost. It is the first metric every Australian investor learns, the quickest sanity check on any holding, and still the most abused, because a raw percentage says nothing about time or about the dividends collected along the way. That is where this calculator earns its keep. A holding that returned fifty percent sounds brilliant until you learn it took twenty years; another returning thirty percent in three years is the clearly superior investment despite the smaller headline. By folding income into the calculation and annualising across your actual holding period, the tool converts a vague profit figure into comparable, honest numbers. It also splits the return into its two engines: capital growth (the price move) and income (dividends and distributions) - a split that matters enormously for Australian investors because fully franked dividends carry franking credits that boost after-tax outcomes in ways the price chart never shows. Use it on any completed or current holding to see the true shape of your return rather than just its size.
Profit Over Cost, Then Made Comparable Across Time
Simple ROI is total profit divided by the initial investment: ending value plus income received, minus what you paid, all divided by what you paid. A $20,000 position that grows to $32,000 while paying $1,200 in dividends produced $13,200 of profit - a 66% total return on cost. The capital-gain component ($12,000, or 60%) and income component ($1,200, or 6%) are shown separately so you can see whether the investment's engine is growth, yield, or both. Annualisation then makes different holdings comparable: the compound annual growth rate takes the n-th root of the total-return ratio, where n is years held - here the fifth root of 1.66, roughly 10.7% per year. This geometric average is the honest measure; the arithmetic shortcut (total divided by years) flatters volatile paths and misleads whenever returns compound. Two limitations define where this tool stops. First, it assumes a single entry and no interim cash flows - regular contributions or partial exits need an IRR approach instead. Second, it reports pre-tax outcomes: CGT on eventual sale and the tax treatment of franked income will trim real-world results differently at different marginal rates, so treat the outputs as gross-of-tax comparisons between investments.
Expert Insights
Always Annualise Before Comparing Anything
Raw ROI percentages are only comparable across identical time periods, which almost never happens naturally. The habit that fixes most return confusion: compute the annualised figure for every holding before judging it. A 40% return over eight years compounds near 4.3% annually - barely beating term deposits after tax - while 25% over two years compounds above 11%. The first looks bigger on paper and performs worse in reality; annualisation exposes that instantly.
Count the Dividends or You Will Misjudge Every ASX Holding
Australian equities are among the world's higher-yielding major markets, and franking credits add value at tax time for most investors. Judging share positions on price alone systematically understates their true return - sometimes dramatically for bank and resource holdings yielding five percent plus credits. Enter total income received since purchase in this calculator's dividend field; the split between capital and income return also tells you whether your thesis (growth story versus income stream) actually played out.
Know When Simple ROI Stops Being Enough
The moment money moves in or out at different dates - salary-sacrificed top-ups, dividend reinvestment, partial profit-taking - simple ROI loses meaning because it cannot weight dollars by when they worked. That is IRR territory. Keep this tool for clean single-entry positions and quick sanity checks; graduate to the IRR calculator for portfolios with contribution histories, and treat any comparison between the two methods as a red flag to re-examine.
Actionable Tips
- 1
Audit One Holding Per Week With Real Numbers
Pick a position from your portfolio, pull the original contract note or statement, and run its true figures through the calculator including every dividend paid. Most investors discover their memory of performance is wrong - winners are remembered better than they were, and dividend-heavy laggards outperformed their reputation. Fifteen minutes a week builds an accurate mental model of your own record.
- 2
Benchmark Against the Index, Not Against Zero
A positive return is not automatically good - the ASX 200 total return benchmark delivers its long-run average without effort or brokerage. Run the same calculation on a low-cost index fund over your holding period and compare annualised figures honestly. Underperforming the index after costs is the silent failure mode of DIY investing; measuring it is the only way to correct course.
- 3
Record the Income Split for Tax Planning
Note the capital-versus-income split the calculator shows for each holding. Positions dominated by franked income suit high-margin-rate investors inside accumulation, while pure capital growth defers tax until sale - potentially qualifying for the 50% CGT discount after twelve months. Matching holdings to accounts (super versus taxable) by return type is legal, effective structuring most investors never attempt.
Real-World Examples
Grace Discovers Her 'Boring' Bank Outperformed
Convinced her bank shares had gone nowhere for four years, Grace nearly sold them for a tech ETF she was excited about. Running the numbers showed otherwise: flat-ish price action but consistent fully franked dividends lifted her total return to nine percent annualised - ahead of the index over the same window. The exercise saved her from swapping a genuinely strong performer for a fashionable story at exactly the wrong moment.
Daniel Annualises His Way Out of a Trap
Daniel judged his small-cap punt a winner: up 30% overall. But it had taken seven years, and annualised the return sat under four percent - below what his offset account saved him risk-free. Seeing the annualised truth, he redeployed into a diversified index position and set himself a rule going forward: no judgment on any holding until its CAGR sits next to its headline percentage.
The Okafor Family Compares Two Inheritance Choices
Inheriting a choice between keeping grandma's BHP shares or selling for an apartment deposit offset, the Okafors ran both histories: the shares' decade-long total return with dividends reinvested against the guaranteed mortgage-rate saving. With concrete annualised numbers side by side, the family kept a portion of shares for compounding and applied the rest to the mortgage - a decision built on arithmetic instead of family folklore.
Glossary of Terms
- Simple ROI
- Total profit divided by the initial amount invested, expressed as a percentage. Includes income received but ignores how long the money was invested.
- Annualised Return (CAGR)
- The constant yearly rate that would produce the same cumulative result - the geometric average that makes returns over different periods directly comparable.
- Income Return
- The portion of total return delivered as dividends or distributions rather than price appreciation. On ASX holdings it often carries franking credits that improve after-tax value.
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Ivy Sinclair-Wren
Financial Chaos Analyst
Ivy Sinclair-Wren is a Financial Chaos Analyst covering investing, AI, wealth psychology, and the emotional consequences of opening finance apps during market crashes. Based in Melbourne, she specializes in demystifying the Australian tax code and helping users navigate the intersection of spreadsheet logic and human irrationality.