Personal Rate Of Return Calculator
Your fund’s published return is not your return. If you added money along the way, or pulled some out, your personal rate of return depends on when the cash moved, not just where the balance started and ended. This calculator measures your actual performance three ways: plain CAGR for untouched investments, a contribution-adjusted rate for regular savers, and the Simple Dietz method that approximates your true internal rate of return.
PV $0.00 → FV $0.00 over 0.0 years
Before fees, taxes and inflation. Enter final values net of fees for the truest read.
Quick Answer
For the pre-filled example, $10,000 growing to $20,000 over 5 years with no contributions earns a 14.87% compound annual growth rate, rated Excellent. Add $2,000 a year and the tool adjusts for the deposits: $10,000 growing to $50,000 over 10 years with $2,000/year in contributions earns a 9.60% contribution-adjusted rate, rated Very good. On the Simple Dietz tab, $10,000 to $18,000 with $5,000 of net contributions is a 24.00% period return (4.40% annualized).
Key takeaways
- Plain CAGR only works when no money moved in or out. The moment you contribute or withdraw, you need a dollar-weighted method.
- The contribution-adjusted rate and Simple Dietz both assume contributions landed mid-period on average: an honest, stated approximation, not a hidden one.
- Your personal return and your fund’s published return are different numbers by design: the fund is time-weighted, yours is dollar-weighted.
- Results here are before fees, taxes and inflation: enter a final value net of fees for the truest read.
How to use the personal rate of return calculator
Pick the tab that matches what you know, enter the numbers, and click Calculate. The two tabs answer different questions, so the first choice matters.
- CAGR / with contributions tab: use it when you know the starting balance, ending balance and holding period. Leave contributions blank for a plain CAGR, or enter average annual contributions and the tool switches to the contribution-adjusted rate.
- Simple Dietz tab: use it when you know the beginning and ending values plus total net contributions (deposits minus withdrawals). Enter years only if you want the period return annualized.
- Read the verdict: the hero number is your annualized personal rate; the badge underneath rates it from Poor to Excellent against published bands.
- Copy or share: both tabs have Copy my results and Share results. The Dietz copy carries the full period-return lines.
Both tabs validate before calculating: blanks or non-positive values trigger a plain message naming the problem, and nothing half-computed is shown.
The three formulas, and what each assumes
Each method answers “what did my money earn” under a different assumption about cash flows. Knowing the assumption is what keeps the answer honest.
CAGR (no contributions): CAGR = (FV ÷ PV)^(1 ÷ t) − 1. It asks what steady yearly rate would connect the start and end values. For a pure CAGR with no contributions at all, the CAGR return calculator is the shorter path; this page exists for the messier real cases.
With contributions: rate = (FV ÷ (PV + total contributions ÷ 2))^(1 ÷ t) − 1. The denominator treats your deposits as arriving mid-period on average. That is an approximation: if you actually contributed early in a rising market, your true return is a little higher; if late, a little lower. The tool states this rather than hiding it.
Simple Dietz: return = (V1 − V0 − C) ÷ (V0 + C ÷ 2), where C is net contributions. It is the classic dollar-weighted approximation of the internal rate of return, exact when contributions landed mid-period. Enter years to annualize: annualized = (1 + Dietz)^(1 ÷ years) − 1.
The performance badge uses fixed bands, published here so the verdict is auditable:
| Annualized rate | Rating | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 12% and above | Excellent | Outstanding returns beating most markets |
| 8% to under 12% | Very good | Strong returns above market average |
| 5% to under 8% | Good | Solid returns competitive with indices |
| 3% to under 5% | Average | Moderate returns similar to bonds |
| 0% to under 3% | Below average | Low returns barely beating inflation |
| Below 0% | Poor | Negative returns, review investment strategy |
Worked example: three runs of the tool
The CAGR example is pre-filled above. Each run below is an actual calculation from this page’s code, reproducible to the second decimal.
| Run | Result | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| $10,000 → $20,000, 5 yrs, no contributions (CAGR) | 14.87% per year | Excellent |
| $10,000 → $50,000, 10 yrs, $2,000/yr contributions | 9.60% per year | Very good |
| $10,000 → $18,000, $5,000 net contributions, 5 yrs (Dietz) | 24.00% period / 4.40% annualized | n/a (period method) |
| $10,000 → $15,000, 5 yrs, no contributions (CAGR) | 8.45% per year | Very good |
| $10,000 → $15,000, 5 yrs, $1,000/yr contributions | 3.71% per year | Average |
| $10,000 → $15,000, $2,000 net contributions, 1 yr (Dietz) | 27.27% period / 12.82% over 2 yrs | n/a (period method) |
The $15,000 pair is the one to sit with: the same endpoints give 8.45% with no contributions and 3.71% with $1,000 a year added, because much of the growth came from deposits, not the market. That gap is exactly why a contribution-blind CAGR flatters regular savers. At 14.87%, money doubles roughly every 4.8 years by the Rule of 72; the compound interest doubling time calculator runs that precisely. For a feel of what a 10% year means in dollars, the 10 percent annual return calculator works the same compounding from the other direction.
Why your return differs from the fund’s published return
Two investors in the same fund can earn very different personal returns. The fund reports a time-weighted return: how the underlying assets performed, as if no one ever added or withdrew a dollar. Your personal return is dollar-weighted: it accounts for when your cash actually entered and left.
Buy before a rally and your dollars capture the full climb; add most of your money after the fund has already risen and your dollars missed the early gains. Neither investor did anything wrong, and neither number is lying: they answer different questions. That is also why comparing your personal rate against the fund’s factsheet is a category error. Compare it against a relevant index over the same period, or against your own past periods, and judge the timing separately from the picking.
What competing calculators miss
Return calculators cluster around the easy case, and the gaps are consistent:
- Pure CAGR tools (netcalculator, easyunitconverter, callculator): clean CAGR math, some with year-by-year schedules. They ignore contributions entirely, so a regular saver’s headline number is flattering but wrong.
- Contribution-aware tools (onlycalculators, financecalccenter): handle regular deposits and show schedules, but none offer a dollar-weighted method, and none state what timing assumption their contribution math makes.
- IRR-capable tools (calculator.now): a true internal rate of return option plus inflation adjustment. The honest trade: IRR needs every dated cash flow. If you only know the totals, you cannot use it.
- Editorial pages (Omni’s annualized return, ryanoconnellfinance, equityreplay): good explanations of fees, taxes and the “don’t divide by years” trap, thin or no contribution handling.
- The gap this page fills: three methods on one page with plain guidance on which to use, both approximation methods disclosing their mid-period assumption instead of burying it, a published rating scale wired into the tool, and the timing-versus-fund explanation that makes the number meaningful. No dated cash-flow spreadsheet required.
Frequently asked questions
It is the return you actually earned, accounting for the timing of your deposits and withdrawals. Two investors in the same fund can have very different personal returns if one bought before a rally and the other bought after.
On the CAGR tab, entering annual contributions switches the math to (FV ÷ (PV + total contributions ÷ 2))^(1 ÷ years) − 1. That treats your deposits as arriving mid-period on average: an honest approximation. If you contributed early in a rising market your true return is a little higher, and if late, a little lower.
A dollar-weighted return: (ending value − beginning value − net contributions) ÷ (beginning value + net contributions ÷ 2). It treats contributions as arriving mid-period and closely approximates the true internal rate of return. Enter years to annualize the period return.
Use plain CAGR when no money moved in or out: it measures the investment itself. Use the contribution-adjusted rate or Simple Dietz when you added or withdrew money: they measure what your money actually did. Comparing a contribution-blind CAGR against your deposits is the most common way investors flatter themselves.
Usually timing. The fund reports a time-weighted return, as if no cash ever moved; your personal return is dollar-weighted. If you added most of your money after the fund had already risen, your dollars missed the early gains. Compare your personal rate against a relevant index over the same period instead.
This calculator rates 12% and above as excellent, 8% very good, 5% good, 3% average and 0% below average, per year. As context, US equities have averaged roughly 10% a year over the long run before inflation. Compare against a relevant index over the same period rather than chasing an absolute number.
With caution. Annualizing a hot quarter projects it across a full year, which exaggerates both gains and losses. For periods under a year, the period return itself (what the Dietz tab shows before annualizing) is usually the more honest number.
No. Results are before fees, taxes and inflation, which is why the page asks you to enter a final value net of fees for the truest read. To see the inflation side, convert any nominal result with the Fisher equation: (1 + nominal) ÷ (1 + inflation) − 1.
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References
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov. Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov. How Fees and Expenses Affect Your Investment Portfolio. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov. Compound Interest Calculator. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Evaluating Investment Performance. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The Reality of Investment Risk. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- CFA Institute. Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS). Accessed October 23, 2026.
- S&P Dow Jones Indices. SPIVA Scorecards. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED). S&P 500 Index series. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CPI Inflation Calculator. Accessed October 23, 2026.
- Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 409, Capital Gains and Losses. Accessed October 23, 2026.