Long-Term Investing Calculator

Investing is one of the most powerful ways to grow wealth over time. Whether you're saving for retirement or simply building a nest egg, understanding how your contributions and returns add up can help you make smarter financial decisions.

See how your investment could grow based on your starting balance, monthly deposits, expected return, and timeline. This tool breaks everything down - how much you plan to contribute, how much you could gain, and what your total balance might look like in the future.

You’ll also see how factors like investment fees and inflation can affect your overall results.

Starting Balance

Monthly Contribution

Investment Period

Annual Return

Investment Fees

Contributions

Returns

Fees

Total

What's it Worth?

Inflation reduces the future value of money. These figures show how much would buy in today’s dollars after years of inflation at each average annual rate:

2% Inflation

3% Inflation

4% Inflation

For context, inflation averaged about 2.7% annually over the 30 years before the COVID-19 pandemic. In more recent years, it has averaged closer to 4%. Future rates may be higher or lower.

About Investment Fees

Understanding Investment Fees

Investment fees can quietly erode your long-term gains.

Using the current calculator values, the total balance without fees would have been $0, meaning fees reduced overall earnings by .

Annual fees typically encountered by investors include:

Expense Ratio - Management fees charged by mutual funds and similar investments.
Assets Under Management (AUM) - Fees on total assets managed charged by some financial advisors.

Some investors may even pay both: a mutual fund expense ratio and an advisor’s AUM fee. For example, if a fund charges 0.75% and the advisor charges 1%, the total annual fee would be 1.75%.

Fees for passive mutual funds generally range from 0.02% to 0.2%. Fees for actively managed funds range from 0.5% to 1.5%. Fees charged by investment advisors using the AUM model average around 1%.

While some fees may be unavoidable, minimizing fees can have a big impact. For example, you could choose to invest in low-fee funds that track a stock index like the S&P 500 and, if you hire a financial advisor, consider one who charges on an hourly versus AUM basis.