Dollar-Cost Averaging Calculator
Invest the same amount every month, rain or shine. See what steady, automatic contributions actually grow into.
Your plan
Enter what you invest each month
The fixed amount you invest every month, no matter what the market's doing.
How long you plan to keep investing before you'd need the money.
A broad stock market ETF has averaged roughly 7-10% a year over the long run, before inflation.
Your results
What steady investing adds up to
Ending balance
$91,473.02
Total contributed
$60,000
Growth from returns
$31,473.02
Share of balance that's growth, not your own money
34%
Balance over time
Your contributions vs. your total balance
Why dollar-cost averaging works
How this dollar-cost averaging calculator works
Dollar-cost averaging means investing the same amount on a fixed schedule regardless of price. You end up buying more shares when prices are low and fewer when they are high, which averages out your cost over time instead of betting on any single entry point.
Enter a monthly amount, an expected return, and a time horizon, and the calculator compounds each contribution forward from the month it went in, so you can see how a steady habit adds up over years rather than one lump deposit.
Why it beats waiting for the right moment
Dollar-cost averaging will not beat a lump sum invested at the exact best possible moment. Nobody can identify that moment reliably in advance, and most people who try end up waiting on the sidelines through months of gains while looking for a dip that never quite arrives the way they expected. Dollar-cost averaging removes that guesswork entirely by taking the decision out of your hands on a schedule.
In practice, most people are not choosing between dollar-cost averaging and a perfectly timed lump sum. They are choosing between investing on a schedule and sitting on the money while they wait for a better moment. A fixed monthly investment wins that comparison by simply showing up every month.
Making it automatic
Set up an automatic transfer into your brokerage account on payday, and set the investment itself to happen automatically too if your platform allows it. The strategy only works if the money actually moves every month, and automating it removes the chance to second-guess a bad news week or skip a month because the market looks scary that day.
How this is calculated
It invests the same fixed amount every month and compounds the running balance forward.
Each month, the balance grows by the expected rate of return and then the fixed monthly contribution is added, compounding on itself for every remaining month in the horizon.
What it assumes
- The return is a steady average. Real markets move up and down month to month.
- Contributions are added at the end of each month, with no breaks or missed months.
- No taxes, fees, or inflation are subtracted.
Frequently asked questions
Is dollar-cost averaging better than investing a lump sum all at once?
Historically, investing a lump sum immediately has outperformed dollar-cost averaging more often than not, simply because markets rise more than they fall over time. Dollar-cost averaging's real value is behavioral: it removes the temptation to wait for a better moment that may never come.
What happens if I skip a month?
One missed month has a small effect on the total; this calculator assumes no gaps for simplicity, but the core benefit, consistent long-term investing, still holds even if a real schedule isn't perfectly unbroken.
Should I dollar-cost average into a single stock or a broad fund?
A broad, diversified fund is the more common and lower-risk application, since it spreads out both the timing risk this strategy addresses and the company-specific risk a single stock carries on top of it.
Results are estimates for educational purposes only, based on the values you enter and a constant rate of return. Real markets rise and fall, so your actual results will differ. This is not financial advice.