Mutual Fund Calculator
How much did your mutual fund earn per year? Enter its value when you bought in, its value today and the number of years in between. The calculator returns the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and the total return. Values from your statement already have the expense ratio taken out, so the result is your return after that fee. That form does not subtract sales loads or taxes for you. To see what the costs take, switch to the costs form: type an amount, a return, the loads, the expense ratio and a tax drag, and compare the result with a fund that has no costs.
CAGR (Annualized)
12.47%
Total Return
80.00%
How to use the Mutual Fund Calculator
- Enter your numbers in the Mutual Fund Calculator above.
- The result updates as you type, so there is no button to press.
- Change any value to see how the result moves.
The mutual fund return formulas
CAGR = (Ending value / Starting value)^(1/n) − 1 · · · Total return = (Ending value − Starting value) / Starting value · · · Each year = (1 + return)(1 − expense ratio) − tax drag
n is the number of years you held the fund. CAGR is the steady yearly rate that turns the starting value into the ending value. Total return is the whole change over the period, with no annualizing. The calculator shows both as percentages. In the costs form, the front-end load comes off the amount you pay in, the expense ratio and tax drag come off each year, and the back-end load comes off the lesser of what you paid for the shares and what they are worth at the end, the way the SEC says funds typically work it out.
Worked example
You put $10,000 into a fund and it is worth $18,000 five years later. Enter $10,000, $18,000 and 5 years: CAGR = (18,000 / 10,000)^(1/5) − 1 = 12.47%, and the total return is 80.00%. A second fund that grew $10,000 to $17,000 over the same five years comes out at 11.20% a year. Run each fund through the calculator to compare them. In the costs form, $10,000 at 7% for 20 years with a 5% front-end load and a 1% expense ratio ends at $30,067.90, against $38,696.84 with no costs. That is $8,628.94 less: $7,046.42 from the expense ratio and $1,582.52 from the load, and your return after costs is 5.66% a year.
Frequently asked questions
Does the result include the expense ratio?
Yes, if you enter values from your statement. The expense ratio is the yearly fee a fund charges to run, as a percentage of assets. The fund deducts it before it reports the share price, so your account value is already net of it.
How much do loads and fees cost over time?
Switch to the costs form and type the fund's figures. The SEC's bulletin on fund fees, read November 3, 2026, shows why the small ones matter: $100,000 at 4% a year for 20 years ends at about $208,000 with a 0.25% fee and about $179,000 with a 1.00% fee. The calculator gives $208,413.03 and $179,213.48 for those two. The fund's prospectus has a fee table with its real loads and operating expenses.
What should I type for tax drag?
The points of return you expect to lose to tax each year, as your own estimate. It starts at 0, which fits an account where the fund's gains are not taxed each year. This page cannot know your tax rate, your account type or how much the fund distributes, so it does not work the figure out for you. It also leaves out any tax when you sell.
How do I count a sales load?
In the costs form, type it in the load fields. For the return from two values, enter it as part of your numbers. A front-end load comes out of your purchase, so use the full amount you paid as the starting value. For a back-end load, use the amount you received after the charge as the ending value. A no-load fund needs no adjustment.
Does the calculator subtract taxes?
The return from two values does not. It works only from the values you enter. Tax you paid on distributions from other money is not in the result. To see how a lower after-tax rate changes a future balance, enter that rate in the Investment Calculator.
What if I added money along the way?
Then this calculator overstates your return, because it counts every dollar of growth as a gain on the starting value. For a fund with yearly deposits or withdrawals, use the IRR Calculator, which works from a list of yearly cash flows.