Investment Return Calculator
Total return tells you how much you made; CAGR tells you how fast. Enter start value, end value and the holding period, and this returns both, plus the money multiple and how long a doubling would take at that rate.
Total return versus CAGR
Total return is the simple percentage change: (end − start) ÷ start. CAGR is the constant annual rate that would have produced the same result: (end ÷ start)1/years − 1.
The default — $10,000 to $18,500 over four years — is 85% total and about 16.6% a year. Those describe the same outcome, and quoting only the first is how a mediocre result gets dressed up. 85% sounds spectacular until the four years is mentioned.
What CAGR deliberately hides
The path. An investment that went 10,000 → 22,000 → 6,000 → 18,500 has exactly the same CAGR as one that climbed smoothly, and nobody experienced them the same way. CAGR is the right number for comparing end results and the wrong number for judging whether you could have held on.
That is why performance reporting that stops at CAGR is incomplete. Maximum drawdown, volatility, and the worst 12-month period tell you what the ride was like; the annualised figure tells you only where it finished.
The doubling-time line
Log(2) ÷ log(1 + r) is the exact answer, and the familiar "rule of 72" is a decent approximation for rates between about 5% and 15%. At 16.6% the true doubling time is 4.5 years; 72 ÷ 16.6 says 4.3. Close enough for mental arithmetic, wrong enough to not use in a spreadsheet.
Comparing against a benchmark
A 16.6% CAGR is excellent or unremarkable depending entirely on what the market did over the same four years. Returns quoted with no benchmark and no period are close to meaningless — which is precisely why "I turned $10k into $18.5k" is such a durable format in trading marketing. It omits the two facts that would let you judge it.
A return alone is not a result
Sharpe's own 1994 restatement defines his ratio over the return differential against a benchmark rather than over raw return.[1] Whatever this calculator gives you, the comparison it needs is against what you could have earned doing nothing.
The number is the easy part
Everything above is arithmetic, and anyone opening this page gets the same answer. What no calculator can settle is whether you took the trade on these terms, or are describing — afterwards — the version of it that worked out.
That is what a trade recorder is for: the trade committed before it resolves, timestamped and sealed on the spot, on a Merkle-anchored log a stranger can check without kappi's cooperation. The plan you typed here stops being a plan you remember having. $15/month, no free tier.
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Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate CAGR?
Divide the ending value by the starting value, raise to the power of 1 divided by the number of years, and subtract 1.
What is the difference between total return and CAGR?
Total return is the raw percentage change over the whole period. CAGR is the equivalent constant annual rate, which makes different holding periods comparable.
Does CAGR account for volatility?
No. Two investments with identical CAGRs can have completely different paths and drawdowns. CAGR describes the endpoints only.
Is the rule of 72 accurate?
It is a good approximation between roughly 5% and 15%. The exact doubling time is log(2) divided by log(1 + rate), which this calculator uses.