CAGR Calculator
The steady annual growth rate between what you invested and what it became - the honest way to compare returns across durations.
A CAGR calculator turns any investment's start value, end value and holding period into the single steady annual growth rate that connects them, so a 1,00,000 that became 2,00,000 in five years reads as 14.87% a year — comparable across funds, gold, property and fixed deposits.
Enter investment details
Results update live. CAGR = (final / initial) ^ (1 / years) - 1. For SIPs or multiple cash flows, use the Returns Calculator (XIRR).
CAGR
0.00%
Compound annual growth rate
ABSOLUTE GROWTH
0%
Total change, ignoring time
TOTAL GAIN
₹0
Final - initial value
WEALTH MULTIPLIER
0.00x
Final / initial value
TYPICAL LONG-RUN CAGR BENCHMARKS (INDIA)
| Asset Class | Historical CAGR | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Nifty 50 / Large Cap | 12 - 15% | Long-term core equity |
| Mid / Small Cap | 15 - 20%+ | Higher growth, higher swings |
| Gold | 8 - 10% | Inflation hedge |
| Real Estate | 8 - 12% | Illiquid, location-driven |
| Debt Funds / FDs | 6 - 8% | Capital preservation |
| Savings Account | 3 - 4% | Parking money only |
Indicative long-run figures, not guarantees. Compare your result against the class you actually invested in.
Planning purposes only. Market returns are not guaranteed and past performance does not predict future results. Consult a SEBI-registered financial advisor before investing.
How this is calculated
CAGR — the compound annual growth rate — answers one question: if this investment had grown at a perfectly steady rate every year, what would that rate have been? The formula is (ending value / beginning value) ^ (1 / years) - 1. The calculator applies it directly: enter what you put in, what it is worth now and how many years passed, and it returns the annualised rate along with the absolute growth percentage and the rupee gain.
The distinction that trips most people up is CAGR versus absolute return. Doubling your money is a 100% absolute return whether it took three years or ten — but as a CAGR it is 25.99% a year over three years and only 7.18% over ten. Absolute return ignores time; CAGR restores it. That is why comparing two investments by their absolute returns is meaningless unless they ran for exactly the same period.
CAGR smooths reality. An equity fund that went +40%, -20%, +25% over three years did not grow steadily, but its CAGR compresses that journey into one steady equivalent rate. This is a feature for comparison and a limitation for risk assessment: two funds can share a CAGR while one was far more volatile. CAGR tells you the destination speed, not how bumpy the road was.
Use CAGR for point-to-point investments: a lump sum into a fund, a property bought and sold, gold held across a decade, a stock position. It cannot handle money added or removed along the way — a monthly SIP has instalments invested for different lengths of time, and forcing them through the CAGR formula misstates the return. For SIPs and any cash-flow pattern with multiple dates, the right tool is XIRR, and Richlify's Returns Calculator handles exactly that.
The year-wise table shows the smooth growth path at the computed rate, so you can see what steady compounding at your CAGR looks like in rupees year by year. It also makes reverse questions easy to sanity-check: the value in year N is simply the starting amount multiplied by (1 + CAGR) ^ N.
Benchmarks help read the answer. Over long periods in India, large-cap equity has delivered roughly 12-15% CAGR, mid and small caps more with more volatility, gold 8-10%, residential property 8-12% including the illiquidity, and fixed deposits 6-8%. A CAGR below inflation — around 6% — means purchasing power shrank even though the rupee figure grew.