CAGR Calculator: Measure Compound Annual Growth Rate

A CAGR calculator turns two portfolio values and a time period into one clean annualized rate. It shows what constant yearly return would carry a beginning value to an ending value, the way a savings account would compound at a fixed rate.

Use our CAGR calculator to turn any before-and-after pair into the equivalent annualized return, plus the monthly, weekly, and daily rates that match it.

What CAGR actually measures

CAGR stands for compound annual growth rate: the single rate that would produce the observed ending value if growth had been perfectly smooth every year. Mathematically:

Here V_i is the initial value, V_f is the final value, and n is the number of years.

The output is a geometric average, not an arithmetic one. That matters. A portfolio that falls 50% and then rises 100% has a 0% CAGR, not a 25% average. Compounding punishes losses more than gains, and CAGR captures that honestly.

The calculator also converts the annual rate into equivalent monthly, weekly, and daily rates using the same geometric formula, so a 12% annual CAGR shows as roughly 0.95% per month rather than a naive 1%.

The three inputs

The calculator needs three numbers and nothing else. Each one drops into a slider, with a matching input field for values that sit outside the slider range.

Beginning value. The investment's value at the starting point. Enter the price you paid for a position, the total an account held on a specific date, or any historical snapshot you want to compare from.

Ending value. The investment's value at the later point in time. Enter the current balance, a recent quote, or any later snapshot. The calculator does not care whether the move came from price, dividends, contributions, or a mix. It only sees the two endpoints.

Number of years. The time elapsed between the two values. The slider runs to 50, and the input field next to it accepts longer horizons for lifetime or multi-generational comparisons.

Switch the currency symbol in the top-right corner to match what you are tracking. The symbol is cosmetic and the formula runs the same in any unit.

Reading your results

The output panel surfaces the same answer from four angles.

CAGR percentage. The headline rate, signed so you can tell growth from decline at a glance. This is the annualized geometric return, the number to report if someone asks what a portfolio produced over a period.

Equivalent monthly, weekly, and daily rates. Smaller-period versions of the same CAGR, computed geometrically rather than divided. These are useful when comparing to a monthly dividend reinvestment schedule or a daily index return series.

Beginning value, ending value, total gain, and yearly growth. Four boxes restate the inputs alongside the derived numbers. Total gain is the absolute difference between the two endpoints. Yearly growth shows the last year's change along the smoothed curve, which is larger than the first year's because each year compounds on top of the last.

Chart, bars, and table toggle. Three views of the same smoothed year-by-year projection: an exponential curve, yearly growth bars, or a row-by-row table. None of them show the actual historical path the investment took.

Planning backward: the rate to reach a target

The same equation runs both directions. If you know where you are today, where you want to end up, and how many years you have, the calculator returns the annual rate required to close the gap. Enter 10,000 as the beginning value, 25,000 as the target ending value, and 12 years: the output shows a CAGR of roughly 7.9%, the constant return needed to turn one into the other.

That flips the tool from measuring past returns into stress-testing a savings goal, a retirement target, or the growth a position would have to earn to justify holding it over the next decade.

The smoothing trap

CAGR tells you where you started and where you finished, but it hides everything in between. A portfolio that ran $10,000 to $5,000 to $20,000 has the same CAGR as one that climbed steadily from $10,000 to $20,000 over the same window. Both produce the same two endpoints.

That is useful for comparing long-term outcomes, but it is misleading if you use CAGR to judge how a portfolio behaved. Volatility, drawdowns, and sequence of returns all disappear into a single number. Pair CAGR with a peak-to-trough drawdown or a standard deviation when you care about how bumpy the ride was.

The year-by-year chart draws the smoothed curve, not the real path. Use it to visualize compounding, not to reconstruct what actually happened.

Where CAGR fits with other calculators

Historical CAGR is the natural starting point for any forward growth assumption. Pulling a five- or ten-year CAGR off a company's revenue, earnings, or free cash flow gives you a defensible baseline for the growth input in a DCF calculator projection. Plug the historical CAGR in, then stress-test around it rather than inventing a growth rate from scratch.

CAGR also applies to dividends. A stock's dividend growth rate is the CAGR of its dividend per share over a chosen window. Run that through the calculator and you have a clean compound growth figure you can feed into an income projection.

Open the CAGR calculator to turn any two values and a time span into an annualized rate, or see the full toolkit in our guide to investment calculators.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a good CAGR for a stock portfolio? Historical long-run equity returns sit roughly between 6% and 10% depending on the period and the market measured. A portfolio CAGR in that range is in line with the broad market. Higher sustained rates are possible but harder to defend without concentration or leverage.

Can CAGR be negative? Yes. If the ending value is lower than the beginning value, the CAGR is negative and represents the annualized rate of loss. The calculator shows the sign so you can read decline the same way you read growth.

Does CAGR include dividends or contributions? Only through the endpoints. CAGR does not separate price growth, dividends, or new deposits. If your ending value includes reinvested dividends, the CAGR reflects total return. If it excludes them, it reflects price appreciation alone.

How is CAGR different from average annual return? Average annual return is an arithmetic mean that adds yearly returns and divides by the count. CAGR is geometric and accounts for compounding. The two rarely match, and the gap grows as volatility rises. CAGR is the honest number for long-term comparisons.