ROI Calculator
Calculate the return on a single investment decision, like buying and selling a stock, property, or business asset. This tool also annualizes the result, so you can fairly compare investments held for different lengths of time.
Your ROI will appear here
Enter your cost and final value, then click calculate.
Quick Answer
ROI = (Final Value - Cost) / Cost x 100%. Buying at $5,000 and selling at $6,500 gives a 30.0% ROI. But that same 30% gain earned over 3 years annualizes to about 9.14% a year, which is the number that actually lets you compare it against a different investment held for a different length of time.
How It Works: Formula & Variables
ROI = (Final Value − Cost) / Cost × 100%
- Cost
- What you paid, including purchase fees.
- Final Value
- What it's worth now, or what you sold it for, plus any extra income like dividends.
- Annualized ROI
- [(Final Value / Cost)^(1/years) − 1] × 100%, the year-equivalent return.
For a stock specifically: ROI = ((Sale Price − Purchase Price) + Dividends) / Purchase Price.
Sources: SEC, Rate of Return and Investor.gov, Annual Return. Returns shown are before taxes and are not guaranteed.
Worked Examples
Basic ROI: bought at $5,000, sold at $6,500
ROI = (6,500 − 5,000) / 5,000 × 100% = 30.0%.
Annualized ROI: same 30% gain, held for 3 years
Annualized ROI = [(6,500/5,000)^(1/3) − 1] × 100% = 9.14% per year. Comparing raw ROI numbers alone hides how much longer this particular gain took to earn.
Key Concepts
Time changes what a return actually means: The same percentage gain is a very different result depending on whether it took five days or five years to earn.
Annualized ROI and CAGR are close cousins: For a single buy-and-sell transaction, annualizing the ROI gives you essentially the same figure as the compound annual growth rate.
Fees and income both move the number: Leaving out a brokerage fee or a dividend payment can meaningfully understate or overstate what an investment actually returned.
Common Mistakes
Ignoring the holding period: Comparing a 20% return from a 6-month trade against a 20% return from a 4-year investment as if they were equally good is a common and costly mistake.
Leaving out fees and income: Skipping commissions, dividends, or coupon payments gives an ROI that doesn't match what actually landed in your account.
Assuming a bigger ROI number automatically means a better investment: Risk and holding period both affect whether a higher number was actually the smarter bet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Subtract the cost from the final value, divide by the cost, and multiply by 100. ROI = (Final Value - Cost) / Cost x 100%.
Yes. Subtract purchase costs and fees, and add in any income like dividends or coupon payments, to get a return that reflects what actually happened, not just the sticker price change.
Because basic ROI ignores time. A 25% return over 5 days is a far better result than a 25% return over 5 years, even though the ROI figure looks identical. Annualizing the return is what makes the comparison fair.
The year-equivalent return that lets you compare investments held for different lengths of time, calculated as [(Final Value / Cost)^(1/years) - 1] x 100%.
Not necessarily. Comparing investments fairly means looking at the same time period and similar risk, since a higher return over a much longer or riskier holding period isn't automatically the better deal.
ROI measures the total percentage gain on a single transaction. Annualized ROI is, in effect, the compound annual growth rate of that same transaction, which is why it lines up so closely with the interest rate calculator's compound rate formula.
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