Project the long-term growth of an ETF portfolio with dividends reinvested — net of expense ratio.
Free ETF growth projector that combines price appreciation, dividend reinvestment (DRIP), and expense-ratio drag so you see your real after-fee trajectory across decades.
Direct answers to the most common questions, in plain language. Skim if you're in a hurry; dig deeper below.
Price appreciation plus dividends, minus expense ratio.
Total return = (1 + annual price return) × (1 + dividend yield) − 1, then subtract the expense ratio. The calculator compounds this monthly so reinvested dividends earn their own returns over time.
Yes — over 30 years, even tiny fees compound into thousands.
A 0.03% expense ratio (VOO, VTI) on a $500,000 portfolio drags about $150 per year. A 0.75% actively managed fund on the same balance drags $3,750 per year. Over 30 years that gap is six figures.
In tax-advantaged accounts, almost always yes.
Reinvesting dividends (DRIP) lets each quarterly payout buy more shares that themselves pay dividends. Over 30 years, dividend reinvestment typically accounts for 40–50% of total ETF returns for broad-market funds.
Yes — the in-kind redemption mechanism limits capital gains.
ETFs rarely distribute capital gains because authorized participants redeem shares in-kind. Most index mutual funds distribute gains every December. In a taxable account, this efficiency can add 0.3–0.8% per year to your after-tax return.
The mechanics in short answers — no jargon, no upsell.
For an ETF like VOO, total return is the price appreciation of the S&P 500 plus the quarterly dividend yield. We multiply both, because dividends are paid on the current (appreciating) balance.
The fund deducts its expense ratio from NAV daily, but it lands annually in your statement. We subtract it from total return so the growth you see is what you actually keep.
Each month we credit one-twelfth of the net annual return to your balance, then add your monthly contribution. This mimics how dividend reinvestment plans actually buy fractional shares.
Every dollar paid in fees is a dollar that does not compound. Lifetime fee drag is calculated as a running cost on your average balance, which is why low-cost ETFs win over decades.
Designed so anyone can model their situation in under a minute, with or without a finance background.
Combines price appreciation, dividends, and expense ratio in one number — the way real ETF growth actually works.
See exactly how much of your final balance came from dividends that were quietly buying more shares.
Compare a 0.03% index ETF to a 0.75% managed fund and watch the lifetime cost of fees stack up.
Layer dollar-cost averaging on top of growth to see your real wealth trajectory.
Drag sliders to see how a 1% drop in returns or a higher expense ratio changes your retirement.
Project 1 to 50 years out — long enough to see why "time in market" beats "timing the market".
Everything you might ask before, during, or after using this tool.
Broad-market index ETFs like VOO, VTI, and SPY have expense ratios between 0.03% and 0.09%. Sector and factor ETFs typically run 0.10% to 0.50%. Actively managed ETFs and thematic funds can charge 0.50% to 1.00%+. Use the ratio listed on the fund's prospectus or fact sheet.
A common modeling assumption is 7% annual price return plus a 1.5–2% dividend yield for a total of 8.5–9% before fees. This matches the long-run real return of the S&P 500. For conservative planning, model 6% price + 1.5% yield. For aggressive growth ETFs, you might assume 8% price + 0.5% yield.
No — the projection is pre-tax. In a Roth IRA or 401(k), the final number is what you keep. In a taxable brokerage, you owe capital gains on sales and ordinary or qualified rates on dividends. ETFs are unusually tax-efficient because the in-kind creation/redemption mechanism rarely triggers capital gain distributions.
VOO and VTI both have 0.03% expense ratios; SPY costs 0.0945%. VOO tracks the S&P 500 (large-caps), VTI tracks the total US market (large, mid, and small). Over 30 years the difference between VOO and SPY at the same balance is several thousand dollars in fees. For most long-term investors, VOO or VTI is the cheaper choice.
No — you have to enable DRIP (dividend reinvestment) in your brokerage settings. Most brokers offer it for free, and fractional shares mean every dollar gets put to work. If DRIP is off, dividends sit in cash and lose to inflation.
When an investor sells a mutual fund, the fund often has to sell holdings to raise cash, triggering capital gains that are passed to every remaining shareholder. ETFs use an in-kind redemption mechanism where authorized participants exchange shares for the underlying basket — no taxable sale occurs. The result is that index ETFs almost never distribute capital gains.
Yes. ETFs hold real securities and can fall in value, sometimes by 30–50% in a crash. The calculator assumes a steady annual return, but actual returns are lumpy: some years up 25%, some years down 20%. Long-horizon investors who stay invested through downturns have historically come out well ahead, but there are no guarantees.
Once a year is plenty for most investors. More frequent rebalancing triggers taxes in a brokerage account and rarely improves returns. If one ETF drifts more than 5 percentage points from its target allocation, that is a reasonable trigger to trim and reinvest in the underweight one.
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In 1976 John Bogle launched the first index mutual fund and was called a heretic. Fifty years later, his idea — own the whole market, pay almost nothing, never trade — is the consensus. ETFs are the modern implementation: cheaper to run, more tax-efficient, and tradable like stocks. A single share of VOO buys you a piece of all 500 S&P 500 companies, weighted by market cap, for 0.03% per year.
For long-horizon growth, the math is unromantic. Active managers, on average, underperform the index they benchmark against — and the gap widens as fees compound. Over 20 years, roughly 90% of active US large-cap funds trail the S&P 500. An ETF skips that bet entirely.
ETF growth has two engines. The price engine: the underlying companies retain earnings, grow, and trade at higher prices. The dividend engine: those same companies send a chunk of profits back to shareholders quarterly. Both compound.
For the S&P 500, dividends have historically contributed about 40% of total return. That is why a chart of "price only" returns understates real ETF growth. The calculator above models both, and reinvests dividends automatically so they buy more shares that pay their own dividends — the classic DRIP flywheel.
A 0.50% expense ratio sounds tiny. On a $500,000 portfolio compounding at 8%, it costs about $2,500 in year one. By year 30, lifetime fees on that fund cross six figures — and worse, the missing dollars no longer compound. The same portfolio in a 0.03% ETF pays a couple hundred dollars per year.
This is why the rise of cheap, broad ETFs has been such a one-way trade. The "premium" you pay for an actively managed fund buys you, on average, lower after-fee returns plus more tax friction. The calculator lets you see exactly how much an extra 0.20% costs across a multi-decade horizon.
When you sell a mutual fund, the manager often has to sell underlying holdings to raise cash, which generates capital gains that get passed to every remaining shareholder at year-end. You can owe taxes even when you did nothing. ETFs largely avoid this through an in-kind redemption mechanism: authorized participants swap ETF shares for the underlying basket of securities, with no taxable sale.
The result, in numbers: most broad-market index ETFs distribute zero capital gains in most years. In a taxable brokerage account, this can add 0.3% to 0.8% per year to your after-tax return relative to an equivalent mutual fund. Over 30 years that is a significant compounding advantage.
Two short notes worth reading before you trust any number on this page.
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