The input that decides your answer
Enter an instalment, a rate and a period. The calculator compounds the series and shows what you put in against what the return added.
Of those three inputs, the rate is the one that moves the result most, and it is the one people pick most casually. A common habit is to take a scheme's trailing three-year return and type that in. Over a twenty-year projection that is almost always wrong, because a three-year window usually captures one part of a market cycle rather than a full one.
Pick the rate from the category you are investing in, and pick it conservatively.
Category decides the rate, not the brand
A fund house runs schemes across the whole spectrum. A SIP in a large-cap scheme and a SIP in a small-cap scheme at the same AMC have very different return profiles and very different worst cases:
- Large cap — the biggest listed companies. Lower expected return, shallower falls, and the category most index funds track.
- Flexi cap — the manager allocates across company sizes. Outcome depends heavily on those calls.
- Mid cap — higher expected return, meaningfully deeper drawdowns. Needs a long horizon.
- Small cap — the highest expected return and the most severe falls. Can lose half its value in a bad year and take years to recover.
- Hybrid — equity and debt together, so both the expected return and the volatility sit lower.
- Debt — returns broadly track prevailing bond yields and should be modelled much lower than equity.
Entering an equity rate for a hybrid scheme is the most common way to produce a projection that cannot happen.
Using the sensitivity, not just the answer
The most useful thing on this page is not the number — it is how much the number moves.
Run ₹15,000 a month for fifteen years at 12%. Run it again at 10%. The gap is usually larger than people expect, and it tells you how much of your plan is resting on an assumption you cannot control.
If the goal is only met at the optimistic rate, the sensible responses are to invest more, allow more time, or revise the goal. Hoping for the higher rate is not one of them.
Direct plans and the expense ratio
Every scheme is sold in two forms. A direct plan is bought from the AMC without a distributor; a regular plan carries a trail commission inside its expense ratio. The portfolio is identical.
The difference is usually between 0.5% and 1% a year for an equity scheme. Because it is deducted from NAV every year, it compounds exactly as returns do. Over a long SIP it is one of the few variables you can control with certainty, unlike the market return.
What the projection excludes
The figure is before the expense ratio, before exit load, and before tax. Equity gains above ₹1.25 lakh in a financial year are taxable, and with a SIP each instalment carries its own holding period for that purpose. Your realised amount will be lower than the number shown.