SIP Calculator

A Systematic Investment Plan is simply an instruction to your mutual fund to debit a fixed amount from your bank account on a chosen date every month and buy units at that day's NAV. It is not a product in itself; it is a way of buying one. The appeal is that it removes the two decisions people get wrong most often — when to invest and how much to invest — and replaces them with a standing instruction.

This calculator is for anyone running or planning a monthly SIP: someone starting with ₹2,000 a month out of a first salary, a mid-career professional working out whether ₹25,000 a month gets them to a ₹1 crore corpus, or a parent sizing a fifteen-year education goal. Enter your monthly amount, an expected annual return and a horizon, and you will see the projected corpus, what you actually put in, and the gain.

How SIP compounding works

Each monthly instalment is a separate investment that compounds for a different length of time. Your first ₹10,000 compounds for the whole tenure; the instalment you pay in the final month compounds for one month. The standard SIP future-value formula adds all of those up:

FV = M × [ (1+i)ⁿ − 1 ] ÷ i × (1+i)

• M = monthly investment
• i = monthly rate of return, the annual expected return divided by 12
• n = total number of monthly instalments

The final (1+i) term assumes each instalment is invested at the beginning of the month rather than the end. That is how SIPs actually work, and it is the convention every major fund house and calculator in India uses.

Three worked examples

1. ₹5,000 a month for 10 years at 12%

A typical starter SIP. Over 120 months you invest ₹6,00,000 and the projected corpus is ₹11,61,695 — a gain of ₹5,61,695, or a little under twice what you put in.

2. ₹10,000 a month for 20 years at 12%

Double the amount and double the time, and the result is not four times bigger — it is more than eight times bigger. You invest ₹24,00,000 and the projected corpus is ₹99,91,479, a gain of ₹75,91,479. This is the single clearest argument for starting early: 76% of that corpus is growth, not contribution.

3. ₹25,000 a month for 15 years at 10%

A more conservative return assumption on a larger amount. You invest ₹45,00,000 and the projected value is ₹1,04,48,107, with a gain of ₹59,48,107. Note that dropping the assumed return from 12% to 10% costs a lot over long horizons, which is why fund selection and expense ratios matter.

Step-up SIP: the single biggest lever

A step-up SIP, sometimes called a top-up SIP, raises your monthly contribution by a fixed percentage every year. Most fund houses and platforms let you register this once and forget it. Since your salary probably rises faster than 10% a year in the early part of a career, a 10% annual step-up is affordable without ever feeling like a sacrifice.

Here is the same starting SIP of ₹10,000 a month at 12%, with and without a 10% annual step-up.

Over twenty years the step-up version roughly doubles the corpus, from just under ₹1 crore to nearly ₹2 crore. You do contribute more along the way — ₹68,73,000 against ₹24,00,000 — but by the twentieth year the monthly instalment has grown to about ₹61,000, which on a salary that has also grown for twenty years is not an unusual number. If you can only do one thing after reading this page, register a step-up on your existing SIP.

Rupee-cost averaging, illustrated

Because you invest a fixed rupee amount rather than buying a fixed number of units, you automatically buy more units when the NAV is low and fewer when it is high. Here is ₹5,000 a month over six months through an illustrative dip and recovery.

You invested ₹30,000 and hold 308.88 units. Your average cost per unit is ₹97.13, while the simple average of the six NAVs is ₹97.83. The gap is small in this short illustration but it is always in your favour, and it widens when volatility is higher. At the month-6 NAV of ₹110 the holding is worth ₹33,976.

The practical point is what happened in month 3. When the NAV fell to ₹85, the SIP bought the most units of any month. Investors who stop their SIP during a market fall are switching off the mechanism precisely when it is doing its best work.

SIP vs lumpsum

If you already have the money, a lumpsum beats a SIP most of the time, because the full amount starts compounding immediately. Invest ₹12,00,000 at once at 12% and after ten years it is worth ₹37,27,018. Spread the same ₹12,00,000 as ₹10,000 a month over those ten years and you end with ₹23,23,391. The gap is not because the SIP is worse; it is because on average your money was invested for half as long.

The honest comparison is different. A SIP is for money you do not have yet — it converts a monthly salary into an investment habit. A lumpsum is for money already sitting in your account. If you have a large sum and are nervous about deploying it at a market peak, an STP, or Systematic Transfer Plan, from a liquid fund into an equity fund over six to twelve months is the usual middle path.

What return should you actually assume?

The Nifty 50 Total Return Index has delivered roughly 12% a year over multi-decade periods. That is a historical figure, not a promise, and any ten-year window can look very different — Indian equity has produced stretches of 18% a year and stretches of 4% a year. Sensible planning assumptions as of September 2026:

Two adjustments people forget. First, subtract inflation if you are planning a real-world goal: 12% nominal with 5% inflation is about 7% real. Second, subtract the expense ratio — a regular plan charging 1.8% against a direct plan charging 0.6% costs you roughly ₹10 lakh on a twenty-year, ₹10,000 SIP. Always buy the direct plan unless you are genuinely paying an adviser for advice.

Tax on equity mutual funds

These rates apply to equity-oriented funds, meaning schemes with at least 65% in Indian equity, including ELSS. They were set by the July 2024 Budget and have not changed for FY 2026-27.

The ₹1.25 lakh exemption is per financial year across all your equity holdings put together, not per fund. Surcharge and 4% health and education cess apply on top. Note that each SIP instalment has its own purchase date, so units are counted first-in-first-out when you redeem — the instalments from the last twelve months will be taxed at the short-term rate even if you started the SIP a decade ago.

A worked example: you redeem an equity fund with a ₹4,00,000 long-term gain. The first ₹1,25,000 is exempt, and the remaining ₹2,75,000 is taxed at 12.5%, giving ₹34,375 plus cess. Debt funds and international funds do not get the ₹1.25 lakh exemption or the 12.5% rate; gains there are added to your income and taxed at slab rates. ELSS funds additionally carry a three-year lock-in on every instalment and qualify for Section 80C only under the old tax regime.