SIP Calculator

A Systematic Investment Plan is a standing instruction to invest a fixed amount in a mutual fund at a fixed interval, usually monthly. Each instalment buys units at that day's price, so you end up buying more units when markets are down and fewer when they are up.

It is a way of investing, not a product. There is no such thing as "a SIP" you can buy — you buy a fund, and the SIP is how you feed it. The longer explanation is in what is a SIP.

No. Nothing about a mutual fund return is guaranteed. 12% is a modelling convention based on long-run figures commonly quoted for broad Indian equity indices, and it is editable for exactly that reason.

Run your plan at 9% or 10% as well. A plan that only reaches the target at 14% is a plan that depends on luck.

For equity mutual funds, following the changes that took effect on 23 July 2024: gains on units held twelve months or less are short-term and taxed at 20%. Gains on units held longer are long-term and taxed at 12.5%, with the first ₹1.25 lakh of long-term equity gains in a financial year exempt.

For debt funds bought on or after 1 April 2023, gains are added to your income and taxed at your slab rate regardless of how long you held them. Indexation is no longer available on those.

Each SIP instalment has its own purchase date, so its own holding period — which is why redeeming a SIP is rarely a single clean tax event. Tax law changes; check the current position on the Income Tax Department site or with a tax professional before acting. The full breakdown is in SIP taxation in India.

Almost always one of three reasons. First, timing: this calculator treats the instalment as arriving at the start of the month (annuity-due), which is how a mandate actually debits. Some calculators assume it arrives at the end, which produces a slightly smaller number.

Second, compounding frequency: monthly here, but some tools compound annually. Third, rounding — we round only for display, never mid-calculation.

Every one of those choices is written down on the methodology page, so you can check which assumption differs rather than guessing.

Mathematically, if markets rise over your holding period, a lump sum invested on day one wins, because all of the money compounds for the full term. That is arithmetic, not opinion.

Practically, a lump sum concentrates all your timing risk into a single date, and most people do not have a large amount sitting idle anyway — they have a salary. A SIP matches that, and removes the decision of when to invest.

Put your own numbers into the SIP vs lump sum calculator to see the size of the gap for your case.

Yes. Most platforms support a step-up or top-up instruction that raises the instalment by a set percentage or amount every year, and you can always start a second SIP alongside the first.

This is the highest-leverage change available to most investors, because it lets your investing grow with your income instead of being frozen at whatever you could afford when you started. The step-up SIP calculator shows the difference.

Missing one instalment is not a penalty event with the fund, though your bank may charge for a failed mandate. The fund simply does not buy units that month.

Stopping early is the expensive part, and not for the reason people expect. You lose the instalments you did not make, but you also lose all the compounding those instalments would have earned for the remaining years — which is the larger number. The cost of waiting calculator puts a figure on that.

Many Indian funds accept SIPs from ₹500 a month, and some from ₹100. The calculator accepts anything from ₹100 upward.

At small amounts the absolute numbers look discouraging, and that is worth sitting with rather than skipping: ₹500 a month for 30 years at 12% still ends up well past ₹15 lakh. Duration is doing that work, not the instalment size.

Yes. Every page ships its default calculation, its chart and its full year-by-year table as static HTML, so the page is complete and correct before any script runs. JavaScript only makes the inputs interactive.

That also means the numbers a search engine or an AI assistant reads are the real ones, not an empty shell.

Yes — pick from nine currencies in the dropdown beside the results, and the choice is remembered on your next visit. Indian rupees use lakh and crore grouping; the rest use standard thousands.

The content is India-first though. Tax rules, PPF, ELSS and NPS pages are specific to India, so treat those as background reading rather than instructions if you are elsewhere.

Press "Copy link to these numbers". Your inputs are written into the link, so anyone opening it sees exactly your scenario. It is also a convenient way to keep a plan in a notes app without a screenshot.