Dividend Reinvestment Calculator

DRIP Advantage is the dollar gap between the ending wealth of the reinvesting path and the ending wealth of the cash path at the same inputs: portfolio value with every dividend reinvested, minus (portfolio value without reinvestment plus every dividend received as cash). That gap exists because with reinvestment off your share count never grows beyond the initial purchase, so Portfolio Value only rises with the share price, while with reinvestment on each dividend buys more shares that then earn their own dividends the following year. The calculator runs both simulations every time, so the figure stays the same whichever way Reinvest Dividends is set -- it is answering "what is reinvesting worth here?", not describing the path you happen to have selected. The cash side gets no credit for the dividends earning anything after they are paid out, which is deliberate: the comparison is reinvesting into the same position versus not, not reinvesting versus some other investment.

Total Return is a cumulative dollar figure for the whole Investment Period; Annualized Return converts the same outcome into the constant yearly growth rate that would have produced it, using total wealth (portfolio value plus any cash dividends taken). Stripping out the number of years is the point -- a $30,000 gain means something very different over 5 years than over 30, and only the annualized figure can be compared head to head against a benchmark or against a different holding period. It follows whichever reinvestment setting is currently selected.

Yield on Cost divides your current annual dividend income by your ORIGINAL investment amount, not the portfolio's current value -- so it can climb well above the starting Dividend Yield percentage over time as both the per-share dividend grows (via Dividend Growth Rate) and, if reinvesting, the number of shares grows too. It's a way of seeing how much income your original capital is now generating, independent of how much that capital has appreciated in price.

Extending the Investment Period always increases Total Dividends Earned, since every additional year adds another dividend payment on top of everything already accumulated -- the total can only grow, never shrink, as years increase, regardless of whether reinvestment is toggled on or off. The rate at which it grows accelerates over time when reinvestment is on, because a larger share base and a growing yield are both compounding simultaneously.

Yes -- a higher Dividend Growth Rate compounds the yield upward faster every year, which raises the dividend payment received in every year after the first regardless of whether those dividends are reinvested or taken as cash. Total Dividends Earned reflects every payment received along the way, so a faster-growing yield always produces a larger cumulative total over the same Investment Period.