IRR Calculator

This calculator's input is a straightforward dollar amount -- how much you're putting in -- entered as a positive number for clarity, and the engine automatically treats it as a negative (outflow) cash flow at year 0 internally when computing IRR and NPV. You never need to enter a negative number yourself; the sign convention is handled for you.

MOIC only measures total dollars returned relative to dollars invested, ignoring timing -- getting your money back in year 2 versus year 5 shows the same MOIC. IRR explicitly weighs WHEN cash flows arrive, since it's an annualized rate: a faster-returning investment compounds that return over fewer years, so it shows a higher IRR even at an identical MOIC. This is why IRR and MOIC are usually reported together in investment analysis.

By definition, NPV at the true IRR is exactly zero; this calculator's Newton-Raphson search stops once it's within a very tight numerical tolerance, so NPV at IRR should read as a tiny fraction of a dollar, not exactly $0.00, due to floating-point rounding. If it shows a materially nonzero value, the cash flow pattern may be degenerate (for example, all cash flows the same sign has no real solution) or the iterative search hit its bound-clamping limits.

Yes -- a negative IRR means the investment returned less than the initial amount put in, even before considering the time value of money. This calculator bounds its search between -99% and 1000% to keep the iterative solver stable; a result pinned near -99% usually means the total inflows were far smaller than the initial investment.

Only as a rough sanity check, not a precise comparison. IRR from a small number of discrete annual cash flows (as modeled here) doesn't account for risk, illiquidity, taxes, or fees the way a straightforward savings yield does. For capital-budgeting decisions, compare the calculated IRR to your organization's cost of capital or required hurdle rate, which should already reflect the specific investment's risk profile.