DRIP Calculator

Enter your initial investment, the share price and the dividend yield, then pick how often the stock pays: weekly, monthly, quarterly, twice a year or once a year. Add a monthly contribution if you plan to keep buying.

Set how fast you expect the dividend and the share price to grow each year, the number of years, and your tax rate on dividends. Price growth can be negative. The results update as you type.

To start from a real stock or fund, enter its ticker under Start from a stock. The calculator fills in the latest share price, the dividends paid over the last 12 months and the payment schedule from its GNG dividend history page. The growth rates stay yours to set.

It works as a dividend calculator too. Set the years to 1 to see what one holding pays in a year, or compare the yearly income with dividends reinvested and with dividends taken as cash.

Say you invest $10,000 in a stock priced at $50 that yields 4%, paid quarterly, and add $100 a month for 20 years. Assume the dividend grows 5% a year and the share price 4% a year, with no tax.

With every dividend reinvested, the balance reaches $112,795 after 20 years, and that year the shares pay $5,030 in dividends, about $419.18 a month. You put in $34,000 in total.

Taking the dividends as cash instead ends at $85,682, which counts the $27,386 in dividends you collected. Reinvesting ends $27,113 ahead, about 1.32x the cash result.

A dividend reinvestment plan, or DRIP, uses each dividend to buy more shares of the same stock or fund, often including fractional shares. Many brokers let you turn it on for each holding.

Every payment is your share count multiplied by the dividend per share. With DRIP on, that cash buys new shares at the price on the payment date, so the next payment is larger even when the dividend per share stays the same. That loop is how reinvested dividends compound year by year.

Taking the cash instead means dividends never buy shares, and the calculator holds that cash without interest. When the share price and the dividend both fall, reinvested dividends keep buying shares that lose value, so DRIP can trail the cash result. Set negative growth rates for both to see it.

Dividend yield is the yearly dividend per share divided by the share price. A $2.00 yearly dividend on a $50 stock is a 4% yield.

Yield on cost is the dividends you receive in a year divided by the money you put in. It climbs as the dividend grows and as reinvested shares add income, which is why a long DRIP plan can show a yield on cost far above the stock's current yield.

For a fuller definition, read dividend yield in the GNG glossary.

• The dividend growth rate and the share price growth rate stay the same every year.
• The dividend per share rises once a year, at the start of each new year.
• Payments are spread evenly through the year: every week, month, quarter, half year or year.
• Tax comes out of every dividend before it is reinvested. There are no trading fees, capital gains taxes or inflation adjustments.
• Monthly contributions buy shares at the end of each month, after that month's dividend.
• Results are estimates, not a forecast or a promise.

The Dividend Forecaster, included with Pro Lite and higher plans, works differently. It projects a whole portfolio from each holding's payment months in its dividend history and a price path based on the 10-year Treasury rate and each stock's beta, and it adds a payment calendar and Monte Carlo ranges.