Dollar Cost Averaging Calculator

Dollar cost averaging is the most common investment strategy by default: most people invest a fixed amount from each paycheck into a retirement or brokerage account. This calculator projects how that recurring investment grows over time and makes the compounding visible. It also compares DCA to a hypothetical lump-sum investment of the same total amount to show the tradeoff between timing risk and expected return.

The math is straightforward: each month, the fixed contribution is added to the portfolio, and the entire balance grows at the expected monthly return. Over time, contributions from earlier months have compounded more than recent ones, which creates the familiar exponential curve. The lump-sum comparison is included because research consistently shows that investing everything upfront wins about two-thirds of the time — but DCA is what most people can actually do, and it removes the paralyzing question of when to invest.