Dividend Reinvestment (DRIP) Calculator
See what happens when every dividend buys more shares. Project your share count, portfolio value, dividend income and yield on cost year by year — and compare reinvesting against pocketing the cash.
Your position
Growth assumptions
How to use this calculator
1. Describe what you own
Pick whether you are starting from a dollar amount or a share count, then enter the share price. The other box fills itself in, so $25,000 at $50 a share becomes 500 shares. Fractional shares are allowed throughout — most brokers reinvest to three or four decimal places.
2. Set the yield and the two growth rates
The dividend yield sets year one's payout: 3% on a $50 share is $1.50 per share. Dividend growth is how fast the company raises that payout each year, and price growth is how fast the share price climbs. They are separate on purpose — a stock whose dividend grows faster than its price will see its quoted yield drift up, and vice versa.
3. Choose your horizon and toggle the DRIP
Set the number of years, add an annual contribution if you keep buying, and leave reinvesting on to watch the share count snowball. Flip the toggle off to see the same position paying you in cash instead — the comparison table below the chart keeps both versions side by side either way.
Reading the year-by-year table
Each row shows the shares you held going into that year, the dividend they paid, and the new shares those dividends bought at the year-end price. Shares held plus shares added equals the next row's share count, so the arithmetic is easy to audit — and the whole table exports to CSV if you want to keep it.
Dividend reinvestment FAQs
What is a DRIP?
A DRIP is a dividend reinvestment plan. Instead of paying dividends to you in cash, the broker or transfer agent automatically buys more shares of the same stock or fund with them, usually including fractional shares. Those new shares pay dividends of their own the following year, which is where the compounding comes from.
How does this DRIP calculator work?
It steps forward one year at a time. Your current share count is multiplied by that year's dividend per share to get your dividend income. The share price is then grown by your price growth rate, and if reinvestment is on, the year's dividends plus any annual contribution buy new shares at that year-end price. Finally the dividend per share is increased by your dividend growth rate and the next year begins.
What is yield on cost?
Yield on cost compares the dividends you collect today against what you originally paid, not against today's price. This page divides the final year's dividend income by every dollar you put in — the opening investment plus all annual contributions. A position bought at a 3% yield that raises its dividend for twenty years can easily be yielding 10% or more on your original cost while the quoted yield still reads near 3%.
Does reinvesting always beat taking the cash?
For total wealth, reinvesting almost always wins, because the cash version stops buying new shares and the dividend stream stops growing with the share count. The comparison table adds the cash you pocketed back to the take-cash side so the two are measured fairly, and reinvesting still comes out ahead whenever the dividend is positive. That does not make it right for you — retirees often want the income, and cash dividends leave you free to buy something else entirely.
Does this account for dividend taxes?
No. The projection is pre-tax, which matches a tax-sheltered account such as an IRA or 401(k). In a taxable brokerage account, reinvested dividends are still taxed in the year they are paid, so you need cash from somewhere to cover the bill. To approximate that, shave your effective dividend tax rate off the yield before you enter it.
Are these results a prediction?
No. Every figure follows from the growth rates you typed in, and real share prices and dividends do not move in smooth annual steps. Companies cut dividends, prices fall for years at a time, and nothing compounds in a straight line. Treat the output as one set of assumptions made visible, then run a pessimistic version and see how far apart they land.