Mutual Fund Calculator
Estimate mutual fund returns for either a monthly SIP or a one-time lumpsum investment. See maturity value, total invested and gains with a growth chart.
Formula last reviewed 4 August 2026 · How we verify our calculators
Total value
- Invested amount
- ₹6,00,000
- Estimated returns
- ₹5,61,695
Updates live as you type
Frequently asked questions
Equity funds have historically delivered roughly 10–14% annually over long periods, debt funds less. Returns are not guaranteed; use a conservative assumption for planning.
SIP suits regular savers and averages market cost; lumpsum suits a surplus you can invest for the long term. This calculator lets you model both.
Yes. Equity fund long-term gains above the annual exemption are taxed at the LTCG rate; short-term gains and debt funds follow their own rules. Always check current tax law.
It is the annual fee a fund charges, expressed as a percentage of assets. It quietly reduces your net return, so lower-cost index funds can compound to more over decades.
One calculator, two very different ways to invest
Mutual funds pool money from many investors into a professionally managed basket of stocks or bonds — but *how* you put money into that basket changes the outcome as much as how much you put in. This calculator toggles between the two dominant styles: a fixed monthly SIP or a one-time lumpsum, using the same expected-return assumption for both so you can compare them fairly on identical numbers.
In SIP mode, each monthly instalment is treated as invested from the start of that month and compounds forward from there. In lumpsum mode, the whole amount compounds together from day one using A = P × (1 + r)ⁿ. At the default SIP settings — ₹5,000 a month for 10 years at a 12% expected return — that projects to ₹11,61,695 against ₹6,00,000 invested, a gain of ₹5,61,695. Flip the same ₹5,000 into lumpsum mode as a single one-time investment instead, and the corpus is naturally far smaller, because a lumpsum has nothing left to add after day one — the comparison itself is the point: it shows why "SIP or lumpsum" isn't really a question about which formula is better, but about which matches the money you actually have.
Time beats timing, almost every time
A modest SIP held for two decades routinely outgrows a much larger lumpsum invested late, because compounding rewards years far more than it rewards a bigger starting number. SIPs also average your purchase cost across market ups and downs — a real advantage for a salaried saver without a large sum to deploy at once — while a lumpsum suits a genuine windfall you're prepared to commit for the long haul rather than a monthly habit you're building from scratch.
The number this calculator can't show you: costs
Every projection here sits *before* the fund's expense ratio — the annual management fee, taken as a percentage of assets, that every mutual fund charges regardless of how it performs. The gap between a 1.5% expense ratio and a 0.5% index fund sounds small annually but compounds to a meaningfully smaller corpus over 20–30 years, even when both funds deliver an identical gross return — cost is one of the few variables you can actually control in advance, unlike market performance. Equity gains are also taxed on the way out: long-term gains above the annual exemption at the LTCG rate, short-term gains at a higher rate — so the number that lands in your account is smaller than either the maturity figure or the raw return shown here.