Raise your monthly investment every year in line with your income and see how much larger the final corpus becomes compared with a SIP that never changes.
Step 1
Start with today's instalment
Enter what you can comfortably invest each month right now, not what you hope to invest later.
Step 2
Pick an annual step-up
Choose a percentage or a fixed amount to add every year. Many people match their expected pay rise.
Step 3
Compare against a flat SIP
The results panel shows both side by side so you can see exactly what the step-up buys you.
Projected corpus
$371,892
After 15 years of monthly investing (180 instalments).
Extra corpus vs flat SIP
$162,930
Estimated returns
$181,257
There is no single tidy formula, because the instalment changes every year. Each 12-month block is treated as its own level SIP, and the value it accumulates then compounds for the remaining months.
Pₖ = P × (1 + g)ᵏ and M = Σ [ Pₖ × ((1 + i)¹² − 1) ÷ i × (1 + i) × (1 + i)^(n − 12(k + 1)) ]Instalment in year k
The monthly amount during the (k + 1)th year, counting k from 0.
Starting instalment
What you invest each month in the first year.
Annual step-up rate
The yearly increase as a decimal. A 10% step-up gives g = 0.10. For a fixed-amount step-up, Pₖ = P + (k × step).
Monthly return rate
The expected annual return divided by 12 and by 100.
Total instalments
The horizon in months.
This calculator runs the equivalent month-by-month simulation instead of the summation, which handles fixed-amount step-ups and partial years identically. Setting the step-up to zero reproduces a flat SIP exactly.
Answers about the step-up sip calculator.
Continue exploring adjacent tools in this topic.
Background reading on the ideas behind these numbers.
For most people the question answers itself, because a SIP is simply what investing a salary looks like. The genuine dilemma arrives when a large sum lands at once — and there the arithmetic and the behavioural answer point in different directions.
The arithmetic of long-horizon investing is lopsided: the final decade of a thirty-year plan produces more wealth than the first twenty years combined. Here is why duration beats cleverness, and what that means for when you start.
This tool is provided for educational purposes only. Results are estimates based on the values you enter and do not constitute financial advice.