Dividend calculator

How the projection works

Every year your contributions buy shares at that year's price, the shares pay that year's dividend, and then the dividend and the price grow at the rates you set. With reinvestment on, the dividend buys more shares at the year's closing price; with it off, the cash piles up beside the shares.

Yield on cost is the number dividend investors quote with a little too much pride: this year's income over what you put in. A 3% yield whose dividend grows 6% a year is a 9.6% yield on cost after twenty years. It rewards patience, and it says nothing about what the same money might have done elsewhere.

Load a ticker and the calculator fills in its latest close and the dividend it declared last fiscal year, straight from its SEC filings, with the growth rate it actually managed. That's the evidence. The growth slider is your guess.

Questions

How do you calculate dividend income?

Shares owned × dividend per share. $10,000 in a $68 stock paying $2.04 a year is about 147 shares and $300 a year: a 3% yield.

What does reinvesting dividends (DRIP) do?

Each dividend buys more shares, and those shares pay dividends of their own next year. In year one it barely shows; over twenty years it's often the difference between a nice income and a much nicer one. Turn it off in the calculator to see the gap.

Where do the dividend numbers come from?

From the company's own SEC filings: dividends per share for each fiscal year, and the growth rate over up to five years. The share price is the latest official end-of-day close. Both are history, not a promise. Dividends get cut.

What does the calculator leave out?

Taxes, fees, fractional-share limits and the year a company cuts its payout. Each year's dividend is paid once at the year's share count, which is tidier than the quarterly reality.