ROI Calculator
ROI Calculator - a browser-based finance utility.
Browser tool
About ROI Calculator
Return on investment as a percentage and as an absolute figure, with the option to annualise it — which is the step that makes two returns over different periods comparable at all. A free online calculator, no subscription, nothing kept. The return is computed from figures that never leave your machine.
How to use it
- Enter what it cost and what it returnedInclude every cost you can attribute, not just the headline price.
- Read the percentage and the amountA high percentage on a small base is a different proposition from a modest one on a large base.
- Annualise when the period is not a yearA 30% return over three years is not comparable to 30% over one until you annualise it.
Why an unannualised ROI misleads
ROI as usually quoted has no time dimension. Doubling your money is a 100% return whether it took eight months or eleven years, and those are entirely different outcomes. Annualising converts the total to an equivalent yearly rate, which is the only form in which two investments over different periods can honestly be set beside each other.
What it does not do
- Only the costs you enter are counted. Time, opportunity cost and overheads are the ones most often left out, and they are frequently the largest.
- ROI ignores risk entirely. Two investments with identical returns are not equivalent if one could have lost everything.
Questions people ask
- What counts as the cost?
- Everything required to obtain the return: purchase price, fees, delivery, and a realistic value for your own time. Omitting your time is the single most common way a marginal project appears profitable.
- Should I use ROI or annualised ROI?
- Annualised whenever you are comparing things that ran for different lengths of time, which is most of the time. Plain ROI is fine for a single project considered on its own.
Questions about ToolsVerse itself — privacy, cost, what happens to your files — are answered in the frequently asked questions.
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