DCA calculator

What dollar-cost averaging actually does

Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) means investing a fixed amount on a fixed schedule — say €100 on the first trading day of every month — regardless of the price. When the price is low your money buys more shares; when it’s high it buys fewer. You stop trying to pick the moment.

Does it beat investing everything at once?

Usually not, in pure return terms — and this calculator shows you exactly that comparison. Markets rise more often than they fall, so money invested earlier tends to spend longer compounding; a lump sum at the start typically wins in a rising market. What DCA actually buys you is a smaller worst case: you can’t put everything in the day before a crash, and a plan you keep beats a perfect plan you abandon.

Compare the two figures for a few different tickers and periods. You’ll notice the gap is widest in strong bull runs and narrows — or flips — when the period starts near a peak.

How this calculates it

Every buy happens at the first available closing price of the month (or week), using prices adjusted for splits and dividends so corporate actions don’t distort the result. “Total invested” is simply your contribution added up; the strategy return compares today’s value of the shares against that total. The benchmark invests the same overall amount at the first buy’s price.

Because those prices are dividend-adjusted, dividends are counted as reinvested — the difference is large over a decade for income stocks. Trading fees are off unless you set them under “Detailed setup”; taxes and the cash sitting idle between buys are never modelled, and it can only test tickers that still exist today — which quietly flatters every long-run result. Past returns predict nothing.

Want to test rules instead of a schedule — buying the dips, or following a moving average? Use the strategy backtester.