Checked: every dividend buys more shares. Unchecked: dividends are paid out to you as cash.
Yield is today's annual dividend divided by the price. Growth is how fast the payout per share rises each year.
Matters for income too: when prices rise faster, reinvested dividends buy fewer shares.
Use 0% for a tax-sheltered account such as an IRA, ISA or TFSA.
Divides future income and values by inflation, so $1,000 in year 20 shows what it would buy today.
Your settings and holdings are saved in this browser. The share link restores this exact plan.
Dividends received each year after tax.
Your own contributions at the bottom, the dividends you reinvested in the middle, and share price growth on top. Over long horizons the last two do most of the work.
Income in your final year across different yields (columns) and dividend growth rates (rows), with everything else unchanged. Click a cell to use it.
| Year | Added | Dividends | Per month | Reinvested | Portfolio | Yield on cost |
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How the math works: the plan is simulated month by month. Each contribution buys shares at that month's price, prices grow smoothly through the year, dividends arrive on your payment schedule and are taxed as they are paid, and the dividend per share is raised once a year by your growth rate. Yield on cost is this year's dividends divided by everything you have put in.
Dividend income calculator with DRIP: annual and monthly dividend income, portfolio value, yield on cost, dividend growth, taxes and fees, year by year.
Forward dividend income per month after tax. Where the line crosses the goal, dividends alone cover it.
The rule of thumb: the portfolio you need is your yearly income goal divided by the yield after tax. $3,000 a month at a 4% yield with no tax takes $900,000; at 3% it takes $1.2 million. Higher yields shrink the number but often come with slower dividend growth, which is what the Yield vs Growth tab weighs up.
Dividend income goal calculator: how many years until dividends cover your monthly expenses, the monthly investment needed to get there by a target year, and the portfolio size required, adjusted for inflation and tax.
Dividends paid each year after tax, whether you keep them or reinvest them. Reinvesting starts slow and snowballs; spending gives you the money now.
Total dividends taken as cash since the start.
| Path | Income, final year | Per month | Portfolio | Cash taken |
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Reinvesting is not tax-free: in a regular brokerage account, reinvested dividends are taxed in the year they are paid, just like dividends you spend. The tax rate in Advanced settings is applied to both paths, so the comparison is fair. Inside a tax-sheltered account, set it to 0%.
DRIP calculator: reinvesting dividends versus taking them as cash, and reinvesting for a number of years before switching to income, with the breakeven year for total cash received.
Same money invested in each, same contributions, same taxes.
Every dividend received since the start. The growth pick has to overtake on yearly income first, then make up the head start it gave away.
| Year | High yield income | Growth income | High yield portfolio | Growth portfolio |
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Why growth usually wins in the end: yield plus dividend growth is roughly the total return when the yield stays constant. A 5% yielder growing 3% a year returns about 8%; a 1.5% yielder growing 10% returns about 11.5%. The high yielder wins on income for years, but the higher total return compounds into a bigger portfolio and eventually a bigger paycheck. The catch: very high growth rates rarely last for decades.
High dividend yield versus dividend growth stocks: the year the growth stock's income overtakes, total dividends collected, and portfolio value for each, with reinvestment and taxes.
Income arriving in each month of the year, by holding, before tax.
| Holding | Shares | Price | Value | Dividend / share | Yield | Income / yr | Pays in |
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Smoothing the calendar: most stocks pay quarterly on one of three cycles (Jan/Apr/Jul/Oct, Feb/May/Aug/Nov or Mar/Jun/Sep/Dec). Holding payers from all three cycles, or adding a monthly payer, turns lumpy income into a steadier monthly paycheck. "Project this portfolio forward" copies your value and yield into The Income tab.
Dividend portfolio tracker: annual and monthly dividend income from your holdings, portfolio yield, a 12-month dividend calendar and each holding's share of your income.
The plan is simulated month by month. Your starting amount and each monthly addition buy shares at that month's price. Dividends are paid on your chosen schedule (monthly, quarterly, twice a year or yearly) on every share you hold, tax is taken off, and the rest is either reinvested into more shares or paid out to you. The dividend per share rises once a year by your dividend growth rate, and the share price grows smoothly by your price growth rate.
Dividend yield is the annual dividend divided by today's share price. Yield on cost divides the same dividend by what you originally paid. If you bought at a 3% yield and the dividend has since doubled, your yield on cost is 6% even though the stock's current yield may still be 3%.
While you are building wealth, reinvesting usually produces far more income later because each dividend buys shares that pay dividends of their own. When you need the income, switching to cash makes sense. The Reinvest or Spend tab shows both paths and a switch-over year, including when the switch path's total cash overtakes spending from day one.
Broad US stock market dividends have grown roughly 5 to 6% a year over long periods, close to earnings growth. Individual companies vary widely: some raise payouts by double digits for years, others freeze or cut them. Use a conservative figure for long horizons and check the result with the "What if the assumptions are off?" grid.
A single tax rate is withheld from every dividend as it is paid, whether you reinvest it or not. In the US, qualified dividends are taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% depending on income; other countries and foreign withholding differ. For dividends inside a tax-sheltered account such as an IRA, 401(k), ISA or TFSA, set the rate to 0%. Tax on selling shares is not modelled because the plan never sells.
Divide your yearly income goal by your after-tax yield. $3,000 a month is $36,000 a year; at a 4% yield with no tax that takes $900,000, and at 3% it takes $1.2 million. The Your Income Goal tab does this at the yield your plan will actually have by then, and adjusts for inflation.
When you reinvest, each dividend buys shares at the current price. If prices rise faster than dividends, yields fall and reinvested money buys fewer shares, so income grows a little slower. If dividends grow faster than prices, the reverse happens.
Everything runs in your browser. Your settings and holdings are saved only in this browser's local storage so they are there next time. Share links contain your plan settings but never your holdings.
The disclaimer that actually matters: dividends are not guaranteed. Companies cut them in recessions (many did in 2009 and 2020), and prices move far less smoothly than this model assumes. Treat the results as a way to compare choices, not as a promise. This is an educational tool, not financial advice.
How dividend income calculations work: yield versus yield on cost, reinvesting (DRIP), realistic dividend growth, taxes on dividends, the portfolio size needed to live off dividends, and the limits of projections.