Dividend & total return
See what a dividend actually is, what payout ratio tells you about a company, and what reinvesting is worth over a long holding period.
Runs entirely in your browserRuns entirely on your device — nothing you type is sent anywhere. Educational only, and not investment advice.
How to use this calculator
Each step names a control you will find on screen above.
- Share price and Earnings per share
These give the P/E, and together with payout they give the yield. All three are connected and moving one moves the others.
- Payout ratio
The share of profit paid out rather than reinvested. A high payout means the company cannot find better uses for the money — which is honest, but is not growth.
- Reinvest dividends back into the stock
Toggle it and compare the fifteen-year outcomes. The gap is larger than almost anyone expects.
- Watch the yield when you cut the price
Yield rises as price falls. A very high yield is usually a falling price, not a generous company.
Worked example: Fifteen years, spent versus reinvested
₹1,00,000 invested in a stock at ₹500 earning ₹25 a share, paying out 40%. Total return 12% a year, of which about 2% is the dividend.
What to enter
- Share price
- ₹500
- Earnings per share
- ₹25
- Payout ratio
- 40%
- Reinvest dividends back into the stock
- Off, then On
What it shows you
- Dividend per share
- ₹10
- Dividend yield
- 2%
- P/E
- 20×
- Spending the dividends
- ≈ ₹4.18 lakh
- Reinvesting them
- ≈ ₹5.47 lakh
- Difference
- ≈ 31% more
price growth only
Where this is taught
A calculator gives you a number. These explain what the number means and when it misleads you.
- Market Basics11 minDividends, and the yield trapA dividend is not free money, the highest yields are usually the most dangerous, and the payout ratio tells you more than the yield ever will.
- Technical Analysis13 minMost of the return is not on the chartFive years of a REIT chart show ₹300 becoming ₹330 and four gaps down a year that no news explains. The holding returned five times what the chart says, the gaps are on a calendar published in advance, and every price-based statistic in this track is wrong on it by a knowable amount.
- Fundamental Analysis12 minPSUs and the government as promoterState-owned companies are analysed with the same statements and a different question: whose interests does the majority shareholder actually serve?
- Market Basics11 minGold, REITs and InvITsThe other assets available to an Indian investor — what each actually is, what it correlates with, and where each one belongs.
- Fundamental Analysis11 minWhere your return actually comes fromThree sources and no fourth: profits growing, the multiple changing, and cash paid out. Knowing which one you are relying on is most of the discipline.