ROI Calculator

How do you calculate return on investment? ROI = (Gain − Cost) ÷ Cost × 100. Invest $2,000, get back $2,600: (600 ÷ 2,000) × 100 = 30% ROI. It is the universal profitability yardstick — one percentage that lets a marketing campaign, a stock position, equipment purchase and a training program be compared on the same scale.

The two failure modes to avoid: counting revenue instead of gain (ROI uses profit — subtract the cost first), and ignoring time — 30% over one year is excellent, the same 30% over ten years is under 3% annualized, worse than boring index funds. ROI without a time frame is only half a number.

Enter the investment cost and the total return, and read the net profit and ROI percentage instantly — positive means gain, negative means the investment lost money.

Worked examples across uses: an ad campaign costing $1,000 that produced $4,000 in attributable profit → 300% ROI (marketers often phrase this as ROAS 4:1 — note ROAS uses revenue while ROI uses profit, a chronic source of inflated claims); a rental property with $50,000 down returning $6,000/year net → 12% annual ROI; a $500 course that raised your rate enough to earn $3,000 more → 500%.

For multi-year comparisons, annualize: ((1 + ROI)^(1/years) − 1) — a 50% ROI over 3 years is 14.5% per year. And count ALL costs: fees, taxes, your time — flipping ROI famously turns negative once the flipper's hours enter the math.