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Pick the year you had the money. This replays real stock market returns and savings rates, investing it all at once or a slice a month, to the latest month.
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The same money on both paths; only when it goes into the market changes.
| Over 12 months | All at once |
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You have a sum to invest: put it all in at once, or feed it in a slice at a time (dollar cost averaging, or pound cost averaging in the UK)? This calculator replays both with real stock market returns. Pick the year you had the money, any January from 2000, the amount, and how many months to spread it over. It follows the same money down both paths to the latest month.
The lump sum goes into the market at the start of January. The drip-feed puts in an equal slice then and at the start of each following month, and the rest waits in savings, earning the real rates of the day, until it is all in. Below the result it also counts every start month since 2000 to show how often investing all at once came out ahead.
Investing follows the S&P 500 with dividends reinvested, month by month, converted to pounds at each month's exchange rate in the UK: a stand-in for a global tracker fund, which is mostly US shares. Waiting money earns the Bank of England's average one-year fixed-rate bond rate in the UK and the 3-month Treasury bill yield in the US. Everything is tax-free, as in an ISA or a Roth IRA, with no fees.
These use the calculator's starting figures for one UK case and one US case, and are refreshed when the data updates.
Had you invested £10,000 all at once in January 2015 instead of feeding it in over 12 months, by August 2026 you'd have £502 more: £51,656 all at once, against £51,154 over 12 months.
Had you invested $10,000 all at once in January 2015 instead of feeding it in over 12 months, by August 2026 you'd have $1,128 more: $46,201 all at once, against $45,073 over 12 months.
More often than not, historically, because markets rise more often than they fall and money in the market has longer to grow. But not always: someone who put a lump sum in just before a crash would have done better feeding it in. The calculator counts, for every start month since 2000, how often all at once came out ahead, and by how much you'd have won or lost from the year you pick.
The UK name for dollar cost averaging: investing a sum in equal slices over a set time, usually monthly, instead of all at once. It lowers the risk of putting everything in at a peak, at the cost of keeping some money out of the market while you wait.
Try 3, 6, 12, 24 and 36 months above. The longer the spread, the more money waits in savings, which helps when the market falls in that time and costs you when it rises. The past doesn't say what comes next.
Yes. Investing from your pay each month isn't a choice about timing: the money isn't there any earlier. This page is for money you already have, such as savings, an inheritance or a bonus. For what starting earlier or later does, see the cost of waiting to invest calculator.