"Sales went from ₹40 lakh to ₹1.1 crore in four years" sounds like 175% growth — but the number that lets you compare it with a mutual fund, a competitor or a business plan is the compound annual growth rate: 28.8% a year. CAGR is the single rate that, applied every year, takes the starting value to the ending value over the period. This calculator computes it from any two values and a time span (in years, months or exact dates), and also runs it backwards: what a value becomes at a given CAGR, or how long a value takes to reach a target.
The formula
CAGR = (Ending value ÷ Beginning value)^(1 ÷ years) − 1.
₹40,00,000 → ₹1,10,00,000 over 4 years: (2.75)^(0.25) − 1 = 28.8%. Reversed: ₹40 lakh at 28.8% for 4 years = ₹1.1 crore. Doubling time ≈ 72 ÷ rate (the rule of 72): at 12%, about 6 years.
CAGR smooths the path — a business that grew 60% one year and shrank 10% the next is described by the same CAGR as a steady one — so it says nothing about volatility, only about the endpoints.
How to use the calculator
- Enter the beginning and ending values — revenue, profit, customer count, an investment, a property price.
- Enter the period: years (decimals allowed), or pick start and end dates for an exact span.
- Read the CAGR and the year-by-year implied path; download it as CSV.
- Switch to future value or time to target mode for planning.
- Compare: paste two series (say, your sales vs your category's growth) to see relative performance.
Where CAGR is the right metric
- Investments: mutual fund fact sheets report CAGR for 3-, 5- and 10-year periods; the SIP calculator projects forward with it, and for irregular cashflows XIRR is the more precise cousin.
- Business plans and pitch decks: a "₹2 crore in year 3" plan implies a CAGR that should be defensible — the revenue growth rate calculator gives the period-over-period figures underneath.
- Property: ₹45 lakh flat bought in 2016 sold for ₹95 lakh in 2026 = 7.75% CAGR — before stamp duty, maintenance and tax, often less impressive than the headline.
- Loans and inflation: inflation at 6% is a CAGR on your costs; a supplier contract with a 5% annual escalation is a CAGR on price.
- Headcount, stores, users: any metric measured at intervals.
Interpreting the number
- Compare like with like: a 5-year CAGR against a 5-year benchmark; nominal against nominal (or subtract inflation for real growth).
- Small bases exaggerate: growing from 10 customers to 100 is a 58% CAGR over five years but tells you little about the next five.
- Negative CAGR is valid — a decline from ₹80 lakh to ₹60 lakh over 3 years is −9.1% a year.
- For returns, remember tax: equity long-term gains at 12.5%, and slab rates on interest, so a 12% pre-tax CAGR may be 10.5% post-tax — the income tax calculator shows the slab.
Growth that crosses compliance thresholds changes your obligations: E-invoicing in 2026 explains what happens at ₹5 crore, and Which ITR form to file covers the audit and return changes as a business scales.
Related tools
- Revenue growth rate — month-on-month and year-on-year change.
- SIP calculator — project a corpus at an assumed CAGR.
- ROI calculator — total return on a project or campaign.
- Percentage calculator — simple percentage change.
- EBITDA calculator — the profit line to track growth on.