Methodology

Every number on this site comes from a documented model. This page is the source of truth for how the calculators work, in plain terms, so you can check the arithmetic yourself.

Projection Model (Dividend & DRIP Calculators)

The projection runs in annual periods. Dividend per share grows once per year at your chosen rate. Share price grows once per year at your chosen rate, applied at year-end. Contributions are added at the start of each year and buy shares at that year's starting price. A year's income equals the shares held at the start of that year times that year's dividend per share. With reinvestment on, the year's income buys shares at the year-end price, a deliberately conservative choice: reinvested shares do not also earn a dividend in the year they are bought.

Simple Calculators

Dividend yield is annual dividend per share divided by share price. Yield on cost is annual dividend income divided by original cost basis. Monthly-income figures divide annual income evenly across twelve months.

What the Model Deliberately Leaves Out

Taxes, trading costs, fund expense ratios, dividend cuts and suspensions, payment-date timing, and price volatility. Each of these can materially change real outcomes, mostly downward. Constant-rate growth is a modeling convenience, not a description of how markets behave.

Input Bounds

The calculators reject inputs rather than produce misleading numbers: growth rates are capped at ±100% per year, projection length at 60 years, and yields at 50%. If you hit a bound, the input, not the calculator, is the thing to re-examine.

Where Ticker Data Comes From

Every payment row on this site is compiled from a primary source and validated against a set of invariants (amount bounds, date ordering, payment cadence, citation present) before it can render. A row that fails any check does not render as a number. Where a derived figure cannot be computed, the cell carries a quiet marker rather than a number, and the marker states the exact shortfall: which window the metric needs, when our record for that ticker starts, and how much history we hold. Fund distribution records come from each fund's sponsor (Schwab, iShares, WisdomTree, NEOS, Amplify, and others), fetched from the sponsor's own fund page, with the page and access date cited on every ticker.

Common-stock dividend records come from SEC EDGAR: we read each declaration out of the company's own 8-K filings and press-release exhibits, and every row links to the specific filing it came from by SEC accession number. You can click through and check any figure against the filing. For these rows the ex-dividend date equals the record date, which has been the market rule since T+1 settlement took effect in May 2024; our EDGAR-sourced histories start there so no ex-date is ever inferred. We never source from aggregator sites, and we refuse a filing that does not state amount, record date, and payable date outright.

Corrections

If you find an error in any calculation, please use the contact page. Verified errors are corrected and noted.