See what a series of regular payments grows into over time. Choose ordinary or annuity-due timing, then enter your payment, rate, term and frequency to project the future value.
An annuity is simply a series of equal payments made at regular intervals — a monthly deposit into an investment account, an annual pension contribution, or any fixed, repeating payment. Its future value is what that whole stream of payments grows into once each one has earned compound interest up to the end of the term. Early payments compound the longest and do the most work, which is why the total ends up far larger than the sum of the payments themselves.
This calculator is built for the payment stream itself, with no opening lump sum, so you can see exactly what your contributions alone produce. If you also want to start from an existing balance, the future value calculator adds a lump sum on top of the payments, and the future value with monthly contributions guide explains the mechanics.
Annuities come in two timings, and this calculator handles both with the toggle at the top:
The difference is real but small. The same $500 a month over 20 years at 7 percent reaches about $260,463 as an ordinary annuity and about $261,983 as an annuity due — roughly $1,500 more for paying at the start of each month rather than the end. Ordinary timing is the default here, since it is the standard convention for most recurring-contribution plans.
Set the timing, then fill in four inputs:
The result splits the future value into what you paid in and the interest earned on top, and the year-by-year breakdown shows the balance building period after period.
For an ordinary annuity, the future value is:
where PMT is the payment per period, i is the periodic interest rate (the annual rate divided by the number of periods per year), and n is the total number of payments. For an annuity due, every payment is invested one period earlier, so you multiply the whole thing by one more period of growth:
The bracketed term is the annuity factor — it bundles every payment's individual growth into a single multiplier. The future value formula guide covers the single-sum version this builds on.
Here is how $500 a month grows as an ordinary annuity at 7 percent, compounded monthly, over different terms. Notice how the interest portion overtakes the payments as the term lengthens.
| Term | Future value | Paid in | Interest earned |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 years | $86,542 | $60,000 | $26,542 |
| 20 years | $260,463 | $120,000 | $140,463 |
| 30 years | $609,985 | $180,000 | $429,985 |
Over 30 years, the $180,000 you pay in turns into about $609,985 — more than two-thirds of the final balance is interest. Switching the same 20-year plan to annuity-due timing lifts the result from $260,463 to about $261,983.
Contributing the same amount per year but more often gives each dollar more time invested. Here is $6,000 a year over 20 years at 7 percent, paid at three different frequencies as an ordinary annuity:
| Frequency | Payment | Future value |
|---|---|---|
| Annually | $6,000 / year | $245,973 |
| Quarterly | $1,500 / quarter | $257,691 |
| Monthly | $500 / month | $260,463 |
Same money in, but monthly payments finish about $14,000 ahead of annual ones — purely from starting to compound sooner each year.
The concepts behind the numbers — read the full library in the Learn hub.
How regular monthly deposits grow over time, with tables by amount, rate and timeframe.
Guide · InvestingThe single-sum formula the annuity version is built on, broken down variable by variable.
Guide · InvestingTurn a future goal into a monthly payment, the practical flip side of an annuity.
Guide · InvestingThe engine that makes each annuity payment grow, explained with examples.
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