Payback Period Calculator
How long until an investment has paid for itself, year by year. It runs entirely in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
Your figures
Result
How this calculator works
Enter what an investment costs today and the net cash it brings in each year, with an optional growth rate for that cash flow. The calculator builds a cumulative line — this year's cash added to everything before it — and finds the moment the line crosses the initial cost, interpolating inside the final year. The table shows the crossing happening, which is more instructive than the single answer.
Payback answers a risk question, not a profitability one: how long is my money out of reach? A machine that pays for itself in two years and then earns for eight is a different proposition from one that pays back in seven and is obsolete in eight, even if their lifetime totals are similar. Shorter payback means less exposure to everything that can change — markets, technology, your own plans.
Good practice and limits
Never let payback decide alone. It ignores the time value of money (a discounted payback variant exists for that) and it is blind to everything after the crossing point, which is where the profit usually lives. Pair it with ROI for the return picture and with an honest look at what the asset is worth at the end.