ETF portfolio projection.
Portfolio value
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Total invested
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Growth
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Building wealth one ETF parcel at a time
Exchange-traded funds have become the default way Australians invest outside super, and for good reason. A single trade in a fund like VAS or A200 gives you a slice of hundreds of companies, broad diversification, low fees, and the simplicity of buying it on the ASX like any share. Pair a starting parcel with a steady monthly contribution and you have a portfolio that grows on autopilot, compounding both the market's gains and the income it throws off.
This calculator projects that portfolio forward. It compounds your initial investment monthly and adds your regular contribution at the start of each month, growing everything at your chosen annual return, then splits the result into what you contributed and what growth delivered. It is built for ETF investors who want a realistic picture of where regular contributions could land over a decade or two.
What the projection is doing under the hood
The tool runs a month-by-month future value calculation. The initial investment compounds for the full term, while each monthly contribution compounds from the start of its month, an arrangement that gives a slightly higher result than adding contributions at month end. The annual return you enter is divided into a monthly rate, so the growth accrues steadily rather than in one annual jump, which mirrors how a real portfolio drifts upward across the year.
$10,000 plus $1,000 a month for twenty years
Using the defaults, a $10,000 initial investment, $1,000 contributed each month, an 8 percent annual return, over twenty years.
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You put in $250,000 of your own money and finish with $642,215. Growth of $392,215 outweighs your contributions, which is the signature of a long compounding runway: by the back end of the twenty years, the portfolio's own returns are adding more each year than you are. Trim five years off and the growth share shrinks markedly, which is the clearest argument for starting sooner rather than waiting for a bigger budget.
The franking credit bonus on Australian shares
One feature unique to Australian-share ETFs is dividend imputation. When the companies in the fund have already paid 30 percent company tax on their profits, the dividends they distribute carry franking credits, and those credits flow through to you. Under the imputation system you gross up the dividend, then use the attached credit to offset your own tax, and if your marginal rate is below the company rate you may even receive a refund. For a fund like VAS, this can lift the after-tax return by close to a percentage point compared with an unfranked equivalent, which is why this tool lets you nudge the return assumption up to reflect a franking-grossed figure.
A practical note on holding these in a taxable account: every distribution is assessable in the year it is paid, even if you reinvest it, and ETFs often pass through realised capital gains inside their annual distribution too. Keep your annual tax statements, because the cost-base adjustments from those distributions affect your eventual capital gains tax. The good news is that any gain on units you have held longer than twelve months qualifies for the 50 percent capital gains tax discount, so patience is rewarded twice over, by compounding and by a lower tax bill.
Should I hold ETFs in my own name or through super?
It depends on your timeframe and tax rate. Super is taxed concessionally, at 15 percent on earnings, which suits long-term retirement money, but you cannot touch it until preservation age. Holding ETFs in your own name keeps them accessible for goals before retirement, at the cost of paying tax at your marginal rate on distributions and gains. Many investors do both, using super for the very long run and a personal brokerage account for everything in between.
What return should I plug in for a diversified ETF?
A long-run figure of 7 to 8 percent before inflation is a reasonable planning assumption for a broad share ETF, reflecting roughly 4 to 5 percent capital growth plus dividends. It is an average, not a guarantee, and individual years swing wildly above and below it. Running the tool at both 6 and 9 percent gives you a sensible range rather than a single false-precision number.