Step-Up SIP Calculator
Project a SIP where the monthly contribution increases every year.
- Invested
- Value
- Invested
- ₹19.12L
- Est. gain
- ₹14.62L
Assumes a constant 12% annual return, with the monthly contribution increasing 10% every year. Actual returns vary.
Independent · No commissions · No fund-house data — how the numbers are computed
How it works
A step-up SIP raises the monthly contribution by a fixed percentage every year — mirroring the way salaries grow — instead of holding it flat for a decade. This calculator projects one: enter the starting monthly amount, duration, expected return and the annual step-up, and it compounds month by month, increasing the contribution at the start of each new year. The defaults are ₹10,000 a month for 10 years at 12%, stepping up 10% annually.
The step-up compounds on itself: at 10% a year, a ₹10,000 SIP becomes about ₹23,600 by year 10, and the plan invests roughly ₹19.1 lakh against a flat SIP's ₹12 lakh. Because the later, larger installments have less time to grow, the extra corpus comes mostly from the extra investment rather than extra compounding — which is precisely the point: it channels income growth into investment before it becomes spending.
The same caveat as every projection here applies: the return is a single flat assumption, and real fund returns vary year to year. There is no compact closed-form for a step-up SIP — the calculator simulates each month — so treat the output as the arithmetic consequence of your three inputs, and pressure-test the return assumption against funds' actual long-term records rather than picking a hopeful number.
Frequently asked questions
What is a step-up SIP?
A step-up SIP (also called a top-up SIP) is a systematic investment plan whose monthly contribution automatically increases by a fixed percentage or amount every year — for example, ₹10,000 a month growing 10% annually becomes ₹11,000 in year two and about ₹23,600 by year ten. Most Indian fund platforms and AMCs let you set the step-up when registering the SIP mandate, so the increase needs no yearly action.
How much difference does a step-up make to a SIP corpus?
Materially, and mostly through higher investment. At a constant 12% return, ₹10,000 a month for 10 years invests ₹12 lakh and projects to roughly ₹23 lakh; the same SIP stepping up 10% a year invests about ₹19.1 lakh and projects to roughly ₹33 lakh. Over longer horizons the gap widens dramatically, because each year's step-up applies to an already-raised base — the contributions themselves compound.
What step-up percentage should match my situation?
The step-up is meant to track income growth, so the natural anchor is your expected annual raise — commonly 5–10% for salaried investors in India. A step-up above income growth eventually makes the SIP unaffordable, since a 10% annual increase more than doubles the contribution every 8 years. Some investors deliberately set it slightly above expected inflation so the real value of their investing rises, not just the nominal amount.
Is a step-up SIP taxed differently from a normal SIP?
No — tax treatment is identical, because a step-up SIP is just a SIP with varying installment sizes. Each installment is a separate purchase with its own holding period: for equity funds, units redeemed within 1 year of purchase are taxed at 20%, and units held 1 year or more at 12.5% on gains above ₹1.25 lakh a year. For debt funds, since April 2023, gains are taxed at your slab rate regardless of holding period.
Go further
The flat-contribution version, for a side-by-side of the same inputs.
Check the return assumption against what funds actually delivered.
The glossary definition and where the mechanism fits.
Why the early years' contributions do disproportionate work.
A step-up SIP as the accumulation half of a full retirement plan.