Step-Up SIP Calculator
A flat SIP assumes your salary never grows. A step-up SIP raises your monthly investment by a fixed % every year — so your savings rate climbs with your income. See how much bigger the corpus gets.
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Growth over time
Where the money came from
Year-by-year breakdown
| Year | Monthly SIP | Invested so far | Growth | End value |
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What is a step-up SIP?
A regular SIP invests the same amount every month for decades — as if your salary were frozen in time. A step-up SIP (most fund platforms call it a top-up SIP) increases the monthly amount by a set percentage once a year. Start at ₹10,000/month with a 10% step-up and year two runs at ₹11,000/month, year three at ₹12,100, and by year fifteen you're investing about ₹37,975/month — painlessly, because your salary was rising the whole time too.
That one change fixes the flat SIP's biggest flaw: inflation and lifestyle creep quietly shrink a fixed contribution's real weight. A SIP that grows with your income keeps your savings rate — the share of pay you invest — roughly constant for your whole career, which is exactly the behaviour that builds serious wealth.
The math behind this calculator
The balance compounds monthly, exactly like the regular SIP calculator, except the contribution itself grows:
Every 12 months: monthly SIP = monthly SIP × (1 + step-up %)
There is no single neat closed-form formula — the corpus is a stack of 12-month annuity blocks, each bigger than the last. The calculator simulates all of them month by month, and also runs the identical scenario with a 0% step-up so you can see precisely what the step-up added.
Worked example
Start at ₹10,000/month, step up 10% a year, earn 12% for 15 years. You invest ₹38.13 lakh in total (versus ₹18 lakh for a flat SIP) and the corpus reaches about ₹85.98 lakh. The flat version ends at ₹49.96 lakh — so the step-up adds roughly ₹36.02 lakh, even though most of the extra contributions arrive late and get relatively little compounding. Start the same plan at year one of a career instead of year ten and the effect is far larger.
Caveats worth knowing
- It only works if your income actually rises. The step-up is a commitment device, not magic. If raises stall, a 10% annual step-up can squeeze your budget — set the step-up at or below your realistic salary growth, and remember you can pause or reduce it.
- Returns aren't smooth. 12% is a long-run Indian equity average used for illustration, not a yearly promise. Actual SIP returns swing with the market and the fund you pick.
- Fees compound too. A regular plan's higher expense ratio quietly taxes every year of the plan. Direct plans keep more of the growth.
- Taxes apply on gains. Equity fund gains are taxed when you redeem (long-term gains above the annual exemption at the LTCG rate, short-term at the higher STCG rate). This calculator shows pre-tax values.
The underlying SIP math is the standard future value of an annuity, compounded monthly; see the U.S. SEC's compound interest explainer (investor.gov).