About the sip calculator
A systematic investment plan puts a fixed amount into a mutual fund every month. The appeal is not that it beats investing a lump sum — over a rising market it does not, because the lump sum is invested from day one — but that it removes the decision of when to buy, and most people do not have a lump sum to begin with.
This calculator treats each instalment as invested at the start of its month, which is the annuity-due convention Indian platforms use. That matters more than it sounds: the alternative assumption shifts every instalment a month later and produces a visibly smaller number over twenty years. Matching what you see elsewhere is worth more here than a theoretical preference.
Three modes share the page. SIP projects a fixed monthly amount. Lumpsum compounds a single investment. Step-up SIP raises the instalment by a set percentage each year, which is what most people actually do as their income grows — and it changes the outcome dramatically over long horizons, usually far more than chasing a percentage point of extra return.
The optional inflation adjustment is the number worth looking at. A projection of a crore in twenty years is a different proposition once restated in today's money, and that restatement is the honest basis for any goal you are planning against.
What this does not model: expense ratio, exit load and capital gains tax. Each would need assumptions that go stale, and each belongs to a different calculation. Treat the output as the gross arithmetic of compounding, not a promise — actual fund returns are not a fixed annual percentage, and the sequence in which they arrive matters.