DGRO Dividend Calculator

Because the starting yield tells you about year one and the growth rate tells you about year twenty. DGRO screens for companies with at least five consecutive years of dividend growth and excludes the very highest yielders, which keeps out businesses whose yield is high because the share price has collapsed. The result is a lower headline number now in exchange for faster compounding later. Set a thirty-year horizon in this calculator and compare DGRO's default assumptions against SPYD's — the fund with half the starting yield often ends up producing more income, which is the entire argument for dividend growth investing.

The default here is 8%, which is toward the upper end of what a diversified basket of US dividend growers has historically managed and reflects the fund's screen doing its job. It is not a promise. Dividend growth across the market slows in recessions, and a fund tracking companies that raise payouts will still see those raises get smaller when earnings do. Run the projection at 5% as well; if the conclusion you are drawing only holds at 8%, it is a fragile conclusion.

Partially. Requiring a track record of increases filters out companies already in trouble, and excluding the top decile of yielders avoids the classic value trap where a high yield is really a market forecast of a cut. What it cannot do is predict a sudden shock — plenty of long-standing dividend growers cut in 2020. The screen improves the odds rather than removing the risk, and this calculator lets you model the downside directly by setting dividend growth negative.

As qualified dividend income, so the US rates are 0%, 15% or 20% by taxable income, plus 3.8% net investment income tax over the statutory thresholds. Because the yield is modest, the annual tax drag is small in absolute terms early on — but it grows as the payout grows, and in a taxable account that drag compounds against you for the entire holding period. The account type selector shows the difference between running this in a brokerage account and in an IRA, and over thirty years it is substantial.

They are chasing the same idea from different angles. SCHD weights toward quality and yield together, producing a higher current yield from a concentrated hundred-name portfolio. DGRO casts a wider net — several hundred holdings — and leans harder on the growth side, accepting a lower yield today. Historically SCHD has delivered more income now and DGRO more growth in the payout, though the gap is smaller than the marketing on either side suggests. Running both calculators with the same contribution and horizon is the only comparison that reflects your actual situation.

If that is what you actually do, yes — and it changes the shape of the result considerably. A lump sum compounds from a fixed base; regular contributions keep adding new capital that then compounds for a shorter period each time. The calculator buys shares with each contribution at that period's price, so a rising price means later contributions buy fewer shares. The yield on cost figure also accounts for everything paid in rather than just the initial amount, which is the honest way to measure it.