NPV Calculator
Net present value and IRR for any cash flow series.
How to use
- 1 Enter your discount rate as a percent per period.
- 2 List the cash flows, one per line, starting with the initial outlay as a negative number.
- 3 Read the net present value and the verdict.
- 4 Check the internal rate of return against your required return.
- 5 Adjust the rate or flows to test different scenarios.
About NPV Calculator
The NPV Calculator works out the net present value of a stream of cash flows so you can judge whether an investment or project is worth pursuing.
Money received in the future is worth less than money today, and net present value captures that by discounting every future cash flow back to today at a rate you choose, then summing the results.
A positive NPV means the project is expected to add value at that discount rate; a negative NPV means it does not clear the bar.
Enter your discount rate as a per-period percentage and list the cash flows one per line, starting with the initial investment as a negative number followed by the inflows for each later period.
The tool shows the headline NPV, the present value of each individual period so you can see where the value comes from, and a plain-English verdict.
It also computes the internal rate of return — the discount rate at which NPV would be exactly zero — found numerically with a bisection search.
Comparing the IRR against your required rate of return is a quick sanity check: if the IRR exceeds your hurdle rate, the project has a positive NPV at that rate.
All maths runs locally in your browser, so your figures stay private, and you can iterate on the rate and cash flows instantly to run what-if scenarios without any spreadsheet.
FAQ
How should I enter the initial investment?
Enter it as the first value and make it negative, since it is cash leaving you. Later inflows are positive. Outflows in any later period are also negative.
What does a positive NPV mean?
It means the discounted value of all future cash flows exceeds the initial cost at your chosen rate, so the project is expected to create value. A negative NPV means the opposite.
Why is IRR sometimes shown as n/a?
IRR requires at least one sign change in the cash flows. If every value is positive or every value is negative, no internal rate of return exists, so it is reported as n/a.