Model a DCA strategy for crypto or stocks. See your average cost basis, total return, and how periodic investing compares to a lump-sum entry.
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| Year | Invested | Cumulative Invested | Avg Cost Basis | End Price | Portfolio Value | Return |
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Enter your periodic investment amount (e.g. $200/month), your investment frequency (weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly), the starting price of your asset, an expected annual growth rate, and the number of years you plan to invest. The calculator simulates your DCA journey period by period, calculates your average cost basis, and shows how your portfolio value grows compared to a lump-sum investment of the same total amount.
Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) is the practice of investing a fixed dollar amount at regular intervals rather than deploying a lump sum all at once. Because you invest the same dollar amount each period, you automatically buy more units when prices are low and fewer units when prices are high. Over time, this produces an average cost per unit that is lower than the average of the prices you paid — a mathematical property known as the harmonic mean advantage.
DCA is popular for volatile assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and individual growth stocks, where timing the market is difficult or impossible. It removes the psychological burden of deciding "when" to invest and enforces consistent, disciplined investing regardless of market conditions.
Your average cost basis is the total amount you've invested divided by the total number of units you hold. This is the price point at which your portfolio breaks even. If Bitcoin's current price is above your average cost basis, every unit you hold is in profit. If it is below, you're in an unrealised loss. Your average cost basis is also used to calculate capital gains for tax purposes — your taxable gain is the sale price minus your average cost basis per unit.
In markets that trend upward consistently, lump-sum investing typically produces a higher final value because all capital is deployed early and benefits from the full growth period. Vanguard research found lump-sum outperforms DCA roughly two-thirds of the time in equity markets. However, DCA significantly outperforms in volatile sideways or declining markets, and it dramatically reduces the risk of a terrible entry — the one-third of cases where lump-sum entry happens to catch a peak before a major drawdown.
For most long-term investors, DCA isn't about maximising absolute return — it's about reducing regret risk, smoothing volatility, and enabling consistent investing regardless of available capital at any given moment.
DCA works for any asset class, but it is especially powerful for crypto because of the extreme price swings involved. Bitcoin has historically experienced 70–80% drawdowns followed by new all-time highs within 2–4 year cycles. A DCA strategy through a full Bitcoin cycle can produce significantly better average cost basis than any single entry point except the absolute cycle bottom — which is impossible to identify in real time. For stocks and index funds, DCA via automatic monthly contributions to a 401k or brokerage account is the most common real-world implementation of the strategy.