Your income rises.
Your SIP should too.
A step-up SIP raises your instalment on a schedule instead of freezing it at whatever you could afford on day one. This calculator shows the corpus that produces, the flat SIP it beats, and exactly how much extra investment bought the difference.
In year 15 you would be putting in ₹37,975 monthly.
- Invested amount
- ₹38,12,698
- Estimated returns
- ₹48,71,152
- Total value
- ₹86,83,849
₹36.2 L
at 6% inflation
2.28x
128% total return
Put in ₹38.13 lakh over 15 years and, at 12% a year, it could grow to ₹86.84 lakh. More than half of that is growth, not your own money.
What the step-up actually buys you
Same starting instalment, same return, same 15 years. The only difference is raising the amount every year.
Flat ₹10,000 monthly
₹50,45,760
₹18,00,000 invested
With your step-up
₹86,83,849
₹38,12,698 invested
Extra corpus
+₹36.4 L
72% more, for ₹20.1 L extra invested
How it grows, year by year
Tap or hover any year to see the split.
Year by year
| Year | Monthly instalment | Invested that year | Total invested | Value at year end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ₹10,000 | ₹1,20,000 | ₹1,20,000 | ₹1,28,093 |
| 2 | ₹11,000 | ₹1,32,000 | ₹2,52,000 | ₹2,85,241 |
| 3 | ₹12,100 | ₹1,45,200 | ₹3,97,200 | ₹4,76,410 |
| 4 | ₹13,310 | ₹1,59,720 | ₹5,56,920 | ₹7,07,323 |
| 5 | ₹14,641 | ₹1,75,692 | ₹7,32,612 | ₹9,84,570 |
| 6 | ₹16,105 | ₹1,93,261 | ₹9,25,873 | ₹13,15,734 |
| 7 | ₹17,716 | ₹2,12,587 | ₹11,38,461 | ₹17,09,527 |
| 8 | ₹19,487 | ₹2,33,846 | ₹13,72,307 | ₹21,75,956 |
These are projections, not promises. Mutual fund and market-linked returns are not guaranteed and the actual outcome depends on the scheme, the market and how long you stay invested. The calculator ignores exit loads, expense ratios and taxes, so treat every figure here as a planning guide rather than a quotation. If you want a number that is contractually guaranteed instead of projected, ask us about guaranteed savings plans.
Built to answer the question you actually have
Step up by percentage or by rupees
Every other calculator online only does percentages. If your plan is to add ₹1,000 to the instalment each year rather than 10% of it, you can model that here exactly.
The comparison, not just the answer
Each projection is shown beside the flat SIP running the same starting amount, with the extra corpus and the extra money invested both spelled out. The trade is visible, not implied.
Step up every 1, 2 or 3 years
Income does not always move annually, especially for business owners and people on contracts abroad. Set the increment to match how your money actually arrives.
Goal mode built in
Enter the corpus you want instead of the instalment. It returns the amount you must start with, and how much smaller that start can be because of the step-up.
Inflation adjusted
A step-up is really a way of stopping inflation from shrinking your contribution. So the results also show the corpus in today's money, at an inflation rate you control.
Year by year, downloadable
See the instalment for every single year, what you invested, and where the corpus stood. Download the whole projection as a spreadsheet if you want to check it yourself.
What a step-up SIP is
A step-up SIP, sometimes called a top-up SIP, is an ordinary systematic investment plan with one instruction added: increase the instalment on a fixed schedule. Usually that is once a year, by a percentage such as 10%, or by a set amount such as ₹1,000. The fund, the frequency and everything else stays the same.
The idea is simple. The amount you could afford when you started is not the amount you can afford five years later, and leaving the instalment frozen quietly means investing less in real terms every year that passes. A step-up keeps the contribution moving with your income instead of falling behind it.
Why stepping up beats simply starting bigger
Take ₹10,000 a month for 15 years at 12%. Flat, that is ₹18 lakh invested and roughly ₹50 lakh at the end. Add a 10% annual step-up and you invest about ₹38 lakh and finish near ₹87 lakh. You put in around twice as much and came out with around 1.7 times the corpus, which sounds like a poor trade until you notice that the extra money went in late and had less time to compound.
The real advantage is not mathematical, it is behavioural. Starting at ₹25,000 a month when ₹25,000 is genuinely uncomfortable is how SIPs get cancelled in year two. Starting at ₹10,000 and raising it each year as your salary moves is a plan you are likely to still be running in year twelve, and staying invested is the variable that decides the outcome more than any other.
How much should you step up by?
A reasonable default is your expected annual increment, or a little under it. If your salary typically rises 8% to 10% a year, a 10% step-up keeps your saving rate constant rather than increasing it, which is comfortable to sustain. Anything above your income growth means your saving rate rises every year, which builds corpus faster but gets harder each time.
For anyone whose income does not move on a yearly cycle, a fixed rupee step-up is often more honest than a percentage. A 10% step-up on ₹50,000 is ₹5,000 more a month, which is a very different decision from a 10% step-up on ₹5,000. Switch the toggle to rupees and set the number you would actually agree to.
Where step-up SIPs go wrong
The most common failure is projecting a 15% step-up for 25 years and treating the resulting number as a plan. Compounded increases get large quickly: a ₹10,000 instalment stepped up 15% a year is about ₹1.42 lakh a month by year 20. Before you rely on a projection, look at the final year instalment the calculator shows and ask whether that figure is plausible for you.
The second failure is stepping up an investment while the protection underneath it is missing. A 20-year plan assumes 20 years of income. Term life cover and a proper health policy are what keep the plan alive if that assumption breaks, and they cost a fraction of the instalments people happily commit to. Get those in place first, then step up freely.
How the step-up is calculated
- 1Instalments are treated as paid at the start of each period, the way a real SIP mandate debits your account.
- 2The periodic rate is the annual expected return divided by the number of instalments a year. At 12% annually that is 1% a month.
- 3Each period the instalment is added to the balance and the whole balance is grown by that periodic rate.
- 4On each anniversary the instalment is raised. A percentage step-up multiplies it by (1 + step ÷ 100). A rupee step-up simply adds the amount. The new instalment applies from the following year.
- 5Because each year's instalment is different, there is no single clean closed form. The corpus is the sum of every instalment compounded for the number of periods it remained invested.
- 6In goal mode the calculator inverts this. The final corpus is exactly proportional to the starting instalment, so two runs of the simulation pin down the relationship and the required instalment is solved directly rather than guessed at.
A starting lump sum, if you enter one, is invested on day one and compounds for the full term alongside the instalments. Turn the step-up down to 0% at any time and the result matches a plain SIP to the rupee, which is a quick way to check the engine against any other calculator.
Questions people ask us
What is a step-up SIP?
It is a systematic investment plan where the instalment increases on a fixed schedule, most often once a year, either by a percentage or by a set rupee amount. Everything else works like a normal SIP. Fund houses also call it a top-up SIP or a booster SIP.
Is a step-up SIP better than a regular SIP?
It produces a larger corpus, but only because you invest more money. The genuine advantage is that it lets you start at an amount you can comfortably sustain and grow it as your income grows, instead of committing to a large fixed instalment you may abandon. For most salaried people that makes it the more realistic plan, not just the bigger one.
How much should I increase my SIP by each year?
Somewhere near your expected annual increment is a sensible starting point, commonly 5% to 10%. That holds your saving rate steady as your income rises. Going higher builds the corpus faster but means each year's increase costs you more in real terms, so check the final year instalment the calculator shows before you commit to a number.
Can the step-up be automated?
Yes. Most fund houses and platforms offer a top-up option when you register the SIP mandate, where you set the percentage or amount and the frequency up front, and the increase happens without you doing anything. If your platform does not support it, you can achieve the same result by starting an additional SIP each year, which is more paperwork but works identically.
What if I cannot afford the increase one year?
You can pause or reduce it. A missed step-up is not a failed plan, it just moves the projection down a little. What does real damage is stopping the SIP entirely, because the instalments you skip during a weak market are usually the ones that would have bought the most units. Reduce before you stop.
Does the step-up percentage compound?
Yes, in this calculator each increase applies to the already increased instalment, which is how fund houses implement it. A 10% step-up on ₹10,000 gives ₹11,000 in year two and ₹12,100 in year three, not ₹12,000. That compounding is why the final year instalment grows faster than people expect over long periods.
Should I step up my SIP or buy more insurance first?
Protection first, almost always. A long SIP is a bet on your income continuing, and term life plus health cover are what protect the plan if it does not. Together they usually cost far less than one month's instalment for a young family. Once those are in place, step up the investment as aggressively as you like.
A number on a screen is not a plan
The calculator shows what is possible. What it cannot tell you is how much of that money should sit in something guaranteed, how much life cover your family needs first, or what happens to the plan if your income stops. That part we do with you, free, in Malayalam or English.